The Geary USD 475 school board will meet at 5 p.m. Wednesday to consider approval of the Munson Road maintenance agreement.
The agreement covers the use of the road as a haul route for contractors working on the new Junction City High School project. If the BOE says yes the proposed agreement would then go to the Geary County Commission for final approval.
Contractors have not be able to use Munson Road in recent days on the project because the agreement had not yet been approved.
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The Geary County Commission will take up the agreement in a special meeting at 10 a.m. Thursday.
The Kansas Department of Transportation has announced approved bids for state highway construction and maintenance projects in Kansas.
In Geary County Circle C Paving and Construction LLC of Goddard, Kansas have been awarded a bid of $344,506 for sealing on K-17 from the Morris / Geary County line north to the 2-lane / 4-lane divide south of the I-70/K-177 junction. This work will be done over a 13.7 mile stretch of highway.
Geary County Extension Agent Chuck Otte says just as March follows February in the calendar, this year March followed February in below average temperatures. While precipitation wasn’t anything other than average, it was enough to keep things very wet across the region. March was also a month of temperature extremes. On March 3rd we had a daily high that was well below the average low for that date. Nine days later on March 12th ewe have an overnight low that was higher than the average high for that date!
The average daily high for March was 48.1, 7.6 degrees below normal. The average overnight low was 29.1, 2.8 degrees below normal. This gave us a monthly mean temperature of 38.6, 5.2 degrees below normal. The highest temperature for March was the afternoon high of 72 on March 27th. That was the first time since October 29, 2018 that we had a high temperature over 70 degrees, a nearly five month span of time, much longer than we experience in most winters. The lowest temperature for March was the -1 degree reading on March 2nd and 3rd. There was one temperature record set during March and one tied. The high of 9 on March 3rd broke the record for the lowest high temperature for that date. The previous record was 17 set in 1978. The overnight low of 55 on the 12th tied the record high low for that date originally set in 1990. While it was a cold month it was not record cold. The coldest March on record was in 1960 with a monthly mean temperature of 31.3. The warmest March on record was in 2012 with a monthly mean temperature of 57.5 degrees.
Average March precipitation is 2.34 inches. Milford Lake was slightly below that with 1.77 inches. Junction City recorded 2.10 inches during the month. Through the first quarter of the year Milford Lake has received 3.89 inches of precipitation and Junction City 4.53 inches. Normal through the first three months of the year is 4.11 inches. The wettest March on record was 1974 with 8.04 inches. The driest is a tie with both 1966 and 1968 receiving no measurable precipitation during March. March also continued the trend of a snowy winter with 3.2 inches of snow being recorded. Normal for March is 3.1 inches. Season to date the area has seen 23.7 inches of snowfall, above the long term average of 17.2 inches for the season to date. With snowfall being recorded in March it made the sixth consecutive month that snow was recorded with a least one tenth of an inch being required to be measured.
While March brings us the start of astronomical spring, April normally brings us our real spring like weather, we hope! April showers should bless the area with 2.95 inches of precipitation, on average. We still can’t rule out snow however with 0.7 inches being the long term average April snowfall. Average temperatures for April start the month with a daily high of 62 and an overnight low of 37. By the end of the month the daily high is expected to be 72 with the overnight low of 48.
The number of fire calls for the Geary County Rural Fire Department are down so far this year.
The Geary County Commission received an update on Monday, with Chairman Charles Stimatze providing the numbers. “Year to date fires for 2019 are 27. In 2018 they had 48 at this time, eight just in March alone.
The numbers were reported to the commission by Geary County Rural Fire Chief Garry Berges.
The Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce has a ribbon cutting scheduled Friday ( April 5th ) for the grand re-opening and ribbon cutting at the new Orscheln Farm & Home store at 121 East Chestnut Street.
There is still no final agreement on the use of Munson Road as a haul route by contractors working on the new Junction City High School project.
County officials prevented Bergkamp Construction from using the road March 25th, and County Commission Chairman Charles Stimatze said Monday that the necessary maintenance agreement still requires approval at both the Board of Education and County Commission levels. Stimatze said the commission has not yet given final approval. “Nope, we have not signed off on it. They will look at it, sign off on it, and then we will sign off on it.
The Board of Education meets on April 8th and the county could consider it at their April 15th meeting.
Late last week the Chief Operations Officer for USD 475 David Wild indicated he believed a workable agreement had been achieved, and if the County acted upon and accepted the revised language then he would be ready to take the agreement to the Board of Education for its approval on April 8th. The County Commission wants the school board to take action first.
( Photo courtesy of Geary County Emergency Management Department )
A spring tradition in Geary County began in earnest on Monday when the work began to burn 10,000 acres on the Moyer Ranch in the southeast part of the county.
Geary County Rural Fire Chief Garry Berges said that blaze will cover about half of the Moyer Ranch. “We’ve got other fires that will burn anywhere from 100 to 400 acres.”
Berges noted these burns happen about this time every year. “This is the time of the year that a lot of the farmers are out doing their burning, their agricultural burning. People just need to be aware that there’s going to be smoke in the area, smoke going across some roadways. They’re going to try to limit that. But People just need to be careful if they’re in the areas.”
Berges estimated approximately 12,000 acres in the county would be burned on Monday and a lot would also occur the next couple of days. He expects burning to continue until about April 15th and then taper off.
In Geary County we may see and smell the smoke. “We will, especially once the temperature goes down, we get a little bit humidity it will keep some of that smoke down low so people might wake up in the morning to it. As long as get a little bit of wind you should not have that much of a problem.”
The Rural Fire Chief added if you’re driving and see thick smoke crossing the highway, pull over and wait a few minutes for it to pass. Usually that lasts for three or four minutes and then vehicles can proceed.
The County Emergency Department issued this reminder via social media: If you encounter smoke going across the highway, stop along side the roadway, put your emergency flashers on and wait for the smoke to dissipate before driving on. If you must drive thru the smoke, please DRIVE SLOWLY and with caution. Emergency Management along with the 9-1-1 Dispatch Center monitor the burns that have been called in and track their locations. Those conducting the burns must stay with their burns while they are active.
The dedication of the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial Arch Plaques Reproduction is scheduled Tuesday, April 9th at noon in Heritage Park at 6th and Washington.
The plaques were a 100th anniversary project for the Memorial Arch that was undertaken by the Junction City Rotary Club.
SHAWNEE COUNTY —Authorities are investigating a weekend crash that injured two at a Kansas race track.
Photo courtesy Heartland Motorsports
Just after 1p.m. Sunday, police were dispatched to Heartland Motorsports Park, 7530 SW Topeka Blvd in Topeka, according to Topeka Police. A single-vehicle crash had occurred on the road course during an event.
The vehicle, a 2019 Corvette left the track, struck a wall, rolled and caught on fire.
The driver, Anthony Dellaria, 42, of Tulsa, OK was transported to a local hospital code yellow and the passenger, Drew T. Casper, 23, of Manhattan, Kansas, was transported to a local hospital in critical condition.
The track’s owner, Enhanced Motorsports Performance, offers private track days at raceways in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, according to their social media page.
Police released no additional details Monday morning.
The Geary USD 475 school board will meet at 5 p.m. Wednesday to consider approval of the Munson Road maintenance agreement.
