Civic Engagement

Engagement from residents is a crucial part of the comprehensive plan — but because the pandemic prevented in-person community outreach last year, the department is seeing disparities in the residents participating in the process.

Putting together the comprehensive plan is a multi-year process that began in 2019. The planning department is currently in the engagement process, soliciting input from residents. The final step — city council adopting the finished plan — is set to take place in mid-2022.

In the months that all 10 locations were closed, staff members turned to digital initiatives like expanding Wi-Fi access to parking lots outside branch locations, increasing the library system’s capacity to loan out computers and Wi-Fi hotspots for free and starting a tech access support program to teach digital skills to people of all ages.

The vigil outside Vietnamese coffee shop Cafe Cà Phê was in response to the recent shooting in Atlanta, where a gunman targeted Asian-owned businesses and killed eight people, including six Asian women.

For six days a week throughout August and September, Cindy Hoedel went door-to-door across mostly rural Kansas counties — sometimes covering over 200 miles in a day — to find out how many people lived in a given address on April 1.  But as a Census worker, Hoedel’s biggest challenge wasn’t in the rural areas […]