After considering community input, Lawrence’s sustainability board finalized the environmental goals they will advance with the city commission in hopes that they’ll be embedded in the city’s 2030 strategic plan.
The board chair and vice chair will implement edits the group discussed during a Thursday meeting before sending it to commissioners.
Environmental Sustainability Advisory Board members started considering possible policies or sustainability actions the city could meld into the strategic plan around their June meeting. They encouraged increased public comment on the topic in July, and the community members who spoke or wrote in overwhelmingly favored weaving sustainability initiatives into cross-departmental city efforts.
Vision 2030, the city’s upcoming strategic plan, is meant to guide community outcomes, organizational commitments and performance measures over the next five years.
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The current strategic plan, adopted in October 2020, lists environmental sustainability as a citywide commitment.
“We consider the environmental consequences of every decision, big and small, knowing that our actions have impacts beyond our boundaries,” the plan reads. “We protect and restore our ecosystem to make it healthier and more balanced for future generations.”
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Thursday night, the board finished edits on the priorities document. Composting food waste was one of the many ideas they will advance.
Kathy Richardson, the city’s director of sustainability, said the city’s compost facility only accepts yard waste material, like grass, leaves, branches, tree trunks and more.
“There’s conversations as part of the solid waste master plan on whether or not the city could also collect things like food waste material,” she said. “I think that’s the biggest conversation and where we get a lot of feedback from restaurants and other businesses as well as our residents.”
Members also wanted to increase recycling at commercial businesses and apartment complexes.
Board Chair Nany Muma said they’d heard from consultants that “the streams from these apartments were terribly contaminated and really not used well.”
Board Vice Chair Patrick Ross said that’s a communication issue.
“I wouldn’t say let’s not recycle at apartments just because people weren’t using it properly,” he said. “I would say we need to educate and instruct people on how to properly use it, and my guess is they would.”
The document includes a section entitled “Education & Public Engagement,” which encourages increased community outreach and participation. Although board meetings are livestreamed to YouTube, Ross suggested they might reach more people by streaming on other platforms, like TikTok or Instagram.
Dominique Sexton, a new board member, hoped to track how much money in the city’s budget goes to sustainability initiatives.
Richardson is the sole employee in the city’s sustainability department. Her annual operating budget went from around $35,000 in 2025 to $4,000 in 2026. But in a previous meeting, Richardson said money spent on environmental initiatives is difficult to track, as multiple departments do sustainability work outside of the $4,000 she is allotted.
“One of the things that I notice just generally is when whenever the economy goes down, environmental sustainability focus goes down,” Sexton said.
“I think it would be important to have that information just to show that it’s not disposable,” she continued. “… We should not get rid of environmental sustainability when we’re feeling budgetary crunches, because these things provide benefits that cannot necessarily be quantified into dollars.”
Watch the full meeting on 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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