Topeka flag license plate proposal is back. Here's why city officials support it this time
Fans of the Topeka flag may soon have the option to get it on a specialty license plate.
Local officials back a bill this year to authorize a Topeka flag license plate after opposing a similar bill last year.
"This is more than a license plate to us," said Zac Surritt, chair-elect of Forge. "This is another way to spread our community pride, not just around Topeka and the Shawnee County area, but in the state and in the country."
Forge is the city's young professionals association, housed under the Greater Topeka Partnership.
The Greater Topeka Partnership would receive any money raised from the license plate fees, which could range from $25 to $100.
"I moved to Topeka in '98 with my family," said Sen. Rick Kloos, R-Berryton. "I've heard a lot of negatives about Topeka, and I don't like that. A lot of smack talk. ... It's exciting to see the progress."
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The city of Topeka distinctive license plate would be created under SB 229. The bill was expedited through committee and the Senate during the Legislature's busy turnaround week, ultimately passing the chamber 38-2. The bill must still pass the House before going to the governor. A House committee has a bill hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
"I'm a lifelong Topekan," Braden Werner told the Senate Transportation Committee. "I'm someone who chose to raise my family and invest heavily in this community, and I teach here in the local community. I think that something that is an immediate instiller of civic pride is something as small as a license plate can go a really long ways."
Werner, a government and history teacher at Shawnee Heights High School, said he encourages his students to contact representatives and push for change on issues important to them.
Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce President Curtis Sneden said Werner "is the perfect example of that sort of organic pride which sprouts up around initiatives like this. ... He has been a voice over the last several years asking why is it that Topeka doesn't have the ability to have a license plate, which looks like the flag design that was approved, the same way Wichita and Hutchison do."
Sen. Kristen O'Shea, R-Topeka, introduced the bill. O'Shea's husband, Gabriel O'Shea, was executive director when Forge initiated the redesign of Topeka's flag before Lindsay Lebahn took over the job.
O'Shea testified that local officials "had taken ourselves out of a previous bill on this matter because our ducks weren’t quite in a row. After working with interested parties, we are now ready to move forward."
That bill created a specialty license plate for Hutchinson using that city's flag, and legislators added in a Topeka flag license plate with the money benefiting the Topeka Zoo without previously consulting with Topeka officials. City attorney Amanda Stanley said at the time that the city was asking to be removed, and the city would "potentially" iron out details and address a legal gray area.
"It's a very exciting time to live and work in Topeka," Stanley said in supporting this year's bill. "As a community, we're focused on economic development, recruiting young professionals and really increasing our civic pride in our community. One way we've done that with our Topeka flag, if you go around our community, you'll see T-shirts and earrings and all kinds of representations of the flag, and the license plate is the next iteration of that."
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Do you want a Topeka flag license plate? It could happen this year.
