By Regina Goff, J.D.
Pratt City Manager
Special to the Tribune
Our activity for the City of Pratt in March 2025 included the hiring of two new city employees, Robert Walker as Code Enforcement/Building Inspector and Crystal Arnett as City Clerk.
Code Enforcement – Robert Walker has had a busy first month as the new Code Inspector. Robert has busy meeting local contractors and conducting inspections such as at Meade Lumber, 382’s Bus Barn, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and the old Glendale School building. He has also made numerous citizen contacts regarding nuisance concerns and illegal dumping activities.
Robert and Brad Blankernship, who officially retired April 1, worked with the city attorney to update Ordinance 8.04.100, regarding code enforcement service of process, which was amended and approved by the City Commission on March 17, 2025. This amendment will allow notice of code violations with remediation orders provided via personal service by the code inspector or a law enforcement officer. It also provides a procedure for tacking the complaint on the residence.
City Clerk – The City of Pratt has welcomed the new employee, Crystal Arnett, to fill the position being vacated by one of our great front office staff employees, Angie Branscom. Angie will be retiring in April, but she is staying on long enough to make sure Crystal receives adequate training to fill the position. We welcome Crystal to the employee fold! At the same time will miss Angie, and we thank her for all of her years of dedicated service to the City of Pratt!
Water – The work on our new Well 17 is ongoing and the City of Pratt is receiving reimbursements for the costs from the forgivable SRF Loan through the State of Kansas. New sites are being considered for a future Well 18 as the test well sites considered near Sandy Creek did not show optimum conditions for a new well.
Many years ago, the City of Pratt supported the Medicine Lodge Water Program called Sunflower H2O. This project has been disbanded. Refunds of some of the funds given were provided to the supporting entities. In recent weeks the City of Pratt received a refund check of $16,268.81 from this disbanded entity.
Streets – The City of Pratt finally received approval from Disney to print signs honoring Pratt Native, Bill Farmer, as the voice of Goofy and Pluto. The signs have been printed and the Street Department will be placing them at all highways entering the City of Pratt.
The City of Pratt’s snow routes were officially updated at the March 17, 2025 Commission Meeting. The updates included plans to ensure that all areas around Southwest Elementary School are covered during inclement weather. Cars along snow routes should take measures to avoid on street parking during storms.
The South Main project between 8th and 10th Street finished, lines have been striped, and cars may freely travel through that area again.
2027-2028 CCLIP application for street funding has been sent. Also, a West 54 mill and overlay agreement has been signed. Bid openings will occur on April 17, 2025.
Parks – The Parks Department is hard at work replacing the Pilot Train dock at Sixth Street Park. They also recently refinished two benches that sit alongside the walking path at Lemon, and are working with the Hot and Cold Tower Garden volunteers. Park employees have been providing weed control spray and vegetation maintenance since Spring weather has arrived.
The City of Pratt was also recently notified that a generous Pratt citizen has left an endowment in the Schneider Trust, to the Parks Department, which will provide interest earnings for special park projects.
Wastewater – Waste water will be having Orozco concrete pour a new drive on their north driveway in the next couple of weeks. The front ground is going to be reworked to include new signage and grass to improve the look of the facility.
The Wastewater Department worked with a local business downtown to trouble shoot a line break. It was discovered later to be on the business side, and not a city main break.
John Kissell, Lance Steinert , and Andrew Hughes will be taking certification exams at the KRWA conference in Wichita this week. Good luck to them all.
Recreation – Basketball season has wrapped up and the department is gearing up for the baseball/softball season. Traveling teams have already began practicing. Several tournaments have been planned for the 2025 year, and we are looking forward to welcoming many out-of-
town teams to play our teams on our fields. The 2025 Baseball and Softball tournament schedules are up on the Pratt Recreation Department website.
Green Sports Complex and the Keller Family Complex are both de-winterized and fully operational.
Applications are still being accepted for umpires, summer maintenance, lifeguards and concession workers for the 2025 season.
Tourism – The popular Christian band, Unspoken will be performing at the Municipal Building on Saturday, March 29, 2025 at 7 p.m. Tourism Ambassador, Tiffany Riley, has been reaching out to local and regional churches encouraging them to bring youth groups to town.
At the request of a number of Pratt citizens, Paramount 80s has been booked to perform again this August. More concert performances are being negotiated, and we looking forward to announcing them soon.
The Facebook page, Visit Pratt, is busy and regularly updated to highlight activities and events in our great town. We continue to discuss and plan for potential activities which could bring visitors to our community, and certainly welcome ideas and suggestions.
Municipal Building – The Municipal Building has been a busy venue. The Vernon Filley Art Museum decorated the building beautifully for their Mardis Gras Ball, which appeared to be a great success! Light dimmers were installed last month to enhance stage performance illumination – pursuant to the Paramount 80s band suggestion. New stage and window curtains have been ordered and will be installed sometime this Spring.
Maintenance Department professionals, Eric Welch and Jace Gwinn are in the process of remodeling the old boys’ locker room, which is in the basement to the South and North of the gym, into a Green Room for future performers. New plumbing, electric, paint and epoxy flooring have been installed. The room looks great so far, and is expected to be completed by the end of this week.
Electric – Power Plant Supervisor Bryan Evans will be retiring at the end of March after almost 36 years of dedicated service to the City of Pratt. We are so thankful for Bryan’s service and send heartfelt wishes for many enjoyable retirement years to him!
The Electric Department substation redundancy project is back on track after the funding was briefly halted by the federal government. This $3 million project is to be funded by the Department of Energy, with the matching fund requirement to by paid for by an additional grant from the State of Kansas. However, the monies were temporarily put on hold due to a presidential executive order.
The dual fuel units at Power Plant 2 and the 1.5 mw unit in Power Plant 1 have been receiving annual maintenance and run this month. This has been great training for the newest power plant employees. Also, the cooling tower ponds have been cleaned with all the debris removed.
The line crew has been updating meters and changing out some cross arms in the last several weeks. The crew has also helped replace some electrical systems at the Municipal Building and installed them at the Hot and Cold Water Towers.
The City has entered into an agreement to utilize a new texting program which will assist in sending notices to citizens via text message. In the future any street closure, outages, or water notices may be sent to the majority of citizens via a text message instead of postage mailings.
Police Department – Last week the Pratt Police Department bid a fond farewell to Officer Rebecca Slief. Officer Slief has accepted a law enforcement position in a different city, and we wish her the very best in her new position.
The Pratt Police Department is continuing to have conversations and preparing for updates to the Community Center in preparation for their move from the County’s Law Enforcement Center to the Community Center.
The PD has received new radios and they have updated their capabilities to be able to communicate with the Sheriff and Pratt County on their frequencies
Dispatch – There are a few job openings in our Dispatch Department. The position offers great training, a good wage, and great benefits. Please send any applications to City Hall at 619 S. Main, or apply online.
Fire Department – Fire Engine #2’s pump has been repaired and is now fully operational. The repairs were approved by the City Commissioners at the February 3, 2025 Commission meeting.
Several firefighters will be finishing up their Firefighter 1 class Saturday, March 29, 2025. This will included 7 from Pratt City Fire Department, 3 from Township 12, 2 from Byers and 1 from Harper fire department.
As always, the Fire Department is working to keep the Pratt community safe by responding to a house fire on North Thompson, elevator alarms and reports of gas leaks.
The firefighters have been attending numerous trainings, and will hold a training conference in Pratt the first weekend in April.
Upgrades have been ongoing at the Fire Department’s Training Center, to include concrete being poured around the fire hydrant and stairs for egress on the 2nd floor.
The tourism ambassador is thankful for the Fire Department helping to advertise for the Unspoken concert with their lighted sign.
The Planning and Zoning Commission approved Full Cycle Waste Solution’ application for a special use permit for the solid waste portion of their business on Thursday, February 20, 2025. The final approval was completed by the City Commission at their March 17, 2025 meeting.
Cost Savings / Stewardship of Tax Payer Funds – As always, the department heads and I are working to be good stewards of tax payer funds.
a) The city manager and the city clerk met monthly with our insurance agent, Strong Insurance, to comb through all the property insured by the City of Pratt. We verified that any items that were no longer owned or operated by the City was removed from our policy. We moved older vehicles from a comprehensive category to a liability only status. We “right sized” insurance coverages, to include removing items where the deductible equaled a large percent of the value of the items covered, and we made changes to the coverage at the City of Pratt Power Plant buildings. This work resulted in the cost of our insurance coverage dropping by $50,000.00 between the 2024 premium and the 2025 renewal. This decrease was seen despite valuation of our property increasing by more than 4%.
Grant Activity – The City of Pratt is in the application process of, or has recently received the following grants:
a) The Recreation Department has applied for 20-00838, which is the Point Visitor and Outdoor Recreation Center grant application. If awarded, this grant will pay a significant portion of a new Visitor Center, locker rooms, recreation office and outdoor activities near the Bill Keller Family Sports Complex. This grant has been submitted and is pending.
Unspoken Concert – The Christian band Unspoken will perform at the Municipal Building on March 29, 2025. We are looking forward to a great show and lots of out of town youth group participation!
Free Landfill Week – The annual Free Landfill Week, which is sponsored and paid for by the City of Pratt, will be from May 17-23. We are encouraging citizens to do some Spring cleaning and haul their refuse items to the county landfill for free on those days.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns regarding any of the information presented, please do not hesitate to contact me.
