July 31st, 2024 Newsletter

Commission Work Highlights

Tax relief: We dug into the budget and expect to turn back nearly $6 million to Douglas County taxpayers with an unprecedented 3 mill reduction to our taxing authority for 2025. This meant saying no to a lot of great supplemental requests from departments and nonprofit partners. However, we did build in expansions for the Lawrence Douglas County Fire Medical that may need to adjust depending on actions by the City of Lawrence. All this is tentative until we certify our budget on August 28.

Open Space: Federal APRA dollars will be used for improvements to public facilities at Lone Star Lake Park including new picnic shelters and added facilities on the west shore. Enhancing current parks and open space is a top priority of the newly adopted Open Space Plan.

In the Community

Oak Hill Cemetery: Many of you know about my deep love of Douglas County history. On July 23rd I was able to indulge in a work day at Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence as part of a huge outreach led by Atlas Preservation.

VanGo: I was honored to attend the annual VanGo Benchmark celebration on July 26th where 21 awesome youth entrepreneurs unveiled their custom benches created for area clients. It was a great follow up to the chance to share a meal and tour the program with those same entrepreneurs last week! My friend Harriet Browne joined us to share about opportunities for teens to visit Ghana.

Community policing: The Department of Justice and our local NAACP chapter collaborated with the Lawrence Police Department to lead the first of two community conversations around policing. On July 27th over 80 of us gathered to identify top concerns/opportunities. Please join us Aug 3rd at LHS for the followup meeting to outline solutions and next steps.