New Lawrence advocacy group aims to increase involvement in local government decisions

Some Lawrence residents are forming a new advocacy group urging the city to increase community engagement and transparency.

The Coalition for Collaborative Governance is spearheaded by Holly Krebs, a Lawrence resident and former planning commission member.

Krebs said her onus for creating the coalition came after frustrations with the community engagement process during discussion over a renovation to the outdoor pool in the fall. 

Coalition members said the city is not consistently living up to its own strategic plan, which calls for meaningful public engagement. The group has gathered an early team of supporters and plans to analyze city projects and advocate at public meetings. 

“Based on my research and my experience, I don’t trust that residents’ opinions are heard and reflected in city decisions,” Krebs said. “I want this to change so our community truly reflects our residents’ priorities.”

Krebs has a background in public policy and local government, but stepped away from everyday engagement when she switched careers and had children. This fall, when city commissioners voted to approve a renovated outdoor pool that would have cut swim space roughly in half, Krebs found herself back at public meetings and writing letters to commissioners as she sought to preserve the space where she regularly took her family. 

“We want input at the first draft, not at the final draft,” Krebs said. 

After successfully urging the city to rework its pool renovation plans, Krebs heard from other community members with similar experiences feeling they had been left out of important city decisions. 

For Bill Steele, it was a parking lot project in the Hillcrest neighborhood. He said he and his neighbors weren’t properly notified as the project moved along, and despite their complaints, the project was approved. 

He said he joined the coalition because he wants to ensure city government outcomes reflect the community’s desires. He said they feel the problem is systemic and requires rethinking the process for community engagement. 

“Our leaders claim to hear our voices, but they don’t often act on them,” Steele said. “You know, it makes us wonder if they’re really listening or just pretending to listen.”

Cori Wallace, the city’s director of communications and community relations, said the city has communicated with the coalition, which has helped the city continue to discuss ways to improve its community engagement efforts. She said the goal of community engagement is to identify solutions together.  

“The belief that you meaningfully influenced a project is powerful in building trust and a sense of community,” Wallace said. “The City can and will offer enhanced opportunities to participate in more convenient ways in the coming months.”

Wallace said the city is working on new ways to foster a sense of co-creation in city projects, where community members play a role in the development of a project. She said the city is working on a new website page where residents can give input on city projects and launching a community engagement newsletter this summer. 

“Transparency and collaboration go hand in hand with trust-building,” she said.

Vice Mayor Brad Finkeldei has known Krebs since they served on the planning commission together nearly 20 years ago. He said he was excited people wanted to get more involved in local government. 

Finkeldei said he works to balance lots of factors when making decisions: diverging community opinions, experts in the field and his own assessment. While he aims to listen and value everyone, he recognized that sometimes people won’t agree with the decisions the commission makes.

“I see this as people in our community wanting to work to make our system better,” he said. “… To me, it’s a positive, not an attack on us or attack on the system. We all agree we can always be better.” 

Commissioner Amber Sellers said she’s proud of the work Wallace is doing and pleased with what has been implemented and what’s being developed.

“I am committed to Lawrence being a model city on how co-governance can successfully be implemented,” she said.

Sara Taliaferro has a background in community engagement and is a specialist in public participation. She joined the coalition because she wanted to help ensure diverse voices are being heard in government, something she said was a key principle of democracy.

She said the group itself models the kind of characteristics they are asking the city to display: listening, respect and empathy.  

“We are building trust and respect in our conversations and we’re learning together,” Taliaferro said. “We’re not treating some people as experts and kind of downplaying the importance of people showing up with lived experience.”

Coalition members said they hope the group, as it grows, will help create a system where community members work closer with local government officials to craft public policy. 

“I hope that more people show up to work with our local governments, who in turn hold trust and understanding in great care,” Taliaferro said. 

The group’s website, as of Friday, lists about five dozen community members as coalition supporters as well as some community representatives and coalition volunteers.

Mayor Mike Dever and Commissioners Bart Littlejohn and Lisa Larsen did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.

Note: This post has been corrected from a previous version.

Cuyler Dunn (he/him), a contributor to The Lawrence Times since April 2022, is a student at the University of Kansas School of Journalism. He is a graduate of Lawrence High School where he was the editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, The Budget, and was named the 2022 Kansas High School Journalist of the Year. Read his complete bio here. Read more of his work for the Times here.

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