Wellington City Council discusses future Cowley College events, roundabout beautification and 5 resolutions
by Devin McCue, Sumner Newscow — The Wellington City Council met on Tuesday to do what city councils do: hear community updates and pass resolutions.
A busy Cowley time
Janet ‘Jan’ Grace
The first of the community updates came from Jan Grace, the Campus Operations Officer at the Cowley Sumner Campus. Cowley has certainly been busy over the past year but will see even more action in the next few weeks.
The CTE-Ag Allied Health Day will be on April 24 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. There will be a career fair in the community room, rapid COVID testing (results within 15 minutes), and even providing single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccines open to all, not just Cowley students.
Between 1 and 3 p.m. the same day, Cowley will be hosting a robotics competition for most of the middle schools in the area behind the tech building. Last December, the middle schoolers received a kit containing robot parts and instructions, that they then needed to assemble and program on their own.
At this competition, they’ll be given another kit that they’ll build and program on-site. The campus is very excited for this event and will make it an annual tradition that they’ll expand to the high school next year (with a higher grade of difficulty, of course). Guests are invited but are advised to bring a chair.
Then from May 17 – 24, Cowley will host Kansas State Polytechnic as they provide UAS classes. UAS is an acronym for unmanned ariel systems, so as you might have guessed, they’ll be teaching courses on how to fly drones. Cowley is taking the lead from Wellington residents and public employees who need these classes to modernize their workforce (or just to have fun). While the classes don’t award a flight license, the program does promise a 100 percent success rate for those who take the flight license course afterward.
For those interested in taking the course, email Jennie Hersche at Jennie.heersche@cowley.edu.
Finally, Ms. Grace gave a very important update that will solve an important public need. Cowley has started selling coffee and donuts on Mondays since both the coffee shop and Daylight Donuts take that day off.
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The only significant report from a council member came from Kevin Dodds who inquired about plans for the roundabout. More specifically, the decoration within the landscaped center of it.
Wellington Director of Public Works Jeremy Jones responded that there had been a plan to erect a stone sign in the middle that would welcome people to town. The proposal had gone through the design and bidding processes in 2019 but was put on hold due to the pandemic. Now that there is more time, they plan to follow through with the original idea.
There are also tentative plans to build four similar companion stone signs. The signs would symbolize the railroad, wheat, aviation, and education; all things the City considers the pillars of Wellington. There aren’t further details at this time.
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The final orders of business at Tuesday’s meeting were the five resolutions on the docket. These resolutions weren’t flashy, but each was important to City business and each passed unanimously. They went as follows:
•A resolution authorizing the City to work with professional engineering consultants to design the east 16th Street pedestrian and bicycle trail for $62,500. This project will take much more than design, including surveying and bidding so this money will be used for more than drawing blueprints.
•A resolution approving the purchase of 118 utility pipes of varying sizes for $57,184.45.
•A resolution to complete a grant process from the Federal Aviation Administration to provide funds for guttering at the airport.
•A resolution that would continue a helpful practice between the police department and Ascension Via Christi. The police received free services from the old hospital administration for those who couldn’t be held in custody without medical care. These services vary, but most commonly were used for taking blood samples.
•A resolution to increase payment to Dr. Heersche for board and care of animals. The City has paid Dr. Heersche $10 per animal per day for a maximum of five days for animals picked up by animal control/the police. This resolution increases that decade-old fee to $20.
The meeting adjourned at 7:31 p.m.
