A Cool Summer Job to Eliminate

Railers bump, set, spike in camp Game gets Newtonites out of the led by native - Page 12 house: Page 9 Newton, KS www.harveycountynow.com Vol. 1: No. 48 Thursday, July 14, 2016 $1.25 CITY OF NEWTON Budget options include large tax increases BY ADAM STRUNK NEWTON NOW STAFF [email protected] The city budget continues to take shape, and all of the options provided to the commission at its work session include mill levy increases near or exceeding double digits. City Manager Bob Myers opened the meeting outlining the financial straits the city was in. He said shared funding from the state on a variety of taxes disappeared in 2004, causing the city to have to learn to function with less. He said the city over the years depleted its reserves. It eliminated capital improvement plans from various budgets, all for short term PHOTOS BY WENDY NUGENT/NEWTON NOW solutions. Davy Bjerum, 4, right, hands a dish of ice cream Thursday night, July 7, to Peter Hartman of Hesston, left, while Kendra Burkey, center, He said back-loaded bond costs owner of Salted Creamery, looks on. Salted Creamery is a local ice cream- and sorbet-making and selling business. Bjerum is Burkey's would increase the next year. assistant. “These are not sustainable ac- Myers tions we've taken,” he said. “Right now we're not at the point we can do that. We don't have the funds available to maintain what we have.” Myers said that the city needs to either budget for the programs it has or find the ones it's going A cool summer job to eliminate. In his speech, he added that people still de- manded city services. He said no one thinks police Burkey creates delightful concoctions through Salted Creamery officers should only investigate half the crimes or the EMS should respond to fewer emergencies. BY WENDY NUGENT “I haven't heard anyone suggesting we should let the streets deteriorate so they're more like Wi- NEWTON NOW STAFF chita.” [email protected] He then added that the city has inherited the cuts of the state. He said the police inherit the There's no fear in ice cream. state's decrease in mental health care invest- That's according to Kendra Burkey, ments, and the EMS inherits the decreasing ac- who, with Holly Nickel, started Salted cess of people to medical services. Creamery, an ice cream company in “It's my proposal that the budget this year be Newton a few years ago. See BUDGET / 8 Burkey, now the sole owner, is the head of the communication program at Hesston College, which includes public speaking and mass media classes. “There's no fear in ice cream,” Burkey NORTH NEWTON said. “People line up for ice cream, and you don't see a lot of people lining up to take public speaking.” Property tax increase Burkey focuses her energy on her full- time job during the school year and con- centrates more on ice cream during the on the horizon for city summer. Burkey said she takes teaching very BY ADAM STRUNK seriously but got to the point where she NEWTON NOW STAFF needed a creative outlet. [email protected] She and Nickel, who owned a local book store, started the business in 2012. “For me, even though I love teach- Taxes will probably again be jumping up in ing, you don't always see a lot of imme- North Newton by 5 mills. diate results in teaching. The product is The reasons for the proposed increase came valuable but not tangible,” she said. down to creating a cushion for North Newton with When the duo came up with the busi- a property tax cap to go into effect in 2018. ness idea, they only were partially seri- At its July meeting, the North Newton City ous. Council saw a final budget for 2017 with a “We were interested in dreaming planned 3.75 mill increase. about what we could do in this commu- City Administrator John Torline said that the nity as far as small business,” Burkey mill levy increase would bring in $8,000 to pay for said. “Originally, it started out with us police officer overtime and continue to pay for Fire dreaming about all of the options. I had and EMS service charged by the City of Newton. pitched the idea of hot dogs at one The City of North Newton will budget to pay point.” around $425,000 for fire protection. Nickel came up with the idea of ice Finally, the increase provides a cushion, as a Kendra Burkey has an ice cream cart Thursday nights outside of Prairie Harvest, state property tax cap would go into effect in See CREAMERY / 15 where folks can purchase a bowl of ice cream for $2.99. 2018. Once the cap is in place, Torline believed See N. NEWTON / 8 Mail Label Newton family bonds over music BY WENDY NUGENT work together,” Darin said. “But just working together ever since I NEWTON NOW STAFF [email protected] was 7 or 8 and just learning together and playing together, just leaves [...]” The Stephens' living room isn't To which his dad added, “It's adorned like many others. been so long now—years,” Brad There's a drum set in one corner, said. “[…] They've gotten to the a keyboard in another, guitars scat- point where they know more about tered about, a cello and at least one music than I do.” microphone. It looks like a music Cross Walk has played a variety studio in the Newton home. of venues and events in the area, The parents, Brad and Shirley, including Norm's on a regular basis and their three kids, Darin, 16, when they had live music, the Sarah, 19, and Colin, 21, have been Chalk Festival in Newton a couple playing in their family band, The of years, Faith & Life, a Trunk or Cross Walk, for years now, and Treat event, Farmers Market in that's how they “live” in their living Wichita, churches having outings WENDY NUGENT/NEWTON NOW room. Brad Stephens, right, and son Colin perform in their living room Friday, July 8, in “You definitely have to learn to See MUSIC / 8 Newton, along with the rest of the family in their band The Cross Walk. A uniqu We are Newton’s ONLY Family Owned one of e a kind sh exp opping “Dent and Bent” Grocery Store erience! Fresh Products too! • Wiebe Cheese MERIDIAN GROCERY YODER DISCOUNT Farm Fresh Unruh Eggs 101 S. Meridian, Newton • Bakery Selection GROCERY Newton's best (1 mile off US 50 West) 3406 Red Rock Road kept West • Old Fashioned German 316-283-4374 Yoder side secret. Sausage • And More! Mon-Sat. 8am-7pm Vision Cards Accepted 620-466-5119 Page 2 www.harveycountynow.comNEWS Newton Now July 14, 2016 Critters invade the library: Bug Lady gives program BY WENDY NUGENT NEWTON NOW STAFF [email protected] Barbara Bunting bravely put her left hand in a container Wednesday afternoon at Newton Pub- lic Library. This wasn't just any container, however—it was a round object filled with cockroaches, the kind people would just as soon stomp on than touch. They are one bug that gives people the heebie jeebies. Bunting closed her eyes like the Bug Lady in- structed and then, while making a scared face, put her hand in the container. The audience made “eww” noises. The Bug Lady, who also has a show on public tele- vision and whose real name is Carrie Tiemeyer, brought an assortment of PHOTOS BY WENDY NUGENT/NEWTON NOW critters to Newton Public Newton resident Barbara Bunting, left, reaches into a container of cockroaches Wednesday afternoon, July Library for a couple of 6, during the Bug Lady program at Newton Public Library. BELOW: Henry Jaso of Newton, center, laughs programs Wednesday, while his sister Grace Jaso, right, and Sadie Houser look on as they played a game while the Bug Lady took a critter around the room for others to see. July 6. One was a morn- ing program in Wednes- ber who was there with day Workshops for 8- to her daughter and grand- 12-year-olds, while the children, stood up. other one, Family Time Later, the Bug Lady Fun, was at 1:30 p.m. For told the packed house the latter, there's no en- cockroaches have their rollment, and anyone can brains near their stom- attend. achs and that people from PHOTOS BY WENDY NUGENT/NEWTON NOW Almost every time the other countries eat them. ABOVE: Daytona Hoopes feels the cockroaches. Bug Lady unveiled an an- In fact, one man from an- TOP: Robyn Jaso of Newton doesn’t seem to like the Bug Lady’s snake. imal, she brought it other country told her around for kids and they eat them live and adults to touch. That in- can feel them crawling in ally cool,” she said. frog eats 10 large mice a cluded a couple of large their stomachs for about Another attendee, Aly- week. spiders with at least one five minutes. jah Cooley, summed up in And mice are the one of them being a tarantula, When touching the crit- one word what he thought animal the Bug Lady a rat, a large cockroach ters, children's expres- about the program— fears. She asked the audi- and other roaches, an about the size of a dinner spider's leg, not the Bug sions ranged from happy “Good.” He agreed he ence to guess what she African centipede, an plate.

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