During the Reno County Commission meeting Tuesday, they approved a plan to ask to be exempt from a new Kansas law that allows those with a concealed carry permit to be allowed to bring their guns into the public buildings.
The law called “Personal Family and Protection Act” requires most local governments to allow people who hold concealed-carry permits to bring handguns into public buildings, unless adequate security measures are in place. We reported earlier about courthouse security, but county officials also want to come up with a plan for other county buildings that may not be so readily available to the general public. There is also the question of employees who may have a concealed carry permit that may want to bring a gun to work.
By requesting for the exemption through the end of the year, that will allow officials to figure out what they want to do procedure wise.
As we mentioned earlier, there is no set security in place at the courthouse at the moment. There are occasional sheriff deputies who walk through the facility, but no set guards.
The commission also approved basically a renewal contract for engineering services for the County Engineer position vacancy with BG Consultants for another year. The new contract would start once an agreement is made.
The county didn’t take any action, but the idea of adding a fee to tag renewal and registration in the county came up for discussion with County Treasure Clark Miller.
As we have told you in the past, the state has passed down to the counties a lot of work involving vehicle registrations and other items they used to do. The state is allowing counties to add a $2.50 transaction fee to anything to do with tags and registrations. That would bring a lot of additional money to the county, however it appeared the county is only looking at 50-cent fee. Again, no decision was made.