Post updated at 5:05 p.m. Monday, Aug. 5:

Incumbent Shannon Reid and current Lawrence City Commissioner Lisa Larsen are running as Democrats to represent Douglas County Commission District 2.

The candidates shared their thoughts on how wind and solar energy should be handled, property tax reductions and more. The two will face off in the Tuesday, Aug. 6 primary.

One independent candidate, Brad Chun, filed for the race on Aug. 2 (after this article was published). His name will appear on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.

Candidates were given a week to respond to these questions. We did not give candidates a word count limit but advised them to keep answers concise. Candidates’ answers appear below verbatim, minus minor typos edited for clarity.

Will this race be on my ballot? Check which Douglas County Commission district you’re in at myvoteinfo.voteks.org.

Early voting began Wednesday, July 17. Voters can request a ballot to vote early by mail through Tuesday, July 30 at KSVotes.org. See this article for key info on how to cast your ballot.

Look for more coverage and candidate questionnaires still to come at lawrencekstimes.com/election2024. 

Jump to a topic:

• Meet the candidates
• Experiences and qualifications
• Top 3 issues
• Property taxes
• Wind energy regulations
• Sky Energy Center solar project
• Question for your opponent
• Free space
• Just for fun

This district

District 2 has changed following county voters’ November 2022 vote to expand the commission to five seats from three.

District 2 is pictured in yellow in this map.

The rough boundaries of the second district are East 1000 Road to the west; the county line to the north, including all of North Lawrence; and East 1700 Road to the west.

The southern boundary dips to include some portions of the county around North 1700 Road, then approximately follows Interstate 70; near Iowa Street, it expands south to West 19th Street in some places, then zigzags north as it approaches the east, ending up at East 11th Street.

Click here to see a zoomable PDF map of the district.

Meet the candidates

About you and your positions

Q: What specific experience and qualifications do you possess that make you the best candidate for the commission seat you’re seeking?

Reid: Service to my community and working together with folks for the greater good has always been central to my life – being positively affected by people who helped me growing up in Lawrence rooted me in the power of public service. I want to help build better communities. Since junior high, I have been volunteering with and working professionally in a multitude of nonprofit organizations and grassroots advocacy groups – including United Way of Douglas County, L.I.N.K., Douglas County AIDS Project, Cans for the Community, The Care Center, Sunrise Project, Sanctuary Alliance, and more. In my tenure as a commissioner so far, I have served on the Affordable Housing Advisory Board, currently serve on the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, and am part of the leadership team for the Douglas County E-Community focused on entrepreneurship programs. And I’ve been part of a national leadership network of elected officials working on crisis care coordination since 2022, NACo’s Familiar Faces Initiative. My experience in systems work, community organizing, and helping folks directly with resource navigation helps to inform my work as a commissioner daily. I have a deep knowledge about how systems function, along with an ability to help articulate the lived experiences of folks who struggle to get their needs met by those systems. I believe that my deepest qualification for this role, in fact, is my ability to connect with others and to truly meet them where they’re at, so that I can better understand their perspective.

Larsen: My degree is in Geology from Fort Hays State University and I’m a Licensed Geologist. For 22 years I owned and operated an environmental consulting firm focusing on the investigation and remediation of contaminated groundwater and soil. Currently, I’m on the Lawrence city commission and have been for over eight years and was the mayor of Lawrence for two terms. I am a Kansas Supreme Court Approved Mediator and one of seven who founded a nonprofit Center for Conflict Resolution called Building Peace. We work with court affected youth and their victims using restorative practices to hold the offender accountable to the victim. We also work collaboratively with the Douglas County Housing Stabilization Collaborative in tenant/landlord mediations in an effort to keep people housed and evictions off their record.

Q: Please list the top three issues motivating you to run for this office. What concrete ideas do you have to make a difference on each issue if you are elected?

Please be as specific as possible.

Reid:
I’m re-running for this office for similar reasons to my 2020 race – based on the fundamental belief that our community can and should provide robust, coordinated, effective services to the residents of Douglas County. The three issues that I intend to stay focused on if I am re-elected can best be summarized as: more resource access, environmental protections, and systems change. Increasing access for residents to social services and critical resources has been a top priority for me and will remain so – specifically, I will continue to help guide the growth of our local crisis care continuum alongside our goals in the strategic housing and homelessness plan, A Place for Everyone. An ancillary priority for me, even if it seems indirect, is also working to protect and cultivate healthy environs across the county, which we know are critical to increased resilience for our population, wildlife, waterways, soils, and also built environs – I am eager to help facilitate some of the goals of the county’s adopted plans for both Climate Action and Open Space in the next few years. And finally, systems change is a praxis that I apply to nearly all the county’s responsibilities but especially to the local criminal legal system – I believe that change is a constant, so I will keep questioning the status quo and seek opportunities to evolve how our systems coordinate and function together for residents in a more just, equitable way.

Larsen:
1) Lowering property taxes. The county commission has spent years transferring millions of leftover dollars from budgeted funds to nonbudgeted funds. The average yearly transfer for the past five years has been over $14 million dollars.
The county’s 2022 financial audit shows there were over $123 million dollars in available unencumbered funds. During my opponent’s term she voted to transfer over $58 million dollars to nonbudgeted funds without consideration for the significant property tax increases that generated the leftover funds.

These transferred dollars are an indication that the county’s property taxes are too high. When you’re in a hole, the saying goes, stop digging! When you’re transferring out millions of dollars in leftover funds at the end of the year, stop overtaxing!

2) Processes should be followed. My discussions with community members indicate that we should embrace renewable energy sources. I’ve yet to speak with anyone who does not agree with that statement, and I couldn’t agree more. This is one thing that we, as a community, can collectively do to battle climate change.

These innovative and new ideas for land use policy making should be addressed through the lens of our Comprehensive Plan 2040 (Plan 2040), our community’s guiding document for land use. Plan 2040 is a community developed document that “provides the foundation and framework for making future physical development and policy decisions” (page 2, Plan 2040). When “future development ideas and innovations that will help achieve the community vision” is proposed then Plan 2040 directs us to amend the current plan “through the public amendment process” (page 2, Plan 2040).

Utility scale renewable or alternative energy is not mentioned once in Plan 2040. This type of land use is new and innovative and requires an amendment to Plan 2040. Empowering our community members with this decision is vital to building consensus and honors the voice of our community. Following this process should have been done long before rules were written, or votes were taken. I could not vote yes without the proper processes being followed.

Q: Many Douglas County residents have voiced concerns about property taxes increasing over the last several years. Do you believe that property taxes can be reduced from current rates? If yes, how would you reduce them, and if no, why not?

Again, please be as specific as possible.

Reid: Currently, yes. For our county government, it has been possible to reduce property tax rates (i.e. our mill levy) in recent years and I have consistently supported lowering that rate, year over year. The county’s tax rate has been cumulatively decreased by nearly 5 mills since my time in office. At the same time, we have been able to expand, stabilize, and effectively plan for infrastructure costs and services that are critical to public health and safety. It is a balancing act to determine with other commissioners where we invest now and where we hold back for now, year over year. In addition to lowering the property tax rate, when possible to do so, I believe it is crucial that we look at a diversity of tactics for offering relief to local homeowners in need – one strategy is that we need smart, responsible growth to our commercial tax base across the county to help shift tax burden away from residential parcels. Another tactic that current commissioners recently approved is a pilot program that will offer property tax rebates for low-income seniors and disabled veterans to start. If re-elected, I will keep looking for ways that we can offer equitable relief to those in need.

Larsen: Yes, property taxes can be lowered. Property taxes are impacted by two separate factors: property valuations and mill levy. To actually reduce property taxes, the mill levy must be lowered more than the increase in property valuations. This should be considered along with the amount of surplus funds available and funding needs. That is how I would approach lowering property taxes. 

While the county did reduce the mill levy last year, it still was not enough to overcome the increase in property valuations. So, property taxes were not lowered. 

Q: On a scale of 1-5, please rank how much you support the wind energy regulations the commission approved in May.

(1= Do not support at all; 5 = Fully support)

Reid: 5

Larsen: 1

Q: If you had been a commissioner in April when the commission approved a key permit for the planned Kansas Sky Energy Center, how would you have voted?

(Or, incumbents, how did you vote?) Only yes/no option given

Reid: Yes

Larsen: No

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Q: Please explain your answers to the previous two questions, if you wish, and/or share other key points you’d like voters to know about your stance on wind and solar energy projects in Douglas County.

Reid: Most importantly, I think robust regulations are the key to striking a balance between competing values that residents across the county have regarding utility-scale renewable energy. Douglas County has worked diligently through public processes over the past several years to update our existing wind regulations, and to develop new solar regulations, both of which I think now communicate our community’s baseline standards for any solar or wind project idea that comes here. Every project proposal must be thoroughly reviewed on its own merits and in the context of both our regulations and the community feedback we receive – of course, not all proposals will work well here, but some absolutely will. Broadly speaking, I think allowing for local renewable energy development in our county is smart, responsible, and holds a lot of potential benefits for our county at large.

Larsen: I 100% support solar and wind energy. However, the wind regulations and the solar project are new and innovative land uses and should be addressed through the lens of our Comprehensive Plan 2040 (Plan 2040), our community’s guiding document for land use. Plan 2040 is a community developed document that “provides the foundation and framework for making future physical development and policy decisions” (page 2, Plan 2040). When “future development ideas and innovations that will help achieve the community vision” is proposed then Plan 2040 directs us to amend the current plan “through the public amendment process” (page 2, Plan 2040).

Utility scale renewable or alternative energy is not mentioned once in Plan 2040. This type of land use is new and innovative and requires an amendment to Plan 2040. Empowering our community members with this decision is vital to building consensus and honors the voice of our community. This should have been done long before rules were written, or votes were taken. I could not vote yes without the proper processes being followed.

Q: Please share a question we didn’t ask that you’d like your fellow candidates to answer. How would you respond?

Reid: (Q) What compelled you to run for this seat, this year?

(A) I feel compelled to continue the work that I was elected to do in 2020 by the people of Douglas County – I hope for a 2nd term to do so. I am driven to continue my service as your District 2 County Commissioner in an effort to help maintain momentum, and to gain more of it, on meaningful changes that are underway across Douglas County. I feel compelled to continue supporting the county’s growth in leadership across various sectors, which is a fact that’s especially true as we transition to an expanded Board of County Commissioners.

Q: Free space: Please share anything you’d like voters to know about you and your stances that we haven’t asked here.

Reid: I am a proven progressive commissioner who works thoughtfully for all of Douglas County — with both pragmatism and compassion. Although only District 2 voters can re-elect me, I see myself as an elected representative working for all residents across the county. I’m the people-centered candidate in this race who understands better than most the barriers that some of our residents face daily. I’m the justice-oriented candidate in this race who works daily to find new, different ways that Douglas County can help affect positive change in our community for more people. I’m the solutions-focused candidate in this race who works collaboratively toward reducing harm for the most vulnerable individuals in our community. I’m here to help lift all boats in a rising tide.

Just for fun

Candidates were not required to answer any of these questions, but we wanted to give our readers a chance to get to know them a little better and have some fun with this.

Reid:

Favorite color? Black

Zodiac sign? Aquarius sun. Taurus rising. Virgo moon.

Do you have any pets, and/or what’s your favorite animal? Two dogs named Cleo and Ruby, both from Lawrence Humane Society.

What’s a fun fact our readers may not know about you? (Have a hidden talent? Interesting hobby?) I’ve daydreamed of being a photojournalist for National Geographic nearly all my life.

Favorite book, TV show and/or movie? Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison, Freaks and Geeks, Empire Records

Do you have a favorite quote that inspires you in running for office or serving your community that you’d like to share? “The only way to survive is by taking care of one another.” — Grace Lee Boggs

Larsen:

Favorite color? Blue

Zodiac sign? Virgo

Do you have any pets, and/or what’s your favorite animal? Unfortunately, my dog and cat died this past year. I’ve had pets all my life and am currently looking.

What’s a fun fact our readers may not know about you? (Have a hidden talent? Interesting hobby?) Yeah, right

Favorite book, TV show and/or movie? Book: “She’s Come Undone” by Wally Lamb

This post is by the Lawrence Times news team.

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