During recent public meetings, Seward County leaders – including Chair Scott Carr – have claimed the reason for the recent 13.4 mill rate increase was inflation.
However, local school districts and the City of Liberal have not made any significant changes to their budgets.
Comparing the City of Liberal and Seward County would not be a fair comparison because the City of Liberal only taxes property within the city limits and Seward County taxes all property in the county. The same with USD No. 480 or USD No. 483 since they do not encompass the entire county.
The 2026 election season will be here before everyone knows it, and there will be many candidates for many offices on the ballot.
One of the candidates for Kansas Secretary of State is Pat Proctor, who has been serving in the Kansas Legislature for multiple years.
“I currently serve the people of Ft. Leavenworth in the Kansas House, and I'm the chairman of the House Elections Committee and Kansas Security Committee. Politics was not my life plan – I spent 25 years in the U.S. Army and retired in 2019 and during that time, I went to Iraq twice and Afghanistan once,” Proctor said. “My life plan was to teach – and I do, I'm a professor at Wichita State University in the Homeland Security program. And I figured my wife would fill in the rest because we have two restaurants in Ft. Leavenworth and Manhattan, so I figured I would spend time working for her. But as the old saying goes, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans,' and here I am serving in the Kansas Legislature and running for Kansas Secretary of State because I think our chief election officer needs to know something about elections.”
The Liberal City Commission will look to have an easy meeting this evening starting at 5:30. This evening’s meeting will be in the commission chambers at the Liberal Recreation Center at 950 S. Grant Ave.
Up first for the commission will be discussion of the purchase of a backhoe for the Water Department.
“The Water Department is seeking approval to purchase a 2026 Cat Backhoe. The one we currently use is a 2006. The old one will be handed down to the Wastewater Department, as they are in need of one,” the agenda information noted. “We received two quotes from Bobcat and Foley Equipment. This is the first Bobcat backhoe they've released, so it's essentially their prototype. Staff recommends going with the quote from Foley Equipment for an amount not to exceed $115,000 to be funded from the Water Department Equipment Reserve.”
Many breast cancer survival stories involve years of battle with the disease before victory comes.
For Angie Eatmon, the story has been considerably shorter, but it still involved many hospital visits before she overcame her cancer.
A lifelong resident of Liberal, Eatmon’s cancer journey began with a diagnosis in the summer of 2020
“In July, I did my biopsy,” she said. “I actually discovered the lump myself. It was funny how I discovered it. I was eating a snack and as I was cleaning up the crumbs, I felt something, and I remember thinking ‘That’s weird.’ I never had felt it before that day. I thought that was kind of strange.”
The streets will soon be filled with young witches and zombies and superheroes for the Halloween holiday, and the Liberal Police Department will be making sure everyone stays safe.
“Halloween is on a Friday this year, so that means we won't be dealing with everyone going back to school the next day, but that also means young trick-or-treaters will probably be out later that night,” LPD Capt. Jeff Wade said. “Along with that, we're also expecting an increase in parties in the community, so we're going to be in the neighborhoods and the different hot spots where everyone will be gathering, and I like reminding people to keep the music down. That way, not only are you being respectful of your neighbors, you'll also be able to hear children and everything else so everyone stays safe. We've been fortunate in the past few years in terms of not having had to deal with any major issues, and anything we have had to deal with was relatively minor. We'll have extra officers out and definitely be a presence throughout town and on the main streets, and we want to remind drivers to slow down and pay extra attention since more people – especially younger ones – will be milling about the neighborhoods. The traffic is a little heavier on Halloween night because we do see people come in from the smaller towns and do their trick-or-treating, and there are some restaurants in town that have specials that night for meals and all of that, but that's completely up to those places. I do expect we'll mostly see more foot traffic than anything else since everyone will be walking around and about town.”
