Special to the Leader & Times

Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of Commerce David Toland has announced 92 Kansas Arts Commission (KAC) grant awards for arts and cultural initiatives across 43 communities in 34 counties in Kansas.

The funding reinforces the commission’s role as a catalyst for economic development and community vitality through arts and culture.

“In Kansas, when we invest in the arts — there is a direct, positive impact on the economy of our state,” Toland said. “The arts shape the unique character of Kansas — and these awards are a way to help communities harness the power of the arts to enrich local identity, encourage innovation and drive economic growth.”

ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

Housing in Liberal and the Southwest Kansas region continues to be a necessity, and as Liberal City Commissioner Jose Lara tells it, there has been a lot of progress made on that front in recent times.

“When I started on the commission, housing in Liberal was one of the bigger concerns I heard about, and it’s still a concern now. I spent my first campaign season understanding what was needed for Liberal in that regard and why there wasn’t really a lot of growth happening,” Lara said. “The next year, I spent it gathering information, and eventually, there was even a housing study done. That housing study showed by 2040, we would need at least 1,300 more units within the city, and it also revealed nearly 6,000 units would be needed in the Southwest Kansas region to match what’s going on in Dodge City, Garden City and other communities in the area. Other communities were adding 50 to 200 units per year, while we were only putting in three to six new units, which is well below what’s needed. I spent the next year researching what we were doing to help housing, and one of the big things was the city building streets – I was adamantly told cities do not pay for or build streets. After about a year and a half, Eli Svaty and I went to David Toland, who’s our current lieutenant governor and secretary of commerce, and we asked him ‘What do we need to bring in business to Liberal?’ David’s words were rather cryptic, but the message ended up being pretty clear – if you’re not building houses or other similar infrastructure, businesses will not focus on your community because they don’t see the growth necessary to bring in their business venture. Big employers want to know there will be housing for their employees, other retail ventures and other similar infrastructure, that’s what they focus on when making those decisions. We all know artificial intelligence can now tell where you live, where you’ve traveled, etc., and these big companies have access to that information.”

ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

Every community wants to have a distinct identity, and Liberal has been working on just that in recent times.

Liberal Vice Mayor Janeth Vazquez said there has been much effort put forth to help Liberal highlight its culture to other communities.

ROBERT PIERCE

   • Leader & Times

Fiscal Year 2027 began July 1 in Seward County, and county leaders have until Oct. 1 to approve a budget for both the county and its Rural Fire District.

County commissioners had until 5 p.m. Monday to decide if they wanted to exceed this year’s Revenue Neutral Rate mill levy, the levy at which the county would collect the same amount of revenue as FY 2026.

In a special meeting Monday, commissioners voted 4-0, with Commissioner John Mettlen absent, of the intention to exceed the RNR for the county and to approve the RNR for Rural Fire.