The last few weeks have been VERY busy for our club!
Our guest speaker on Tuesday 9/26 was Penny Postoak Ferguson, County Manager of Johnson County. Her speech was highly informative with a broad overview of BOCC priorities which are the Shawnee MED-ACT station (expected completion in Q1 2024), the Mid-America Sports Complex improvements, the Nelson wastewater facility, the new Household Hazardous Waste facility, and a complete renovation of the Merriam Plaza Library.
Future plans include the Panasonic Energy/Astra Enterprise Park in western Johnson County as well as the Flint Commerce Center. Johnson County’s adopted budget is $1.79 Billion for FY 2024, which means we have a total of 4,269 FTE’s, an increase of 75 FTE’s over 2023. Also on the good news front, it is a decrease in the mill levy and this is the sixth year in seven years when the mill levy has been reduced.
A few fun facts that Penny shared. Johnson County as a percent of the Metro population is 28%, as a percentage of the Metro employment is 34%, and as a percentage of the employment growth in the metro, Johnson County is 44%. In addition, Johnson County pays 38% of all the taxes for the metro!
A short 2 weeks later, we had our annual club chili social! THANK YOU to Rebecca and Mark for hosting us! Club members are encouraged to bring their best pot of chili and we vote for a winner to represent our club at the Lenexa Chili Challenge. Mark Schremmer (husband of club member Colleen) was this year's winner! Congratulations Mark!
Since Mark wasn't able to make it, we cooked his recipe for the Lenexa Chili Challenge. Mark's recipe took 45th place out of 186 chilis submitted for judging! Pictures below are from both our club chili social and the Lenexa Chili Challenge.
