Lawrence city commissioners on Tuesday agreed to appointments of numerous community members to the city’s advisory boards, but not the former deputy Douglas County district attorney.
Joshua Seiden, now back to private practice, had applied for one of seven seats on the Community Police Review Board. Commissioner Amber Sellers said she had nominated him for the position.
Seiden said last week that he knew there would be some controversy about his application to the board, but he believed he was qualified to serve based on his previous work. (Read more about that at this link.) Commissioner Lisa Larsen and Mayor Bart Littlejohn said Tuesday that they would oppose Seiden serving on the board.
The CPRB is tasked with reviewing complaints against Lawrence police officers. Lawrence city commissioners in May approved an ordinance that expands the CPRB’s duties, but the revamped version of the board has not yet begun meeting.
Commissioners voted to approve Douglass Miller, Adam Kellogg and Brenda Clary as CPRB members. Clary will be the only member of the board who served before the ad hoc Community Police Oversight Work Group and city staff members rewrote the ordinance that describes the board’s duties.
Several community members last week shared concerns about transparency and confusion around the appointment process.
A large number of open seats on boards combined with changes to processes left some applicants out of the loop. Some members of the public also felt like they don’t have any means to weigh in on who’s nominated to the boards, which help the commission decide how to spend city funds, shape policies and ordinances, and gather community input on issues.
City Clerk Sherri Riedemann said via email Friday that “Having nominations come in from all 5 commissioners, and not just the Mayor, creates challenges.”
“This process will likely be updated as we work through the nuances,” Riedemann said. “I expect it to be simpler once we get through this large number of initial appointments.”
Read a full article on this subject at this link.
The city commission’s meeting agenda included a list of several nominated appointees to advisory boards when it was published Thursday. By the start of Tuesday’s meeting, several more nominations had been added.
Approved nominations
In addition to the CPRB, here are the appointments commissioners voted Tuesday to approve for boards where they had to narrow nominations down from the final list in the meeting agenda:
• Affordable Housing Advisory Board: Mark Buhler and Andrew Dalager
• Environmental Sustainability Advisory Board: Juan Ramiro Sarmiento, Chloe Chaffin, Joshua Roundy and David Johnson
The commission approved all appointees to the boards on which there were enough positions to appoint everyone named on this agenda item.
20240813-Appointment-listAdvisory board seats are unpaid, voluntary positions. Some seats will still be open after this vote. Read about how to apply at this link.
The latest vacancy report should be updated soon; that list and applications can be found on the city’s website at https://lawrenceks.civicweb.net/Portal/BoardApplication/.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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