Candidates for the city commission and school board at a forum Wednesday pledged to ensure transparency and improve collaboration between local government branches.
The forum was organized by the Coalition for Collaborative Governance, a local advocacy group pushing for increased community engagement and transparency in local government. It featured questions centered on transparency and collaboration in governance for all seven candidates for the school board and all four candidates for the city commission.
Some local advocates and community members have criticized transparency in recent city government decisions.
Lawrence City Commission
Kristine Polian, Mike Courtney, Bob Schumm and Bart Littlejohn all advanced from the Aug. 5 primary and will face off for two Lawrence City Commission seats in the Nov. 4 general election.
Littlejohn, the sole incumbent in the race, said he tries to take in as many different perspectives as possible when making decisions, including from city staff, past commission meetings and public input.
He said he wants to have more meetings with the school district and county to collaborate and highlighted some ideas brought up by candidates for more economic and community collaboration between the city and schools.
He highlighted the city’s hiring of staff focused on community engagement.
Schumm said his goal is to get as much technical data as possible on an issue and be available to talk to community members to get their opinion. He said transparency and collaboration build trust.
“I’ve learned to keep an open mind in all instances,” Schumm said. “Fact-based data is very important to me in order to form the best opinion.”
He said when it comes to raising taxes, people don’t care as much who raised it, so local government entities need to work together.
Polian said the biggest job for an elected official is to represent the community. She said her research experience combined with public input would guide her decisions. She said lots of people don’t know their taxes are paid to three local governing bodies and the state.
She said right now, the community doesn’t trust the city government due to a lack of transparency. She said she has worked with the Coalition for Collaborative Governance.
“We are the ones that are costing everybody money,” Polian said of taxing entities. “And if we’re not paying attention to how everyone is managing things and what pitfalls might be coming, we are going to actually potentially cost people even more money.”
Courtney said he wanted to see more engagement at public events. He outlined a set of specific ideas to engage more of the community, like reaching them at local sporting events or in the pickup line at school.
He said this was a moment for a reset to ensure local government bodies are meeting together. He said if he is elected, he’ll work with the school board to set up regular meetings, which could benefit both bodies.
Courtney thanked the Coalition for Collaborative Governance for their work to bring light to city governance. He said the group provided data to support his feeling of a lack of affordability in town.
Courtney, Polian and Schumm answered additional questions from the Coalition for Collaborative Governance in writing. Those answers can be found here.
Lawrence school board
Three incumbents, Kelly Jones, Shannon Kimball and Bob Byers, will face four challengers, ChrisTopher Enneking, Matt Lancaster, Pam Shaw and Molly Starr in the Nov. 4 general election. Three will be elected to the volunteer positions.
Byers previously served on the school board from 2009-2013. He said at that time, the board met with the city and county commissions frequently, but he hasn’t done so during his more recent stint on the board began in mid-2023.
He said he makes decisions by combining a focus on what benefits the community at large and what benefits children in schools. Byers said using data and statistics is valuable. But he encouraged people to come to school programs and open houses to get a clear look at the education happening in the district.
Enneking grew up in Lawrence and is a product of Lawrence Public Schools. He said he was already working to ensure transparency by leveraging a network of community members and hosting town halls. He also advocated for a system where students can provide more input on their classroom experiences.
He said he has spoken with all of the city commission candidates to discuss how to best collaborate to provide spaces for students and leverage the schools to stimulate economic growth and build faith in local education.
“We need to be able to be the ones that are modeling for our kids that they can be fearless when expressing their distress,” he said.
Jones discussed some ways she had focused on collaboration, including her work developing the district’s equity and cell phone policy with community input.
She said city and county leaders meet regularly with the superintendent. She took the chance while standing next to city commissioners to ask them to promote proactive growth and protect local neighborhoods. She said they need to work with the city to pull families to Lawrence instead of surrounding areas with more lenient codes.
She said she had worked to make sure the budget was transparent to the teachers’ union.
Lancaster said he wanted to ensure people knew how to interact with the school board and encourage people to attend school board meetings. He said he wanted to meet people where they are.
“Not only do we have that shared accountability, but we also have the efficacy to get the thing done,” he said. “I also think that it invites a diversity of perspective.”
He said holding joint town halls and creating a system to consult with each other could help governing bodies work together. He referenced the massive KU Athletics donation that was announced just one day after the city approved tax breaks for the new football stadium.
Starr said she wanted to reimplement past programs that helped people get engaged and have casual conversations with board members where they can ask questions.
She said the school board should have a standing meeting with the city commission and should have a liaison to go to city meetings. She said she wanted to represent and include people who haven’t previously been involved with local schools.
“I think transparency allows people to connect with resources,” Starr said.
Shaw said she was a proud graduate of Kansas public schools. She said listening, open communication and ensuring the board and community have aligned goals is crucial. She said she believes in the power of data for transparency and advocated for user-friendly data dashboards.
She said she would advocate for collaborative budgeting to explore cost sharing options for mental health support, transportation and other services.
“The city and school district must work together to identify shared priorities, especially those that impact students, such as health, safety and access to opportunity,” she said.
Kimball has worked in public education and served on the school board for more than a decade. She said listening to people in whatever way they choose to get engaged is important. She said she has had to draw some boundaries in terms of communication access because of poor behavior at board meetings.
“We have had a very small, but very loud, group of public commenters who have, quite frankly, refused to follow the very minimal rules that we set for our limited public forum that is public comment,” Kimball said. “And because of that, there’s been an ongoing effort to intimidate and harass board members over our attempts to enforce those rules within our board meeting.”
She said the current environment is one of information overload, so one key to transparency is figuring out how people want to receive information. She said improving communication was one of her campaign goals in her last election.
She said she welcomes greater collaboration with city and county partners. She said in her time working on the school board she has tried working with the city but that it has been a frustrating experience.
“I don’t feel that, often, the city and the county look at the school district as a government entity partner,” Kimball said. “And so I think that is a fundamental thing that needs to change.”
Kimball pointed out that the school board doesn’t have control over its revenue streams in the same way the city and county does.
Shaw, Starr and Byers answered additional questions from the Coalition for Collaborative Governance in writing, which can be found here.
Past forums
Lawrence City Commission candidate forums:
• Former mayors’ forum, part 1:
Candidates for Lawrence City Commission address annexation, homelessness during forum, Sept. 17 —
Click here for the article and audio recording; click here to open the audio recording in YouTube
• Former mayors’ forum, part 2:
Lawrence City Commission candidates address tax breaks, debt financing during forum, Sept. 22 —
Click here for the article and audio recording; click here to open the audio recording in YouTube
• Lawrence Board of Realtors and Lawrence Home Builders Association:
Candidates for Lawrence City Commission offer ideas on housing development at forum, Sept. 24 —
Click here for the article and audio recording; click here to open the audio recording in YouTube
• Speed campaign event:
Voters meet Lawrence City Commission candidates at ‘speed campaign’ event, July 19 —
Click here for the article
School board candidate forums:
• Women for Kansas, League of Women Voters of Lawrence-Douglas County and NAACP:
School board candidates address future of Lawrence Public Schools at forum, Sept. 7 —
Click here for the article; click here to see a video recording by Jerry Jost on YouTube
More resources to learn about the candidates
• Our election coverage: See it all at lawrencekstimes.com/election2025.
• Our YouTube playlist of candidate forums and more can be found at this link.
• Lawrence Chamber of Commerce: The chamber has asked the Lawrence City Commission a series of “business-minded questions.” See their answers on video:
— Part 1: Why they decided to run; barriers to economic growth; skills required of an effective commissioner — watch on YouTube
— Part 2: How they’d improve the development process; Project 2040 — watch on YouTube
— Part 3: To be released at youtube.com/@LawrenceKSChamber
How and when to vote
Read more from the candidates in our introductory questionnaire.
Douglas County voters can register quickly, update their registration and/or request a mail ballot online at KSVotes.org.
Oct. 14 is the deadline to register to vote or update voter registration for the general election. Advance in-person voting runs from Oct. 15 to noon Nov. 3. Folks can apply for an advance ballot to vote by mail through Oct. 28.
Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day, which is Tuesday, Nov. 4.
Visit the county website, dgcoks.gov, for more voting information.
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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.
More Election 2025 coverage:
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