CITY MANAGER’S REPORT

Week ending May 22, 2015

 

 

Kasold Drive Reconstruction

The City of Lawrence will hold an open house to discuss the Kasold Drive Reconstruction Project (Project Number PW1505) on May 27, 2015 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Christ Community Church, 1100 Kasold Drive.   The attached mailing was sent out to interested parties.

 

Solid Waste Division Receives Award

The City of Lawrence Solid Waste Division received the Excellence In Program Operations Award at the 2015 American Public Works Association (APWA) Kansas Chapter Conference in Manhattan, Kansas on May 14th. Kathy Richardson, Solid Waste Manager, and Craig Pruett, Solid Waste Operations Supervisor, attended the awards ceremony and received the award on behalf of the all the Solid Waste Division staff (see attached). The award was for the city’s solid waste management program and successful public engagement, automation, and recycling advances.

 

Freestate Festival Update

The 2015 Freestate Festival, June 22 – 28, 2015, was approved by the City Commission on March 24, 2015. As part of the festival, the organizers have added a few additional items, including a sidewalk chalk event, placing skid resistant vinyl lettering on the sidewalks at various locations as advertising, and have some GOBO’s, light reflected images, on the sidewalk (see the attached request and location of each of these)

 

In addition, they have requested some additional reserved parking spaces due to the popularity of their event, more specifically the outdoor concert Wednesday June 23, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic.

 

City staff met with the event organizers and reviewed the additional reserved parking request with no issues noted. The event organizers have notified all the adjacent property owners about the sidewalk chalk and vinyl lettering. We have not received any negative comments related to this.

 

Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit Opens as Part of Final Fridays Event

The opening reception and tour for the 27th Annual Downtown Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition will take place Friday, May 29 at 5:30 p.m. beginning at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire. This year’s events will be held in conjunction with other Final Friday’s activities in downtown Lawrence.

 

The reception will include remarks by this year’s juror for the exhibition, Bill Haw, who owns and operates Haw Contemporary in Kansas City. This year’s exhibition includes sculptures from artists throughout the region. The artists and sculptures represented in this year’s exhibition include:        

 

“Silueta”  V. Skip Willits

 “Wedges 3” Matt Moyer

 “Fault Plane”   Kristin Garnant

“Orange Kubota Dinosaur” Matt Moyer

“Point in Time” V. Skip Willits

 “Homage to L’Homme Qui Marche” John Merigian

 “bench (basics)” Matthias Neumann

 “INTERCESSION 13 (Yang)” Nancy Lovendahl

 

The reception will be followed by a walking tour of the sculptures in the downtown area. The event will be held rain or shine and is free and open to the public.  An online tour of the sculptures is available on the city’s website, https://www.lawrenceks.org/boards/lawrence-cultural-arts-commission/publicart/sculpture

 

For more information, call Porter Arneill, Director of Arts and Culture (785) 832-3413

 

Retirement Surprise for LPRD Fitness Instructor

A surprise retirement reception was held for Vicki Lysen, after 29 years of teaching fitness classes for Lawrence Parks & Recreation.  See attached for more information.