Series of news reports

it's been heaven i was thrashing days this weekend in basle attracted many the headline on the well and from junction city who remember what it was like to stand on top of that wagon into the refugee yet a couple of his friends that friday at the mennonite heritage museum taking sides of reminiscing about the good old days to age cheese well you want this it is as solidly as assistant for his

decision to proceed is a castle of all from a similar smaller scale the annual event at hillsborough is one of the founders of the group that started first show and from then on it's involved with this shorter docile so it's kind of been the younger generation that has kind of taken interest to start this this is the younger generation and older generation working together and that's a very often you see that in this

age eleven now so it makes me feel good is the six seven eight year olds and together with things like that the us has a lot of otters and a big attraction of course the thrashing demonstrations wouldn't be possible without someone willing to longer usable attracted to supply the power there were two and detractors on hand the iron will set to be one of the more noticeable characteristics is blanking ms brennan who

has been this bad tractor hyman says the steam engine was used and then his contractor was not manufactured after about nineteen thirty and became obsolete in the early nineteen fifties i'm explains the difference between the old regime machine methods and the modern day combine tvs dvds thank

you people for miles around and even from other states enjoy the thrashing demonstrations this weekend as bernice graves

you know sometimes the merits of the old system shine through the lee says combine somewhere and natural evolution can this be on friday the majority of the crowd was older people but some younger adults and some small children also stood watching the russian machines and it's the preservation of history and the ability to remember and bear the significance of the technological advances in this century some say is why they keep coming for some people it must be difficult to watch the thrashing

demonstration and remember what it was like for all that hard physical labor and then to look out in the field and see one man driving a combine doing the work of what a team used to do but for others they know what happened to the soldiers but there was just something so this is bill or maybe it's because i think what he has to say we're listening to the

cd i'm nancy farghalli and the people that played woodstock i'd already seen him and talked about this twenty thirteen the history of estonia and latvia to small soviet states and northern europe is usually marked as an extremely sad time sad because fifty years ago yesterday russian leader josef stalin and german power force adolf hitler and essentially signed the freedom of these countries away when the two men agreed that estonia and latvia should be under russian control with that weighty and neighboring country was given to germany but later became a soap yet the country is well the small country of estonia was just under two million people has been making international news over the past year with soviet president gorbachev's call for openness and more democratization of sorts estonia has been noted for attempting to take full advantage of this new era in the soviet union i had chosen dr felix time was born in estonia but

had to leave with his mother and sister out of fear for their safety at the age of eleven to time came to the united states but throughout his life he has never forgotten his home and nor has he forgot the desire to see estonia once again a free and independent nation times as the human chain making the baltic states yesterday it was wonderful to see and up to two million people demonstrated by forming a human chain link beyond on from the capital of estonia pointing to the capital's of latvia and lithuania and this demonstrator i think to the west that the mormons for independence in these countries aren't just sort of a radical harebrained idea of of some very young college revolutionaries and incidentally these independence movements are

american legitimate than they have broad base support among all of the nationalists who are living there and also many of the russians who are living in the baltic countries thom says at what was once a day of true sadness and only sadness me now become a day for hope stalin's estonian and oftentimes outside of estonian certain amount case had been unearthed in a state of depression over the conditions of estonia and over the ways in which the country was taken over and what had been done to it it wasn't just that the country was taking over the entire culture that was set was suppressed oppressed the storyline which was a promise you that you couldn't do just that language in schools for example and it was a problem of russification to change a stone inside the russians there was a poet taking their children and young children from a stone in sending him to to the west but to the eastern russia and to siberia and so forth away from families and so a song there are deportations of people my father

there were there were killings there were putting people in concentration camps all over the soviet union the gulag archipelago and saw there were major crimes committed against the baltic countries illegally but outside power in the story is a little bit upset about the fact that we hear so much about the holocaust which was terrible shit terrible enough but the holocaust after all killed six million people every play the numbers game yet to recognize that the soviets killed sixty million people so it's about time that some of these historical the fact the league's as someone said i'll change and the fact that you were there were supposed to be and so when we see this human chain and when we see westerners are finally beginning to pay attention to the evils that the resulting from

communism along with the past oli is that there might be some rectification of some of these wrongs of course the mesas to both set in dr time says today about one hundred fifty thousand soviet soldiers occupying estonia i asked his theory about why the soviet union pays so much attention to estonia historically of course communism has always made for a world conquest they have if you look at a map and look at where the soviet union is in that what the economist influence was in nineteen seventeen during the bolshevik revolution come as pollution and color that area read air with each year that they have been in power neighboring countries should be colored in red they haven't taken over any country voluntarily they have taken over every country by force and i have kept every country that they have by force and of course afghanistan is most recent example

politically they'll also set on the other hand that these countries want to be taken hour by force and through ignorance the west has sometimes believed it that and other reasons why that we have sort of swallowed that kind of big lie so why did you want a story of a war story because estonia's pour the world they want to take over the world the story was particularly attractive to them because estonia was economically very healthy estonians did very well educationally during the time that there were free and so it was economically beneficial for them too so leach often of the country once again and throughout the years of communism has not shown to be very successful economically it's a there's a catastrophe one of the historic dissidents call perestroika catastrophic catastrophic or it catastrophic the soviet union has felt to

be in the throngs of the economic collapse and something else needs to be done and the right man for this time may have been gorbachev gorbachev as recognize the catastrophe and perhaps he's recognized that the changes that are necessary can be done to communism so he has to look at another place that might be able to lead the way for him safely and that other players might be estonia latvia lithuania or some other possession that used to be capitalist that use to be economically successful of like russia itself don't do time says the culmination of gorbachevs new reforms in the soviet union the western world's attention on the baltic area and that peaceful freedom movements from the estonians themselves just might bring about further change one of the leaders of this movement time says will be

coming to the united states and will also be here in kansas every prominent the stone in human rights activist whose name is that is there anybody believes that is coming in iowa state sometime in september to early october the spending was based on the washington new york and big cities and those of a man in wichita who has recently become interested in estonian affairs and asked if i would invite him to wichita might call them an estonian fortunately he accepted and is coming down here this man is the head of from the estonian heritage society which show world which was one of the few organizations have started to question the legality of the model for the country he has

also question many other historical inaccuracy isn't the end of the strip as patients of the soviets that he has an ability to explain that he's a brilliant man he speaks english really well and there will be giving a talk at the daily issues sometime in the twenty fifth of september in the evening the twenty fifty we don't have the details worked out i might say that mr the least as soon and recognized in europe as one of three year career human rights workers he's been given various awards for his activities by universities in scotland scandinavia that at times as rumor has it that this estonia may be considered for the next nobel peace prize in hutchinson i'm nancy finken

how accurate is the statewide property reappraisal project the answer to that loaded question depends on who you ask recently the joint assessment and taxation committee asked k u economics professor darwin day cough to study and evaluate the system they caught using a different method of evaluating the property to legislate or c found flaws in the system and tale of the money for the revival only about twenty five percent of the available they'll information thank you they do not the impulse

that we rebuild homes when the level of the one to get rid of them i don't know deng cast biggest complaint concerning the statewide reappraisal method deals with the way fair market values were figured he says looking at state figures for certificates of value those slips people fill out when selling property and then compare in the number of properties in that pool to the number actually used in some counties to figure the fair market value they cuffed intends only twenty five percent of the property sales were used instead of one hundred percent for example if in my neighborhood there were ten homes that sold in the past few years my home of similar size should be

valued looking at the average price for all of those ten homes instead they cough contends poverty may have only been right using the average of seven or eight of those homes that recently sold well ahead of even a billion gallons a minute the value of a bill the moon will prevail of the thousand it's fair to assume then that if we have a smaller piece of pie as you were mentioning may be some smaller cities that didn't have very many to choose from the first place or it where it's in the first place that's a major summit even bigger discrepancies ultimately it is tied i think

what but they are available to the average level and not very far all the evidence i'm a human being that thank you computers in each county appraisers officer has to feed information and process it into the computer which then use different formulas based on the county sales history to figure fair market value estate property valuation director terry

hamlin has heard a cross report and he defends the system saying it would be impossible to compare all the state property sales and expect all those sales to be able to be used in each county for figuring that database or model for property reappraisal in the computers did not have the liberty of using one hundred percent of the state's i am building our market models for big mistake and says are significant a vital information which is that third document that everyone chills out with a virus a local and that we put into our sales funnels for building the valuation models had to be available for public disclosure therefore the first that we have to take they'll want to get permission from property owners to use the information that was envisioned of values while we had

independently verify those sales that pushed my shoulder first the right word there would be a hurdle that we had to jump over a laminated a very large number of sales immediately from the universe of all sales record on innovation there are a number of very stringent criteria that we look at to determine whether or not a sale is a quote unquote volunteers for putting in a moment and that some of those things include such as whether there was personal property involved in the sale whether about it was an arm's length transaction network was a sale between relatives or was it some other kind of a love for sale such as a bankruptcy sale or foreclosure sale those kinds of things those kinds of sales do not typically

reflect market value of properties so those kinds of problems with sales with him to eliminate another large number of sales so you did not merely imperative or will not mean that you weren't able to accurately predict the mark hanson this into your retirement account absolutely yes that the thing that concerns me is that that the the general public i think is being missed way we call a reappraisal program here we are and i think one thing that it did not have a cottage in his testimony was that you know whatever problem reappraisal we are so much better off so much closer to getting accurate market values that we were prior to doing it that the effort has been worthwhile that is when dr

bancroft as baron says well you know if it you know it simply cooked the books and come up with just do the numbers well you know i refer you to the classics quote about george and general they argued it have much devastation stand there arguing that we can both approve each other to be yet that role here we go a way of the mechanism is in place to correct any errors or problems that might be identified and i think it's really a disservice to the taxpayers of the state of kansas at this point in fact it's irresponsible to make a statement to the effect that they've waited seventy five million dollars teri campbell and is the state director of property

valuation he's responding to some charges by university of kansas economist who says the state's costly reappraisal could have been done for less money and then more accurate in hutchinson and nancy finken recent rains in kansas may be helping milo and corn but as for wheat and cattle the damage in some places has already been done everything has testified before both the us house and us senate ag committees for drought relief money for kansas farmers and ranchers began to slice doug association has also pressed congress for help came la spokesman tod dormer says his group is asking congress to understand that the dry weather even though it's recently subsided has still drastically for the state fair

all right i mean the schools and homes it was you ready

donors as the k l a is asking for financial assistance to some of those problems such as for farmers have had a drill wells revamp old abandoned wells and style pipelines that bubble or improve springs or renovate windows or excavate ponds on this they say costs a lot of money mm hmm we are one in kansas ranchers were

faced with a pasture shortage this spring donors as many were forced to sell their herds and that's not something easily rebuilt right right some cattlemen like dennis fitzpatrick near sterling decided to ship their cattle to greener pastures i get south dakota or southeast kansas not twenty year twenty five years on keeping with that have heard back each year and

it just you know calling it weighed in at record and we took a parent has to talk about but you know it takes over years and years to get to top her because you keep calling out the weak ones and the wild ones going to get the best for a cattle and do it just takes years to build we reached him in twenty years some of the people in kansas so yeah the boy the older people you know they never buy back this because it would take too long to regroup over fitzpatrick says he's ships of his cattle out temporarily not because of a lack of stark water or pond water but because of short grass well in our area here that we did out water out of part because our ground is

real plan b and it does not hold water utilities <unk> stream of leaves but that we are close enough to water we have when males that we pump water output can still tight so we did not have a drinking water shortage here with just that the dominoes with the grass that had been going along and it allowed to march april may and the first part of june and we had no way that would not spark what we did get a ranger we have had twenty inches or rain they came so late pierre we have here the growing season was over so we really it keeps alive the world our diet will be there for next year but we did i get the graf an issue that we should have it looks like that now course here get we had rain right here we had raved about religion but that we need rain so often on

all volunteer leads know the wintertime because you know we had all kinds of soil moisture than originally equipped are at that level that we have it listed it rains and we'll continue to do that especially in september to get weed growing and ministry of water in the ground it didn't work fitzpatrick like many people has both wheat and cattle and this year both are taking a beating always you know it's always been about always guarantee a wheat crop because we get the late fall leaves in the snow in the wintertime so wheat is always a sharecropping a while it's a big gamble because we have to have brains in you know june july and august which report color red carpet and you know we

can are you involved in the federal crop insurance no no i've never taken at an amish hiroshima was that we'd never get a veteran and it would have the cattle and wheat and wheat is now a cowboys up in a kind of you know characters across the furniture like that we've lost or we grow up in an hour a big expense on a cattle prices will pop a great deal of the cattle are sure that we will make any big profits on the cattle because it expands get moving about the country to help libya have a lot of the week so we're in and the troubled past or fuel relying on are on a viable crop which you know looks good now but i still always are dennis fitzpatrick is a former stockman living near sterling the kansas livestock association has asked congress for financial help to help with water costs in kansas and also transportation costs incurred when kansas rangers had to sell breeding stock or should their cattle out of the area to

graze on greener pastures in hutchinson i'm nancy finken president bush has asked congress to pass a measure that would ban the acceptance of honorary at common cause the congressional watchdog group has also urged congress to ban on her area however many members of congress continue to accept speaking fees well some senators and representatives have personally been on our air others continue to accept it j headland is a grassroots lobbyist with common cause in washington good morning you know what do you have

any lynn has a list of the kansas delegations honoraria for nineteen eighty eight it is maybe and

maybe it is and again senator kassebaum and representative glickman no longer accept honoraria and needed as representative my ears goodman says members of congress as a general rule don't accept honorary in their home states that now he won't accept it anywhere well i have felt for some time that there is a problem with memory and speech making leave particularly by for members of congress making speeches to groups that have an interest in legislation as for senator bob dole from kansas the powerful republican leader in the senate spokesmen wild record offends dolls acceptance of honor area bob dole was born is going to be bought

for a group a large group of washington friends as he spoke to the support information's directors of america as best we can know no one was at me that the sports information directors of america of water bottles so the issue because he spoke to the metal launcher and on a sunday afternoon and then scott a ridiculous writer says one of the main reason senator dole continues to accept honoraria is because between nineteen eighty four and nineteen eighty eight the senator was able to give over four hundred thousand dollars to charity but by the same token ride or says senator dole would support legislation phasing out on air as if at the same time it increased congressional salaries so then what happens to charity i just don't say cherries probably suffer circle certainly a rule continue you know all the good work that we can do but again if there's a metal awning

orbiting honoraria or we might be talking about you know she wants right there is senator bob dole's press secretary and hutchinson i'm nancy finken a legislative committee is examining several issues and the judiciary branch of state government this summer one of which deals with discovery depositions in felony criminal cases the billing question would serve as a means to make the deposition part of the criminal court process more meaningful and in the current system the preliminary hearing is in sort of mini trial where the judge the attorneys the defendant and the plaintiff and the witnesses present evidence so the judge can determine probable cause for binding that offended over for trial what some attorneys have asked the legislature to consider as eliminating the formality of the preliminary hearing with judges and everyone else president instead ron smith with the

kansas bar association says a more in depth discovery deposition she should be taken at a different time they are very worried are you every day right here hurry hurry but there be an alternative system by one day at the sand and can learn more

so that in that intervening it two hundred and decide whether or not to plead guilty or or continue onward about and order so again maybe you're right and the prosecutor would be but with or to become teacher which of the bill

more informal way and yet a good way of providing the prosecutor in that what they need to do for many years smith says the idea of shelling shrimp preliminary hearings the strength of the witnesses is good but the more informal way of doing so through discovery depositions makes better use of the judges time represented a mike o'neill is the chairman of the summer judiciary committee o'neil thinks the idea is worth looking into do we have an awfully large back loaded backlog of criminal cases if we get more of those disposed of outside a record setting that would be helpful and perhaps as we have found in criminal sitting there in the civil servants if we allow each side to spend some time outside court finding out about the other

side's case to know what what theories out there against them or for them more cases settle out and that's ok says we know this is true is that word for liberal discovery of procedures we would have a horrible backlog of civil cases with criminal cases or the possibility of more cases would plead out know the worst crimes a newbie have reduced or a defendant's seen what evidence there is against him a plea guilty to that charge or a lesser charge her because they know that the evidence is overwhelming if you don't know what the state's evidence is going to be have a tendency when go from broken does they can prove in court has taken it that does take a lot of time in and causes a backlog of cases so then if we can find a way to streamline that will be helpful since ems it would be leaning towards any effort to streamline it would be too cruel cases are taking up an awfully large percentage of the docket

not to say that they're not important but when you say the results of these cases a lot of them end up in employees of guilty to the crime charge or a lesser crime after a whole lot of procedure not allow a court time a lot of attorney time has been taken a lot of that has to do with the fact that your son ryan knows for sure what the other side's case is all about isn't that kind of part of that preceded it not disclose all year it aces him in civil court we used to have what we call trial by ambush that worsens the old pre mason school were you had your case and the prosecution had their cases and have their cases just to prepare their case the best and they keep all the secrets to themselves typically however those cases took weeks and weeks to try because it put on every single piece of evidence that you have an inside collar evidence and then there was the result with what we

call i've noticed please in this and liberal this guy rules we find that we reached about the same result when both sides knows everything about the other side's case and you resolve issues down to just one or two to have a difference of opinion on and stipulate to the rest and the results are probably just about the same place as it is to take weeks and weeks to try cannot be tried three five days well with all with the explosion of litigation that we have it's it's a and the lack of funds to hire more more judges and that's when think it's by necessity we've had to streamline the process it's worked with the soul doc and i think it also worked to crumble block grant smith with the kansas by association says one of the pluses is for witnesses oh i'm very comfortable

and then i know again maybe they are at a preliminary hearing a witness in the trial and in a way in

that probably a court reporter in india the people there all right and what about dollars and cents how much wood changing the system cost or save the state representative mike o'neill says that has yet to be determined i think unless we can show some cost saving benefit it's maybe not we're studying in too much detail because first you get asked the question is it is there a problem where we're proposing anything is as the system isn't broke and right now i don't think the system is broke unless you realize or from the standpoint of can we dispense justice just as well cheaper in a more streamlined fashion if we can and there's a procedure after that will allow us to do that i think we'll look at in some estimations

prosecuting attorneys fear in depth depositions would take more time than the present preliminary hearing process and there's also some concern about how much money it would take to have the discovery depositions documented if an indigent defendants for example is involved with the discovery deposition the funds for a freelance court reporter would come out of the indigent defense monies and could add up quite quickly crowley at the preliminary hearing's the cost of corn reporting comes out of the state budget for staff court reporters however there are ways to possibly cut down the cost of the depositions audio or video tape recording are two examples and finally how much of the judges time would be saved by beefing up the deposition process and eliminating his or her presence at those hearings of that might depend on how much time the judge would spend reading a testimony or viewing the tapes in hutchinson i'm nancy finken kansas ain't the state's economic develop alesi oversight

agency has okayed a one hundred thousand dollar study of the state's oil and gas industry canvassing president charles warren says arthur di level of cambridge massachusetts at national consulting firm where my state laws and a future viability of the oil industry well you know and the industry itself on they had that asked for a much power study that would focus solely on their tax burden but we've got good important expanded to look at that ad all the problems in the industry and its contribution to the state's economy as well as the third part that we have not undertaken yoga well ninety nine it took an environmental and regulatory issues affecting the industry warren says it's a two billion dollar state industry with production of whaling gas in ninety of our one hundred five counties

in direct taxes the industry contributed over one hundred fifty million dollars last year and that doesn't include sales taxes and income taxes whether that affect the industry the first of a severance tax which was started back during the number crunching illustration and out that actually in spain really the natural resource and severed from the ground so it's a production tax it's based on a percentage of value and taken taken out the attacks or untaxed we tax based on the current market value of our debt in the ground and none of it is that the impact that the industry criticized most often

the avalon tax here because that's is that kind of an estimate of what it could be producing and the other one is what actually is being taken out of per gallon bases that's right about the severance tax goes to the state only and the avalon goes to each individual county warren says almost all call an oil producing states have the severance tax but with recent declines in the domestic oil business some states like kansas are reexamining their systems louisiana for example has just gone through a mouthpiece and reduce taxes and the other hand i've read recently that allows

increasing taxes on the industry because of hard times in a situation where eighty five percent of their revenue comes tomorrow so that at this point we would share to make a prediction whether or not we'll see a change in our oil tax structure in the state william the gut feeling about it i don't really have a feeling that it will come out one of the major criticisms that is to determine the temporary tax burden and and the big question is whether in an er and i think the important thing to recognize from a lot of these are all coming over independent in they do like an abortion now are not bound to one of the internet's their dollars for expiration

dates in the world so as far as kansas ain't as a group interested in economic development in the state would be interested i would assume that you're trying to find ways that to keep some of those dollars in kansas for exploration and drilling well that's right and also to find out there are other ways that the industry can contribute to our economy that is how to make better use of the large natural gas reserves we have an update how are you the kansas independent oil and gas producers association represents about one thousand kansans producers organization president frank no he says his organization is thrilled about the canvassing study what kogan is really wanting the stanley to do is to do is to make everyone in the state where

we're going in really find out whether we are scared of kansas equitable in its taxes were surrounding states accuses the oklahoma new mexico texas and north dakota to correct because we feel that the taxes here are high hurdle for drilling dollars that would be spent in the state are not being spent states are being spent in other states would like to see something done to correct this now he says as much as a five to nine percent severance tax difference can be seen between kansas and other states his company does business and including texas oklahoma mississippi louisiana and new mexico in almost every kansas county some of its revenue is from the avalon tax and especially in western kansas where oil is the biggest and sometimes only economic game in town that county's budget is almost

always supported by gas taxes during good times in the early eighties and late nineteen seventies again you know i leave for dallas county for example with apple or attacks on oil and gas was between fifty six and sixty seven veils but last year the melody for example was at one hundred three males know he says that increase doesn't seem quite for years and years we have always considered the arm tactic to be a tax in lieu of severance tax and eight for the most part that is exactly are the way it was for years and years and years and i'm talking thirty years ago and four years ago we were we were born ellie later years came on raids continue to get hours kennedy's increase their budgets

and they're today after the crash of the oil industry in the last three years and in cree and you actually don't area in that area and all of the facts which we learned and the current administration the combination of texas or between ten and fifteen percent margin nobody says he's not objecting to even just a severance tax or the county and lauren tax necessarily but what he is objecting to is that the two together are too high mcevers instead he should be completed by early nineteen ninety and no he is anxious to see the results but also not too confident that it will necessarily be what he what's really increase the image they say there is always the possibility as you know i can i can see you know are we stay with a president

will be were appraised and assessed every year at a fair market value and whatever that melody isn't that various county thirty percent of the cases that we do every year but now he says as they continue to see those large increases in the melodies in some counties he's not sure what the future may hold in some areas but besides the tax level it's also a market that indicates the future for kansas oil production number one problem of course is below market condition upgraded the market condition become the more active and independent and we'll look forward to grilling and the mainland the prospects are looked at various states and the returns on the dollar really looked at other

states all things being equal are going to get a greater share of billion dollars at kansas but when you talk about how many more wells you know i don't honestly we had two hundred rigs ran in his state years ago years ago no question about that big bust in the end and open its desire to follow in the us production capabilities so that they can retain the market share that they lost and while i don't have any idea frank know he is the president of cuyahoga at the kansas independent oil and gas producers association in hutchinson i'm nancy finken