Memorandum

City of Lawrence

TO:	Lawrence City Commission
FROM:	Vice Mayor Jeremy Farmer
DATE:	March 26, 2015
RE:	Capital Improvement Listening Sessions

Over the course of February, I participated with the Lawrence community in capital improvement listening sessions. There were four scheduled, and I also did one at the February LAN meeting. Those listening sessions were at these dates and times and locations:

6 p.m. Feb. 11 at the North Lawrence Depot;

7 p.m. Feb. 12 at the East Lawrence Recreation Center;

6 p.m. Feb. 16 at Fire Station No. 5;

6 p.m. Feb. 26 at Sports Pavilion Lawrence.

In addition to these listening sessions, I also had an online survey active, which 45 unique individuals filled out. There were about 20 other responses from people giving additional input, which has been incorporated into the survey response data document. That document can be viewed by clicking here.

Of these 45 individuals, when asked how they feel the City is doing in relationship to its capital improvement planning, the following responses were received:

8 were extremely disappointed

14 were disappointed

14 were neutral

7 were satisfied

1 was extremely satisfied

I had asked those who were present at the CIP listening sessions to breakdown their responses down into four categories. (One category was not available online, but was in the listening sessions after some suggestions were made by some citizens in relationship to things that had no categorical home).

Projects – what projects does the City need to undertake…building roads, infrastructure, public safety, etc.

Programs – what programs should the City invest in to help make Lawrence a better place to live, work and play?

People – What investments do we need to make to take care of people in our community?

Policies – What policy initiatives does the City need to address that it’s currently not addressing?

Each person who attended the listening sessions had three votes per category. Note: the LAN meeting did not have the policy category when we had discussion. The suggestion came after. Not everyone voted, and some votes are duplicated, because people attended multiple listening sessions. I did not add any of these items onto the lists, except for hunger, since it had not been mentioned, and that is the most important issue to me. I have taken the data for what each person voted for and compiled a report by site. I will leave the interpretation up to the community and the commission as to the interesting dynamics of what each site voted for.

Click here for input for projects

Click here for input on programs

Click here for input on people

Click here for input on policies

Next, I will highlight conversations had at each listening session per category and by their responses.

PROJECTS

LAN

Economic Development

· Bring inside of City Hall

· More good paying jobs

· Support small businesses

· Job training

· Tax policies need to be fair for all

Neighborhood

· Zoning and building large buildinds away from neighborhoods

· RS5 zoning is no good
Increase investment in CDBG Neighborhood Projects

· Have a program which helps people pay their water bill.

North Lawrence

Fiber

· Internet in Lawrence is slower…people will pay for more.

· Currently no competition. We need competition.

· Leading tech/KU/attracting retirees will be helped by fiber.

East Lawrence

Economic Development

· How do we put Lawrence on the map?

· What do we have to show for the investment of our economic development dollars?

· Identify a hole in the market and dedicate ourselves to being great at it.

· We have talented people, and lack opportunity for them.

· How would the City do ED? We have assumed it has to be done by the Chamber and no one has been given the option to have the conversation about it.

Public Transit

· Only bus route in East Lawrence goes to 9^th and Haskell

· Terrible connection downtown

· Where is the ridership?

· Put bus hub in the part of town where the ridership is.

Fire Station #5

Economic Development

· Ties back to the need to invest in small business and entrepeneurship/AG/BioScience/IT, etc.

· Growth is not happening in a way that benefits the community. Once incentives we make are gone, people will leave and go somewhere else.

· We are uninformed about what is happening with ED

· We need to clear up city policy and have everyone understand what the real goals are and hold people accountable to it

· Chamber hasn’t done a good job at educating people

· Accountability mechanisms

· Is what they said they would do really what the community needs?

· We have lots of talent, and we need to get in touch with it.

· Is “what they said they would do” really what the community needs?

Policy Facility

· We need to address mental health and healthcare as contributing factors as opposed to investing in police facility.

· If people would go on tours, they would see the need exists.

· This should have been invested in before anything else.

· We are telling our officers they aren’t important and we are going to lose them to other communities

· Female officers have no adequate facilities.

· Things need to be addressed…evidence storage is against City code.

Sports Pavilion Lawrence

Economic Development

· We need to stick to threshold for abatements

· More diverse business community

· What does a small business owner need?

· What are return on investments for the community?

· Modify EDC to qualify for HUD funding.

· Update ED policy

· Small business focus/broaden base

· Environmental design: active transportation & complete streets

· Have more taxable businesses

PROGRAMS

LAN

Neighborhood protection

· Don’t change parking requirements

· Planning as a part of CIP

· Planning staff does not protect neighborhoods

· Plans that are already in place aren’t honored

· Burroughs Creek Trail Plan

· Neighborhood plans

Sidewalks

· Related to protection of neighborhoods

North Lawrence

Sidewalks/Bikeability

· Have speed limits on the levee

· People aren’t used to need for sidewalks yet

· Trails are important because of a lack of sidewalks

· Requirements for trails

· Traffic signals at 15^th and 19^th are not used

· Too big and too elaborate

East Lawrence

Protection of neighborhoods

· Code enforcement is understaffed and lax and unprepared

· Department doesn’t seem to work

· Don’t have staff to go out and find things. Everythign is reactive.

· Dumpsters not retrieved, cars are out of date.

· Reports are made and nothing changes

· More outreach and due diligence is needed

· Planning is not protecting the interests of the neighborhoods

· Seems like we get more help from our neighbors than from City

· Cell tower was not looked into at all. Neighbors saved the day.

Sidewalks/Bikeability

· It affects who we want to attract to our community

· Addressing it in piece mail

· Affects quality of life

· Bike lines don’t mean tthey’re safe places to ride

· Burroughts Creek Trail needs to connect to downtown and Pinckney Neighborhood

· We need a bridge from Delaware to 7^th Street for bikes/peds.

· Need bike/transit coordinator

· Look at what Lincoln is doing.

· Can’t use bike lanes or sidewalks most places in EL.

Fire Station #5

Entrepreneurship

· City policy for ED focus on big businesses.

· Change city policy to focus on small business and social entrepreneurship

Better Public Relations from City Hall

· Journal World controls the message

· Disconnect between LJW and what is actually happening

· We don’t know what things exist and what studies happen

· How do we reach the older population? Don’t have access to email, social media, etc.

· Suggested 1x per quarter EDDM to every household.

Sidewalks/Bikeability

· 20 bike lanes in 1 parking spot

· Overabundance with a focus on cars – we need to give people an accessibility choice, right now they don’t have one.

· Walking 30 minutes a day is the same as taking an anti-depressant

· We need to persuade people to change

· We need an overall plan

· Priority that is currently being addressed

· No sidewalk trail system that is connected.

· How much has the City spent in Complete Streets?

Sports Pavilion Lawrence

Fiber

· Bringing fiber to City would promote ED

· Public utility with broadband (would generate revenue & jobs)

· Ubiquotous wifi

· Reduce cell phone usage

· Access is important

Sidewalks/Bikeability/Complete Streets

· Connectivity

· Safe Routes to Schools

· More we invest in non motorized transportation (NMT) infrastructure, we are making investments in our communities neighborhood schools.

· Wanting City to take care of the whole system

· $47 million asset value of sidewalks

· Where are people’s expectations?

· How much spending per capita system wide on NMT infrastructure?

· How much does it cost to build the community that we want?

· NMT as attraction for ED.

POLICIES

LAN

This was not a category in the LAN meeting when it was held.

North Lawrence

Banning plastic bags

· Providing boxes like other stores do in town

· Providing incentives for people to bring bags like Hy-Vee, Natural Grocers and the Mercado-Look at what San Francisco & Madison, WI do.

· Ask grocery stores for input

· Education for other community members

· Palatable for people to be charged for plastic bags

· What do stores do with bags? Recycling program?

Honor resolution 7070

· 2% for art that applies to CIP’s

East Lawrence

No time for discussion on this issue.

Fire Station #5

Establish or reinforce minority contracting for all capital improvement projects

· State minority and women classification for bids and projects

· Trying to get data regarding minority contracting.

· What policy do we currently have?

· What is racial and gender makeup of contracts we award?

· Do we have a policy to support disadvantaged businesses?

Establish or reinforce data/race & gender regarding recoupment fees for jail

· Jail and attorney fees: what % of budget is it? Who are we impacting with that policy?

· Are these fees another punishment?

· Increase what you focus on will be an increase in that area

· “Alternative routes” needed

· Data collection needs to be aggregated in a way to define disproportionate impact and disparities.

Sports Pavilion Lawrence

Cultural Planning

· We need to do a better job hiring/recruiting/training

· Tied in with ED policies at the state level

· More communication regarding town/gown issue

· Generational differences

Open data policy

· Making data available to public better

· Having community indicators

· Access to data that can be manipulated and repurposed

· It’s the publics data, staff is merely a resource