Douglas County Commission candidates answered questions from the community about data centers, property taxes and transparency at a candidate forum Sunday evening.
The forum was based entirely on audience members’ questions with event organizers not having prewritten questions for candidates.
Hosted by the Douglas County Rural Preservation Association, invited candidates included incumbent Patrick Kelly and challenger Milton Scott, who are both running as Democrats for District 1; incumbent Gene Dorsey and Ethan Spurling, running as Democrats in the District 4 primary; and incumbent Erica Anderson, a Democrat, and Kirsten Kuhn, a Libertarian, in the District 5 race.
Property taxes
The first question referenced increased property taxes, asking candidates what three Douglas County expenditures they would cut to alleviate high property taxes.
Dorsey said he would want to reduce county commissioner salaries and tie them to the starting salary of Lawrence Public Schools teachers, because he said they do just as important of work.
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Spurling said he would support decoupling county commission salary raises from being automatic to match the top merit rate that county employees can get.
Kelly said there would be more than three things to cut from the budget, and that it would take sitting down with community partners to see what can be cut from their budgets.
Scott said there are capital improvements that can be put off while every aspect of the budget is examined. He also said there needs to be accountability for services’ spending and their intended outcomes.
Anderson said there is room for improvement in accountability of services in the budget. She also said when thinking about budget issues, voters should remember Douglas County includes more than just Lawrence.
Kuhn said she would cut commissioner salaries, hiring consultants and grants funded by taxpayer dollars. She said she would be transparent about her thoughts on spending and budgets if elected.
Data centers
Questions about data centers included concerns of opportunity for public input, potential regulations and a permanent moratorium.
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Kuhn said she is not in favor of large data centers and is in favor of putting regulations to ban them.
Anderson said she will continue to call for a “real” moratorium on data centers while a policy is developed that the county passes. She said the community needs to “develop guardrails together.”
Scott said the county is not the place for data centers and said he has been concerned about them for some time.
Kelly said he doesn’t think the county has the resources to support a hyper-scale data center but said tight regulations should be put in place.
Spurling said community members should “voice your perspective at every opportunity there is and that you can create.” He said he would support any regulation on data centers, including a full moratorium.
Dorsey said there is not a place in the county where there are “high capacity power lines, fiber optic cable, and a lot of water” all in one place. He said water would be the biggest issue with data centers. He said he’s in favor of banning them.
Transparency and accountability
An attendee asked the candidates about their thoughts on transparency in decisions made behind closed doors.
Kelly said he encourages voters to reach out to him once budget meetings begin in a few weeks if they want more transparency in budget decisions.
Scott said that commissioners should be held accountable for decisions they make, particularly with budget management.
Anderson said the county needs more transparency, particularly in specific changes to any budgets. She also said she wants to see more transparency from county staff who work with commissioners.
Kuhn said she thinks transparency is one of the biggest issues in county government. She referenced that it was difficult to find information she wanted from past meetings on any local government websites.
Spurling said transparency is core to government and the budget process should be “long and deliberative.” He said everybody should have a seat at the table and have access to all of the information to have an informed opinion and perspective.
The deadline to register to vote or update voter information in Douglas County is July 14. Douglas County voters can update their info online at KSVotes.org.
Advance voting begins July 15.
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Maya Smith (she/her), reporting intern, has worked with The Lawrence Times since February 2026. She was born and raised in Lawrence and is a journalism student at the University of Kansas. She works at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications as a communications assistant and has been a freelance reporter for the Kansas Reflector since 2024. Read her work for the Times at this link.
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