L&T staff report

The chairman of the Big First District Republican Party, Chris McGowne, will be in Liberal Thursday, June 25 to speak at the Seward County Republican meeting.

The Big First District represents 60 Kansas counties from Morton to Douglas counties.

McGowne was selected district chair in 2024.

The Seward County Republican meeting will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Seward County Administration Building, and any Republicans or those interested in learning more about the Republican Party are invited to attend the meeting.

ROBERT PIERCE

   • Leader & Times

The High Plains is home for several car shows. Among them are Liberal’s Yellow Brick Road Car Show in May, the Hooker Car Show in September and the Joe Robertson Memorial Car Show in October at Meade Lake State Park.

Now, the town of Plains wants to add to the vintage automobile exhibition with a show of its own, and this one will be a celebration of both Grand Avenue, known as the Widest Main Street in America, and the country’s 250th birthday.

July 3, Plains Community Library is hosting the Widest Main Street Car Show, and Director Celia Stauch said the idea came from a workshop she and some coworkers recently attended.

ROBERT PIERCE

   • Leader & Times

Many locals have been speculating about recent requests made under the Kansas Open Records Act, including one by Seward County Commission Chairman Steve Helm, for a list of protestors who petitioned the county after commissioners in September 2025 tried to increase the county’s budget 15 mills over the Revenue Neutral Rate for Fiscal Year 2026.

Monday, County Counsel Forrest Rhodes shed some light on the issue, and he started by saying current Board of Tax Appeals issues do not concern two formal complaints filed last year, as those have now been resolved.

“The resolution of that is done,” he said. “BOTA gave us the authority to implement the settlement, which meant returning to revenue neutral. That process is finished. All the taxpayers in the county have been notified of the Revenue Neutral Rate and were either given refunds or credits on their taxes to account for that. That process is behind us.”

ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

There has been much going on in the area in terms of economic development, and as Seward County Development Corporation (SCDC) Executive Director Eli Svaty tells it, there are no immediate plans to slow that work down.

“It’s definitely an exciting time for us, there’s a lot in the pipeline,” Svaty said. “With the Apogee Energy project, things have been kind of quiet the past few months with that because there’s been an intense focus on securing the contracts and securing buyers and working out those logistics, and they’ve been very successful in that work locking down some of that and ensuring everything. As of the end of May, they are looking to be operational by Q4, and there’s a lot of work to be done between now and then in terms of getting the facilities ready and all of that, because they’ve got some big orders that need to be ready by Q1 of 2027. The plan for this Liberal facility is really assembly, with the battery sales will still be made from Taiwan. Apogee does have contracts with some additional companies out of Taiwan who they’ve worked with for several years, and all of that is currently being worked out and ensured.”