Joel Branstrom and his family will be headed to the Final Four basketball tournament after all. And in style.

Image this, your house is on fire and the fire department arrives only to find or in this case can’t find your water hydrant without wasting precious time because it is buried with snow. According to a Kansas City Star article, fire officials across the Kansas City Metro area are worried that critical minutes could be lost trying to locate hydrants to hook up water hoses. 

Bryan Dehner, Overland Park fire chief, said it would help fireman if homeowners would check on the hydrants near their house and dig them out if they have been buried. Dean Cull a fire Marshall and an official of the Heart of America Metro Fire Chiefs Council said “Being able to access water quickly can mean the difference of saving a life or a structure.” The council urges residents who decide to dig out their neighborhood hydrants to also shovel a one foot path from the street to the hydrant.  

According to Dehner, Overland Park fire trucks have systems that tell firefighter that a hydrant is in front of a particular address. Dehner also said that some Kansas City metro departments DO NOT have hydrant locator systems.

Rather than a cause for celebration, “no one believes that Congress in its ultimate wisdom, with all the deficits looming, with a recession and two wars … would ever allow the estate tax to lapse. But that’s what happened,” said tax attorney Martin Press.

“It’s created great uncertainty,” he told USA Today. The confusion comes, in part, from a wide agreement that Congress will either reinstate the tax that brought in revenues of $26.5 billion in 2008 or shift the tax to a capital gains levy on property that is inherited and then sold. “A lot of middle-income Americans could end up being affected by a tax they never expected,” Marguerite Mount, managing director of the Mercadien Group told the newspaper.

When members of the U.S. Senate finally headed home last week, they also left the future of 50 individual and business tax breaks in limbo. All expired at the end of 2009. To read more

“Kansas City will receive $24 million in stimulus funds to turn the urban core of the city into a national model for electrical delivery and efficiency”, According to the Kansas City Star.  Combined with another $24 million in private investment from Kansas City Power & Light and its energy partners, the project will create a “smart grid” demonstration project, which many see as the future of the electric industry.

US House of representatives, Emmanuel Cleaver called the plan “a transformative project that we in Kansas City are doing something that no other urban center is doing in the nation.  KCP&L officials say “smart grid” project should help 14,000 commercial and residential customers.  Read More About the Kansas City Green Impact Zone.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The $8,000 first time Homebuyers Tax Credit creates a new $6,500 tax credit for homeowners buying a new home by July 1, 2010. The homebuyer tax credit expansion measure includes these provisions:

• Extends
• Homebuyers with contracts as of April 30, 2010 qualify for the credit so long as they close the transaction within 60 days.
• The full credit is available to homebuyers with incomes of up to $125,000 for a single return or $225,000 for a joint return.
• Not available for homes costing over $800,000.
• Homebuyers who already own a home are only eligible if the home they are leaving has been used as a principal residence for five consecutive years in the last eight.
• Provides authority to the IRS to provide greater oversight while processing the return and requires that the taxpayer claiming the credit be 18 or older.

 Victory – Victory – Victory!  As the expiration looms for the end of the original homebuyer tax credit (Nov 30th), Congress has agreed to extend and expand the real estate homebuyer tax credit.  NAR (The National Association of Realtors), has published a comparison chart you may find very helpful to understand and explain this new version of the real estate tax credit. Read the Tax Credit Comparison document on line or Download the Real Estate Tax Credit Comparison by Clicking HERE and save to your computer now. President Obama may sign as early as today!  Please call or comment with questions.

Here is how it works: Go to the DMV site – look for GET in LINE at DMW then click on the city link you plan to visit (782 N. Ridgeview Road in Olathe or Mission at 6000 Lamar), click on YES to agree to the terms of use, choose your language and you will be told how long the estimated wait is then enter your cell number, click Next and your place in line is secure. You may then click continue and you will be sent to a printable confirmation page.I tested the system and my wait time was initially 9 minutes at 7:30 when the Mission office opened this morning. I received my first text message almost immediately after entering my cell number then another three minutes later, then another three minutes later which suggested I should think about returning to the DMV office. The next text said, “Sorry, we still haven’t heard back from you, so we had to give your spot to someone else. You have nine hours to rejoin the front of the line – reply with “J”.The system is available during business hours which are 7:30 to 4:30 Monday through Friday excluding holidays. According to the Star article, officials from the DMV say the system will ease the pain of waits up to 2 hours when renewals are due at the end of each month. 

Kudos to Johnson County!! 

Beginning as early as this Friday and continuing until November 30^th the killing of deer in Shawnee Mission park will commence. I had heard that the shooters/killers were to use bow and arrow but according to a Kansas City Star article, the shooters will use ’sound’ suppressed rifles. Does that mean Cupid and Vixen will not hear when Dancer and Prancer are shot?

I don’t know about you but I really enjoyed setting out for the park a little before dusk and enjoying the the docile creatures getting ready to bed down for the night. Back to reality…apparently …all shots will be taken at short range and the deer will be baited to a secluded area of the park where all shots fired will be directed toward the interior of the park.According to the Star article, the park district wants the deer population (try not to think to think Cupid and Dasher here) to be reduced to 50 deer per square mile. Wildlife experts estimate there are currently about 200 deer per square mile in the park. The park is 3.5 square miles. Yikes do the math, that is 525 deer, right? 525 times say an average of 50 pounds per Donner, I mean reindeer, I mean deer is 26,250 pounds or over 13 tons of meat.

What is done with all the meat? Can’t we at least feed the meat to the needy or have a huge barbeque or a free venison give away? I’ve had venison before and I do not remember it as remarkable but it is supposed to be lean (or is that Bison) and I think it tastes like chicken (or is that rattlesnake).  

Owners of nearby real estate received letters from the park district this week and were assured that the work by the reindeer killers/shooters would be done safely. I am not a dog owner but if you live nearby you’d be well advised to keep your dogs inside beginning this Friday and thru November 30^th.