What Lawrence’s ballot question on the city’s ‘form of government’ actually means

Post updated at 9:27 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 10:

As the Nov. 5 election draws near, many Lawrence voters would answer a ballot question with another question: “Huh?”

There’s a lot of confusion around the “form of government” ballot question that, if voters approve, could make the city commission into a four-district city council with a nonvoting, directly elected mayor, among other things.

The question (as well as one asking to increase the sales tax to support affordable housing and homelessness initiatives) will be on city voters’ Tuesday, Nov. 5 general election ballots.

Here’s the text of the question: “Shall the City of Lawrence, Kansas, abandon the Commission-Manager form of government and adopt a Modified Mayor-Council Manager form of government and become a city operating under a Modified Mayor-Council Manager form of government?”

That’s all that will appear on the ballot. There will be no further explanation to let people know what that means and what it might look like. That’s because state statutes dictate the language the city has to use for the question. But it’s not inspiring a lot of confidence in voters.

Jump to a question:

• What would this change look like?
• What is Lawrence’s current form of government?
• How would a directly elected mayor work?
• What would the commission districts look like?
• What are some possible pros and cons of a directly elected mayor?
• What are some possible pros and cons of districts?
• How much do we know about what would change?
• Update: Where did this idea come from?

What would this change look like?

If a majority of voters vote “yes” on the ballot question, Lawrence’s government would change as follows:

• Lawrence voters would directly elect a nonpartisan mayor every four years with essentially the same duties as the mayor has now — however, the mayor would only vote on items in the event of a tie.

• Lawrence voters would elect six nonpartisan commissioners — four from geographic districts and two at large. There would be seven total elected officials on the commission.

Those details were included in Resolution 7442, which the commission approved back in February 2023. There are other details that would still be in flux, though.

Back up. What is Lawrence’s current form of government?

The City of Lawrence currently has a commission of five nonpartisan members elected at large to serve four-year terms. “At large” means there are no districts — the whole city can vote for any of the candidates.

It’s called a Commission-Manager form of government. The “manager” part refers to the city manager, who is hired by the commission to run the day-to-day operations and administration of the city.

Commissioners choose who will serve as mayor and vice mayor each December; however, they generally do so based on election results.

The mayor position does not differ strongly from the rest of the commission positions but includes a few extra duties — essentially, presiding over commission meetings, representing the city in ceremonial roles and in intergovernmental relations, and making appointments to city advisory boards with the approval of the rest of the commission. The mayor currently votes on all agenda items, just like the rest of the commissioners.

Typically, following an election — held in odd years — commissioners choose the person who received the most votes as the vice mayor, and the following year, the person who received the second most votes is chosen as the new vice mayor while the vice mayor advances to mayor.

For instance, Lisa Larsen received the most votes in the 2021 election, so commissioners chose her as vice mayor for 2022, then as mayor for 2023. Bart Littlejohn received the second most votes in 2021, so he was selected as vice mayor for 2023 and, this year, is mayor. Mike Dever received the most votes in the 2023 election, and he was selected to be vice mayor for 2024. If tradition holds, based on the 2023 election results, Dever will be selected as mayor for 2025, with Brad Finkeldei as vice mayor.

How would a directly elected mayor work?

If a majority of voters vote “yes” to the ballot question, Lawrence voters would directly elect a nonpartisan mayor starting with the 2025 election. However, in order to avoid a perception that the mayor has more power than other commissioners, the mayor would not vote except in the event of a 3-3 tie among the other commissioners.

The commission will have to pass an ordinance that codifies all the commissioners’ duties, including the mayor’s. That would not happen until after the election. However, as described in the resolution, the mayor’s duties would be essentially the same as they are right now.

Deputy City Attorney Randy Larkin said on the “Lawrence Asks Why” podcast that with the ordinance, “Absolutely they (the commissioners) could add duties and take duties away. They just can’t change the form of government without the people voting on it.”

And commissioners could only change so much about the mayor’s duties: Larkin said via email that “the Governing Body would not have the freedom to deviate from a ‘weak’ Mayor, that is a Mayor that only votes to break ties.”

“The Ordinance might establish duties for the Mayor (like presiding over meetings, signing ordinances, deeds, or contracts for the City, representing the City in ceremonies, etc.), but nothing that would disrupt or alter the framework established by the Resolution,” Larkin said.

What about the vice mayor position? Would it continue to exist, and what would its duties would look like? That would be another issue the commission would decide after the election if voters say yes to the change, Larkin said. It’s not mentioned in the resolution.

What would the commission districts look like?

If voters approve the ballot question, the commission would establish four geographic districts, each to be represented by one commissioner. Two commission seats and the mayor would still be elected at large, representing the whole city.

However, we have no idea what the district boundaries would look like. The maps can’t be drawn until after the election.

The city commission would vote on the boundaries, which would be included in the ordinance the commission would consider.

The districts would need to be compact, contiguous, and drawn along precinct boundary lines with as near to equal populations in each district as possible, Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew said.

“I’d be willing to, and would actually appreciate helping with that,” Shew said of the city’s mapping process — but there’s no requirement that Shew or his office be involved.

The districts would not have to take into account any demographics of the populations within them, Shew said.

In November 2022, voters by a margin of roughly 61% to 39% approved expanding the Douglas County Commission to five districts. That mapping process was on a tight timeline — it involved some public engagement, but ultimately the commission had to approve the map by Jan. 1, 2023.

Shew said the city doesn’t have quite the same restrictive timeline that the county had to follow because the city, in some ways, has home rule authority that the county did not. The resolution states that the maps would be in place by June 1, 2025. (The deadline to file to run for office would be noon Monday, June 2.)

The change would also mean that the city commission would become the city council.

“The difference between a ‘Council’ and a ‘Commission,’ under state law is that Commissioners represent the City at-large and Council Members represent wards or districts,” Larkin said. “Since the new government, if approved, would divide the City into 4 districts (even though 2 members would represent the City at-large), it would then become a City Council.”

What are some possible pros and cons of a directly elected mayor?

A nonvoting, directly elected mayor could be seen as a bit of a paradox: The voters would have a direct say in who they want to serve under the title of mayor, but at the same time, without the power to vote — likely on a majority of the issues — would that actually give voters any additional representation?

The potential pros and cons of a directly elected mayor have been under discussion at a few recent panels, including one held last week at the Lawrence Public Library.

• More engagement? John Nalbandian, a former city commissioner and professor emeritus at KU’s School of Public Affairs and Administration, said he has seen the interest in the upcoming election for Douglas County district attorney. He believes people are engaged and interested in the race, and he believes the direct election of a mayor could have the same benefit to the city, potentially raising visibility and leading to more focused conversations about policy.

• Less turnover? One concern the change would aim to alleviate is the frequency of turnover of the mayor position, as commissioners currently choose the mayor each year. But Courtney Shipley, a former city commissioner and co-host of the “Lawrence Asks Why” podcast, sees the status quo positively in this regard: If you have a bad mayor, a one-year stint is not as harmful as having a bad mayor for a four-year term.

Because one of the mayor’s duties is to recommend appointees for city advisory boards for the commission’s approval, and four years of one person making those appointments “could be problematic,” Shipley said. Also, she said if the commission wanted to select someone as mayor for more than one year, they could already do that without changing the form of government.

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• Special interest groups and corruption? Making the mayor position nonvoting would help mitigate concerns about one person getting too much power, but Shipley said she’s heard from special interest groups that this is something they want anyway.

“The perception of power becomes real, and we don’t want to find ourselves in a situation where mayors are making backroom deals or micromanaging staff around other commissioners or around the city manager. That’s corruption,” she said.

• More money in elections? In larger cities with directly elected mayors, campaigns can be very expensive. That could put the position out of reach for some people who otherwise might be able to prevail in the commission election, receiving the most votes to become mayor by tradition.

What are some possible pros and cons of districts?

• Easier to campaign? Nalbandian, who chaired a city task force that studied the form of government in 2021, said the task force had initially recommended the city move to six districts rather than the four districts and two at-large councilmembers voters are considering. He said the task force thought it would be easier and less expensive for candidates to campaign to represent a district rather than attempting to campaign across the entire city. (Read more about the task force in the articles at this link.)

• Potential for unequal representation of districts? Former city commissioner Mike Rundle pointed out that it would be possible for a majority of the council — 4 of 7 councilmembers — to be elected from one district. Hypothetically, the mayor, both at-large councilmembers and, of course, the District 1 councilmember could all live in District 1, which could raise concerns about representation of the rest of the city.

Although that may seem unlikely, commissioners have largely resided in the central and western portions of the city over the last decade-plus. See a map in this 2022 article.

• Less representation overall? Currently, all five city commissioners are — at least in theory — responsible for representing the interests of the entire city, not just their own neighborhoods. Even with two at-large commissioners and a directly elected mayor intending to represent the entire city, districts could limit constituents to fewer representatives willing to listen to them, and could pit commissioners against each other in ways the current commission does not generally experience.

• More division? Rundle said this community can fracture — “I think very unnecessarily” — along lines of neighborhood groups and environmental activists on one hand, and the business community on the other. He said he sees finding common ground as a survival mechanism, and it’s not fun to argue over every single public decision.

• Greater expense to the city. Currently, commissioners are each paid about $22,400 per year. Commissioners could vote to change their salaries, but if they stayed the same, the change would increase the annual city expenditure for commissioner salaries to $156,800 from $112,000.

How much do we know about what would change?

In casual conversations after last week’s panel at the library, voters questioned why this measure is on the ballot and reflected on the unknown. Some said they were inclined to vote “no” simply because they didn’t really understand what the question meant, and some seemed to resonate with Rundle’s message that the city government isn’t broken, so don’t fix it.

Some of it is about perspective, though. Nalbandian said that the way he sees it, he’s looking to maximize the powers of possibility about new things, whereas Shipley is looking at preventing bad things from happening.

Some voters have had questions about how much wiggle room the city commission would have if voters approve the change — for instance, is the current commission really bound by the resolution that was approved nearly two years prior?

Yes, according to Larkin, the deputy city attorney.

“There are some things for which the Governing Body would have some discretion in passing an ordinance establishing the new government, such as creating the four districts, assigning certain duties to the Mayor, assigning duties to the Council Members, and assigning duties to the City Manager,” he said. “However, those would mostly be cosmetic in nature and could not alter the framework (non-partisan elections, terms of office, number of Council Members, number of districts, weak Mayor, City Manager form of Government, etc.) set forth in the Resolution.”

The state statute “required the adoption of the Resolution that would include the ballot language, the number of members of the Governing Body, the terms of members of the Governing Body, and the format of the government,” Larkin said. “The Governing Body is not free to deviate from that Resolution after the election if the new government is approved by the voters.”

If one were to diagram the ballot question, asking to move to a “Modified Mayor-Council Manager form of government”:
• “Modified Mayor” refers to the nonvoting mayor;
• “Council” refers to the addition of districts under state statutes; and
• “Manager” means that the city manager would still be in charge of day-to-day operations of the city. That would not change.

So the ballot question does include all the elements the commissioners packed into Resolution 7442. It just doesn’t give voters the choice to pick which elements they want — it’s all or nothing.

But, as noted throughout this post, there are still a lot of unknowns.

It would be up to voters to stay engaged with the commission in the months following the election if a majority vote “yes” to the change in the form of government to ensure the ordinance that defines commissioners’ duties and district boundaries lines up with expectations and reflects voters’ wishes.

“The Ordinance will have to be approved by the Governing Body and the general public would be able to comment on the districts and the ordinance, itself, at the public hearing,” Larkin said.

Early voting is underway, and polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5. Read more about how to cast your ballot and options to vote early at this link.

(Info updated for timeliness on Oct. 23, 2024)

Have questions we didn’t answer here? Please get in touch.

Update: Where did this idea come from?

Shipley said during the library panel that community members, including Nalbandian, had floated the idea of a change of Lawrence’s form of government over at least 10 years or so. She said she and Commissioner Brad Finkeldei were willing to consider opening a community conversation about it. So they asked for a vote, and that’s how we ended up in this moment, she said.

The City Commission in February 2021 (shortly before this publication launched) approved a resolution to create a task force to study four topics: “(1) how to elect the nonpartisan mayor; (2) at large and/or district nonpartisan representation of commissioners, including the number of commissioners; (3) terms in office of the commissioners; and (4) such necessary subjects directly related to the specific topics listed herein.”

The 11-member task force, chaired by Nalbandian, met through the spring of 2021 and released draft recommendations in May 2021. Although city commissioners initially decided to defer instead of putting the form of government on the ballot in November 2022, they decided in February 2023 — with more time to educate the community about the possible change — to move forward with the resolution to put the question on the ballot for Nov. 5, 2024.

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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