Note: The Lawrence Times runs opinion columns and letters to the Times written by community members with varying perspectives on local issues. These pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Times staff.
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We are grateful for the broad civic engagement in the city’s budget process for 2026 by both individuals and groups of Lawrence residents, despite resistance and obfuscation by the city manager’s office. No matter what the final version of next year’s operating expenses are, city taxpayers will have provided clarity, priorities and solutions towards solving an unacceptable deficit in fiscal management of our city’s budget.
We are dismayed that our city manager and staff are not being forthright and transparent with Lawrence residents, or the city commissioners who represent us, with timely or accurate budgetary information.
We, as 34-year homeowners and longtime civic activists, believe nothing is a bargain using (or borrowing against) money we don’t have. Worse yet, to take out more debt to pay the interest accrued from older debt is simply unconscionable.
1. We believe it is disingenuous of the city to claim a static property mill levy while assessments increase year after year. And to anticipate those increases as a basis for more debt is foolish and shortsighted.
2. We believe it is deception to present an open public budgetary survey while withholding the largest portions of expenses from public review or comment.
3. And we believe it is bordering on professional misconduct to deny access to data and information being used to present the 2026 budget to taxpayers who have demonstrated a clear and legitimate reason for asking.
Finally, we are disappointed that our city commission went on a spending spree of almost $200M in approved debt in the last two years alone. Now our city manager proposes to commit everyone to another $126M of new debt in 2026?
— John Richardson and Deborah Snyder (he and she), founding members, Centennial Neighborhood Association, Lawrence
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Tom Harper/Lawrence Times
Max Kautsch: In loco parentis, or just plain loco – Surveilling Kansas students doesn’t make sense (Column)
“The outcome of the case will depend largely on whether the district can show that implementing software designed to monitor students the way it did was closely related enough to an important government interest — namely, student safety — to justify Gaggle’s intrusion into the students’ lives,” Max Kautsch writes in this Kansas Reflector column.
