Democrat and incumbent Shannon Reid and Independent Brad Chun are running to represent Douglas County Commission District 2.

The candidates shared their top reasons for running, how they’d aim to lower property taxes and more.

Reid won the Aug. 6 primary election. Chun filed to run through a petition on Aug. 2. The two will face off in the Tuesday, Nov. 5 general election.

Primary candidates’ questionnaires initially ran ahead of the primary election, but we gave candidates a chance to update their answers for the general election. 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, Oct. 16. Voters can request a ballot to vote early by mail through Tuesday, Oct. 29 at KSVotes.org. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day, which is Tuesday, Nov. 5.

Find out more 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.

Chun: I have experience as a taxpayer and business owner, also, I have experience in planning, crafting, estimating and bidding from working my way up from the shop floor to the offices of a cabinet shop and construction firm.

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.

Chun:
Property taxes: We can reduce the tax burden on residents by lowering both residential and commercial property taxes, expanding the commercial tax base, by volume, and by eliminating unnecessary spending from the County budget.

Representation: We can restore the trust between constituents and the County Government by coming before the people for any large project, holding more town hall style meetings, and changing meeting procedures to allow for more public input and answering questions posed by constituents in a timely and respectful manner. Commissioners should spend as much time in the community gathering opinions and expertise from the county’s knowledgeable constituents as we do when campaigning. We should return to the original job description of being the peoples representatives, by providing true oversight and exhausting every opportunity to listen and learn all the facts and ramifications before any decisions are made, letting constituents weigh in, and if necessary, bringing large projects before the people for a vote.

Accountability and transparency: We have a duty to always remember that the County government is the steward of the people’s money, and that the money does not belong to the government after taxes are collected. I believe that the main job of the Board Of County Commissioners is to hold the County Administration, and each other, accountable by calling for more transparency, so that constituents are informed before consenting to actions taken by the board related to spending the peoples tax dollars.

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.

Chun: Douglas County property taxes are rising at an unsustainable rate. To relieve the burden off of taxpayers, we must lower the residential and commercial property taxes to levels that protect the security of residents, and promote the growth of the commercial sector, relying on the volume of taxable entities instead of dollars per taxpayer. We have an opportunity drastically lower the mil levy as well as to opt out of the current mass appraisal system that is currently valuing our properties to unreasonable levels. These measures should be coupled with reviewing the county budget to identify and remove unnecessary spending and producing a budget that more aligns with actual spending and ending the practice of overbilling to grow the reserve funds.

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

Chun: 4

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

Chun: 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.

Chun: I support the Commissioners decision to adopt the 2500 foot setbacks in the wind energy regulations. I would have pushed for more setback distance, but was satisfied that the people were listened to in that particular case.

I whole-heartedly disapprove of of the BOCC moving forward with granting the conditional use permit for the Kansas Sky Energy Center. This action did not take into consideration the necessary storm water drainage infrastructure that is still lacking in the area that will be most affected by the project. Granting this permit ignored the plight of the residents of North Lawrence who are in danger of another catastrophic flood like the flood of 1993. On top of that, I believe it is in the peoples best interest to preserve the 600 acres of prime farmland that would be the projects site, protecting the environment and future food security. The Board of County Commissioners seem to be more concerned about protecting the energy companies’ desires for the convenience of being close to the substation infrastructure than being concerned with protecting the interests and investments of its constituents.

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.

Chun: Are you willing to have the difficult conversations and to ask the hard questions that we will have to ask, in our search for the best path forward, to ensure prosperity and security for the residents of Douglas County?

All day long. Let’s do this!

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.

Chun: I am a true independent and do not follow any party platform and do not take any direction from any group except the people of Douglas County as a whole. I believe in the power of representative government and will vote against my own feelings if I feel it is truly what the majority of District 2 wants, and will have no problem saying so. I hope to engage with constituents on the same level as I am now, while campaigning, in order to truly serve District 2 and the people of Douglas County as a representative and not as a leader with an agenda.

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

Chun:

Favorite color? Blue-green

Zodiac sign? Capricorn

Do you have any pets, and/or what’s your favorite animal? We have two cats. I like cats and dogs alike and often consider them friends and family.

What’s a fun fact our readers may not know about you? (Have a hidden talent? Interesting hobby?) I went to school to be an illustrator before finding glassblowing.

Favorite book, TV show and/or movie? My favorite book is “God Emperor of Dune,” Favorite movie is “The Revenant”

Do you have a favorite quote that inspires you in running for office or serving your community that you’d like to share? “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” – C.S. Lewis

This post is by the Lawrence Times news team.

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