University Daily Kansan / Thursday, May 3, 1990
9C
Clustering can be key to survival
Kansan staff writer
By Steve Buckner
Another way for small towns such as Cherokee to survive is to combine economic efforts with other nearby small towns. The idea is called clusterville, and they agree that the communities can help themselves by devising a single plan.
"In a sense, it is a triage in its sharing of resources," said Mark Lapping, dean of the faculty of plan-mentology at University, New Brunswick, N.J.
The thing communities that cluster must not do is duplicate services, said Lapping, who is a former professor of nursing at Texas Tech. One school, one hospital and one
center for law enforcement should exist among clustering towns.
Three small towns in Potanna-
tomie County — Onaga, Havensville
and Wheaton — have started eco-
nomic clustering efforts by expi-
anding Onaga's Chamber of Commerce
in these towns recently completed a business survey for their first combined effort.
The clustering concept is not necessarily new to the area. A hospital district, which included several towns, was formed in 1955, and the school district consolidated in the 1960s. In both cases, Onaga was the beneficiary, while the other towns lost these services.
Despite Onaga's earlier gains, Onaga Hospital administrator Joe Engelman said the communities had many joyous while working together.
"When times are tough, people do pull together," he said.
But clustering may not work in every area. The townspokes of Cherokee point to the hard feelings created when the school systems of Cherokee and Mineral and Weir were consolidated and located in Cherokee in the 1980s.
"The spirit of cooperation is not there," said Randy Inhof, a Cherokee resident who works in Pittsburgh as a firefighter. "It's the Department of Human Resources."
Dead house
Because of the migration from rural counties, abandoned homesteads have become a familiar sight on Kansas' backroads.
Finney County, giving the county a crime rate of about 74 crimes per 1,000 people, according to a report by Michael Broadway, Wichita State University professor of geology.
In 1988, more than 2,790 crimes were committed in the county, putting the county crime rate at almost 92 crimes per 100,000 population.
Garden City
Continued from p. 5c
In fiscal 1898, Finney County had the second highest number of cases in the state for driving while intoxicated, according to the Annual Report of the Courts of Kansas.
The schools
Large numbers of Hispanics and Indo-Chinese, many of whom did not speak English, came to work at the packing plants during the 1980s, bringing their families with them.
Enrollment rose in Garden City schools as a result, from about 4,500 students in 1890 to about 6,500 in 1989. Because many of the students did not speak English, they were educated in a foreign educational program in the state. Moseman said.
Eleven languages are spoken in the city, he said, adding that it provided a positive, diverse cultural setting.
But because the meat-packing industry has a high employee-turnover rate, the school has a high student-turnover rate, complicating attempts to teach English or anything else.
About 2,000 students move in or out of the school district within each school year, according to school records.
Children in state custody, including juvenile offenders and children removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect, increased from 63 in May 1984 to 140 in June 2017. The number of social services for the Garden City area SRS office.
Social Services
Most of those in custody are abuse or neglect cases, Kunz said.
Adult social service cases have increased from 435 in May 1988 to 607 in May 1989.
Because of the increases, area social workers often are working 50 to 60 hours a week, she said. Even if they were in a crisis, they would
"I've been called by the police. I get calls from parents." Kunz said.
Joe Winholts, area income maintenance director for SNRs, said that he caseload from about 1,400 customers was up by 5% as of January 2017, as is Japan.
Much of the increase reflects increased demand for food stamps as an income supplement, mostly for large families who have only one member working, she said.
"We can always tell when IBP is hiring and when they are advertising," she said. "We will have people come in with you."
wherever...
"People come here with everything they own and their families in their car in the hopes of finding a job."
About a third of the students in Garden City schools receive reduced-price or free lunches, according to information provided by the school district.
"We have two structures here — the very, very rich and the very poor." Mosesman said. "And we don't have it."
Medical care
About 44 percent of the women who had babies in Finney County in 1987 had not received adequate prenatal care, according to Department of Health and Environment statistics. That is the second highest percentage in the state. Statewide, an average of about 86 percent of women received adequate prenatal care in 1988.
Only five physicians in the city delivery babais, said JoAnn Peterson, prenatal service coordinator for ST. Louis Hospital. "I think we're doing a good job."
Finney County has the second highest birth rate in the state, according to the Kansas Statistical Abstract.
The county is not designated as medically underserved, but, Barnum said, "From what I've seen of the physicians in town, they are handling at a peak right now."
Many area residents cannot afford health insurance. Also, many do not qualify for state medical programs for the poor because they have not become citizens, Peterson said.
Others may not be eligible because they are employed, Barnum said. But they still may lack health insurance because many employers do not provide such coverage and there is a certain time period — six months in the case of IBP.
Only one doctor in the city regularly accepts payments from the state for medical services, Peterson said. The others each take one nonpaying patient who is covered by the state medical plan per month.
Many of the rest go to the Mexican-American Ministry Clinic in Garden City, which provides medical care.
Penny Schwab, director of the clinic, said the clinic's doctor was seeing about 100 people a week, or about 40 to 45 people a day. He spends only two days and one morning a week at the Garden City clinic.
He also provides care during the week in Dodge City, Liberal and Hyssles.
Barnum said he thought the city had been better off to 1900, but it was still a fairly small town without the big buildings.
Before the packing plants came, Barnum said, they were fairly growing community, the growth was controlled.
Meyer said, however, that until the economic expansion, Garden City did not have the chance to become the commercial center of western Kansas.
What you need to know to sell your books.
But that's where we are now." she said.
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