Trafficway accident lands Missourian in KU Med
A Gladstone, Mo., woman was injured Tuesday morning in a one-car accident on the South Lawrence Trafficway near the Clinton Sports Complex.
Sandra L. Jordan, 54, was taken by Life Star helicopter, pictured above, to Kansas University Medical Center, Kansas City, Kan. Emergency crews were notified of the accident about 8:30 a.m.
Jordan was the driver of a westbound 2000 Chevrolet passenger car that left the highway and struck a tree, the Kansas Highway Patrol said.
Jordan overcorrected and the vehicle crossed to the southside of the highway and slid into the tree, the patrol said.
A hospital official said Jordan was in critical condition Tuesday night.
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Safety: County imposes burn ban
Douglas County commissioners Tuesday imposed a ban on outdoor burning due to the lack of rain and moisture content in the soil.
The ban will run through midnight Jan. 23 unless commissioners extend it.
The ban prohibits:
Open fires or campfires, except in permanent stoves, fireplaces and barbecue grills.
The burning of all fence rows, pastures and fields. Burning that is required for the survival of an agricultural crop is allowed if landowners receive prior written permission from both the Douglas County sheriff and the township fire chief.
Careless use and disposal of smoking materials.
On Monday, a pasture fire north of Stull burned an area roughly a half-mile long and a quarter-mile wide.
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Public transit: City to look into proposal for advertising on T buses
The Public Transit Advisory Committee will take a closer look at allowing businesses to advertise on city buses, but members at a meeting Tuesday said such a practice might not raise enough money to be worth the trouble.
Members of the committee said the most successful example of small-system bus advertising, in Ames, Iowa, netted that city only $20,000 a year.
"Money is money, and it all helps," City Manager Mike Wildgen said. "But at some point you've got to make a decision of whether it's enough to justify."
Committee members said advertising might clutter the buses and hurt the system's attempts to establish its identity.
The committee will revisit the issue in March.
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Planning commission: Proposed zoning codes available on Web site
Proposed revisions to the city's zoning codes are now available online.
A subcommittee of the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission has been working on the codes for more than a year. The commission still must recommend approval, with final acceptance in the hands of the Lawrence City Commission perhaps in late spring.
The draft can be found online at www.lawrenceplanning.org/documents/codesworkingdraft.pdf
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Kansas retirement: KPERS reports $1.1 billion loss of assets for fiscal 2001
Topeka The Kansas Public Employees Retirement System saw an approximately 10 percent decrease in its assets because of the plunging stock market, according to the pension system's annual report.
Total assets of KPERS on June 30, 2001, the end of the 2001 state fiscal year, were about $9.6 billion, a $1.1 billion decrease from June 30, 2000. Pension systems nationally suffered similar or worse declines because of stock price declines.
Glenn Deck, executive director of the system, said that despite the decrease KPERS "remains financially secure."
Even with the down year, the average for the past five years has been an increase of 9.4 percent, he said.
The pension system includes 237,787 members, including 54,302 retired members and their beneficiaries.
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