The resounding sentiment from public commenters and board members at Thursday’s sustainability advisory board meeting was that Lawrence needs to be thinking about the environment at every possible level.
The board advanced a list of possible sustainability policies for community feedback, and the public delivered, between 11 speakers and four written comments.
Dominique Sexton put a challenge to the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Board to seed greater infrastructure throughout the city for environmental policies, starting with the upcoming strategic plan.
“I do worry that we’re not thinking big enough,” Sexton said. “… But are we actually trying to implement the understanding of sustainability and the environmental importance at every single level of our society?”
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She suggested integrating sustainability approaches into affordable housing and business incentives in a comment that multiple other speakers resonated with.
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“Can we start building some infrastructure and implementing it in different aspects of the city to gain legitimacy?” she asked.
Jane Cotitta was one of multiple public commenters who stood behind a proposal to get rid of the single-species grass lawns on municipal properties in favor of native plants and prairie.
“Lawrence currently spends significant taxpayer dollars maintaining nonrecreational fescue monocultures across many city properties,” Cotitta said. “This practice contradicts our Climate Protection Plan goals that the city published years ago.”
Fostering native prairie would combat urban heat while improving stormwater resilience and air quality, Cotitta said.
“Current height restrictions penalize beneficial native landscapes,” she said. “We need clear legal exemptions for intentionally managed native restoration plots.”
Multiple speakers also advocated for solar and more expansive transit networks.
Michael Almon, of the Sustainability Action Network, felt that Lawrence’s transit system is insufficient and “not fast enough and nimble enough.”
“We’re proposing, and I propose, is that the city budget get rid of the 40-foot buses, have quarter-size or half-size cutaway buses that have frequency of routes 15 minutes or less,” he said.
Dwight Dare and others asked about a commuter rail between Lawrence and Kansas City.
“It gets cars off the road and helps clean up our air,” he said. “It’s also convenient.”
He said no transportation system in the world is perfect.
“But by using rail, you take a lot of cars off the road,” he said. “You’re helping the state lower its cost of maintenance on highways and bridges.”
Following public comment, board member Joseph Fearn underpinned Sexton’s request for a holistic approach to sustainability as the board discussed the need to get involved in the city’s strategic planning process.
Fearn spoke from his experience as the head groundskeeper at the University of Kansas.
“Having this destination in mind, this functional, comprehensive, all-inclusive, interrelated, sustainable system is essential,” he said. “… I just watched KU do their master plan, and I don’t believe that it pushed in that direction hard enough. It pushed in development direction.”
He added, “If it isn’t a broad desire of the master planning entity to be sustainable in all its guises, it’s not going to be.”
Fearn leaned into ideas like expanding urban green spaces and ending the grass monoculture at municipal buildings in favor of native prairie. He also underlined the benefits of supporting state legislative action to build allies and community.
Board members Joshua Roundy and Nancy Muma were drawn to proposals such as a styrofoam ban, expanding urban green spaces and a “by-request” policy where businesses only give out single-use plastics if a customer specifically asks.
Muma also favored an anti-idling policy that would prevent trucks, buses and heavy equipment from idling near schools for too long.
Board members decided that they would pull the salient points from the evening into a one-page document for review at the next meeting. They also said they want to get involved with the upcoming strategic plan, Vision 2030, which the city plans to implement by the end of this year.
Kathy Richardson, the city’s director of sustainability, said that environmental sustainability is one of the six key commitments the city made in the 2020 strategic plan, and it will be baked into the upcoming one, as well.
She also highlighted ways for the board and community members to get involved in the planning process. Read more about that in this article.
The city will post details about the August ESAB meeting, including a time, location and agenda, on this page. People can watch the full Thursday meeting on the city’s YouTube at this link.
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at [email protected].
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