TEG
Thursday, February 25, 2016
V V V
E m po r i a
PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING
F i r e
FAMILY OWNED SINCE 1895
V V V
Good Evening
VVV
Welcome,
Champion.
WWW.EMPORIAGAZETTE.COM
D e p a r t m e n t
New Pumper Truck UnVeiled
‘Taste’
offers
regional
Sampling
Special to The Gazette
Kendra Johnson/Gazette
Firefighters recieve training on the fire department’s new pumper truck, Champion, at Fire Station No. 2 on Wednesday.
Dedication Friday
By Cathryne Scharton
[email protected]
The Emporia Fire Department
worked to train crews on their
new pumper truck, Champion,
this week.
Training for the new truck began Tuesday and will continue
through today.
“It’s going very well,” said Chief
Jack Taylor. “After all three shifts
are trained, we should be able to
Kendra Johnson/Gazette
Kendra Johnson/Gazette
put this in service on Friday.”
“It’s a real treat for us to get Nathan Mitchell puts a hose away after doing
Greg Davis gets the excess water out of a hose
to drive and to pump from (the training with the fire department’s new pumper
before putting it back in the truck while doing
truck),” said Ryan Conley, active truck, Champion, on Wednesday.
training on Wednesday.
officer. “All the new technology
that has been mentioned before,
the electronic pumping, it’s a lot
easier for us to get out the water we need and to get to the fire
scene a little quicker.”
The city purchased the new
truck in order to put an older
truck in reserve.
“Typically, a community will
replace firetrucks about every 20
years and we are at or beyond that
time period,” said Taylor. “We
have an aging fleet that has its
maintenance issues and so forth
and the time has come that they’ve
reached their life expectancy and
it’s time for replacement.”
About 10 years ago the city
put a reserve truck out of service
and, until now, the truck was not
replaced. With the addition of
Kendra Johnson/Gazette
Champion to the fleet, the fire
Please see Training, Page 3
Roger Brown with Conrad Fire shows the firefighters the light tower on the new pumper truck,
Champion. The light tower will help provide better lighting on scenes.
Emporia
The Taste
Main Street invites the comWhen
munity to enjoy
Saturday,
an enchanted
April 23
evening full of
opportunities
Dinner &
to fulfill all senTaste: 5:30
sory desires on
p.m.
April 23. The
Taste only:
Taste is an an6:30 p.m.
nual event that
features many
Where
of the finest
William
Kansas winerLindsay
ies, breweries,
White
and restaurants
Auditorium
and gives attendees the
Price
opportunity to
Dinner and
taste their deTaste: $60
lectable flavors.
There are
The Taste:
two levels of
$40
participation.
The Taste
emporiamain
Only Ticket
street.com
– This is the
classic Taste
t i c ke t . T h i s
ticket grants access to The Taste
on the main floor of the Civic
Auditorium at 6:30 p.m., where
there will be small food samples
by local food vendors, live music
and samples from Kansas wineries, breweries and distilleries.
Tickets are $40 and ticket holders must be 21 years old or older
to enter the event.
Dinner and Taste Ticket – This
ticket includes “Taste Only” plus
dinner catered from Bobby D’s
Merchant Street BBQ and early
admission to The Taste. Dinner
will begin at 5 p.m. in the Civic
Auditorium Little Theatre and
includes two drinks.
Early admission to The Taste
begins at 6 p.m. and music sets
the mood to this new addition to
the classic event. Tickets for the
Dinner and Taste event combo
are limited to 100, are $60 each,
and ticket holders must be 21
years old or older to enter the
event.
Please see The Taste, Page 3
City discusses community visioning plan
By Cathryne Scharton
[email protected]
In Wednesday’s city commission meeting commissioners discussed the community visioning plan. According to Mark
McAnarney, city manager, the plan outlines three to four main goals for the city
and community to follow.
“I think it (the plan) validated a few
things we are doing,” said McAnarney.
“For example, in the housing area people
want to see our housing improve and
there are programs we can use to improve
our housing. It also gives us ideas on
what the citizens would like to see for the
future of Emporia.”
The visioning meetings and online
survey received positive responses from
citizens. The commission will further discuss and approve the plan in next week’s
meeting as well as discuss an official unveiling of the plan.
“I thought it was very good. We had approximately 300 to 400 people, in-person,
come to the different meetings and over
500 people respond to the survey online,”
said McAnarney. “I think we got a pretty
VOL. 124, NO. 203
wide representation of the community
and what they would like to see. Our plan
is going to reflect what the community
would like to see.”
Commissioners also discussed the
stoplight at Sixth Avenue and Congress
Street. Gerald Menefee, city engineer
sent the city a traffic study done on the
area and found traffic at the intersection
to be light, but the issue will be revisited
when the hotel is further along.
“After doing the research it was determined we don’t have the warrant to
replace the light if we take it out,” said
McAnarney. “As we wait for the hotel and
convention center to open we are probably going to leave it in and then re-evaluate it (the intersection) at that time.”
Some have concerns about the intersection being safe for pedestrians but the
research indicated there have not been a
lot of accidents.
“We will continue to study the pedestrian issue,” said McAnarney. “We want
everyone to be as safe as possible.”
The commission also reviewed the
fireworks ordinance. The fireworks ordinance will be voted on in the next action
session. In the proposal, peop