County agrees to light up square for holidays

Though only days before Thanksgiving, the talk at Tuesday’s county commission meeting dwelt largely on Christmas.
Tracy Keagle, the force behind Santa’s Toy Shop, requested the commissioners’ approval to “light up all the trees on the courthouse square” during the Christmas season.
Given Iola’s desire to promote itself as the city with the nation’s largest town square, it only makes sense, argued Keagle, that it be adorned during the holidays.
Keagle described the shape of her ambition, which includes winding lights around the trees’ trunks and around the branches that can be reached by ladder. For the uppermost branches, she proposed the use of “light balls” — individual decorations made from chicken wire, which can be projected up and over the highest limbs and left to dangle in festive lambency throughout the holidays.
No city or county crews will be required for the project, said Keagle. “I’ll get the people and the lights and everything we need.”
“Do you know how many trees are out there?” questioned Chairman Tom Williams, reminding Keagle of the scope of her proposition.
“Twenty-five,” answered Keagle, without pause. “See, I would really like for this to become a thing where people in Chanute are going, ‘Man, let’s go to Iola — their town square is all lit up.”
Persuaded, the commission gave Keagle approval to decorate the courthouse square, with the caveat that she remain in regular contact with county maintenance supervisor Ron Holman regarding safety details (repeated mention was made of the potential danger of exposed extension cords).
The seemingly tireless Keagle is also currently working to return a Christmas parade to downtown Iola.
The real through-line of Tuesday’s meeting, however, concerned the question — raised last week by local bank president Jim Gilpin — of whether the county should invest $100,000 from its $1.1 million landfill closure fund into the Allen County Community Foundation.
Gilpin, a trust officer at Community National Bank who looks after the county fund, suggested earmarking the money for an environmental project, and suggested recycling as just such a project — a possibility that seemed to interest the commissioners at the time.
Gilpin made the point, then, that by endowing the dollars in a community foundation, the county would see a better return on that money than it is currently receiving and would qualify for matches in excess of $50,000 from the Kansas Health Foundation.
On Tuesday, ACCF’s new director, Jeff Cokely, was on hand to reiterate that point, and to appeal for the endowment directly: “I’d like you guys to vote on putting $100,000 into our public health foundation for the purpose of recycling.”
But Cokely met a stiff headwind in Commissioner Jim Talkington, who was quick in registering his opposition to the idea. “Why does [recycling] need to be a county function when private enterprise or community-organized events can take care of this?” queried Talkington. “That’s what I’m hearing: ‘It’s not a government function; it’s a private enterprise function.’”
There was a second component to Talkington’s defiance, which centered on the nature of endowment accounts generally. “Now, if we give you $100,000, we lose control of that, right? We can never get that back, we can never do anything with that, it sits there with you forever? … If we run into a million and a half dollar project, we cannot say ‘We want our money back’?”
“That’s correct,” said Cokely. But, he emphasized, the county controls the earnings on that donation, which could positively influence projects in the area for many years to come. “[The] idea that we could spend money back into the community…as opposed to the money just sitting there” — where it earns a negligible amount (1.79 percent) of interest — “that seems like a win-win to me.”
Commissioner Williams, though sympathetic to Talkington’s concerns, was more favorably disposed toward the plan. “Anytime you can maximize a dollar without a threat to the existing purpose of the money, it’s a good thing. I guess it’s a choice of letting it sit there and do nothing or putting it somewhere where it expands itself and does things for the county.” And later: “If you can take $100,000 and make it $150,000, to me that’s a no-brainer.”
“I agree,” said County Counselor Alan Weber, who also acts as an adviser to ACCF. “I don’t think [transferring the $100,000 to the foundation] will impact county operations at all.”
Williams’ second point in favor of the recycling proposal concerned the health of the landfill. “If we do this and it works, it would take some pressure off the landfill,” which, echoed Weber, remains a top priority for the county.
“I’m not opposed to recycling,” explained Talkington. “I’m opposed to us being in that business.”
Commissioner Jerry Daniels suggested the group postpone the vote, allowing the commissioners time to conduct further research into the subject.