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The City of Lawrence’s Utility Billing division has changed to a new payment processor, which has two new improvements for those who use the service.
Lower fee. The new payment processor, Paymentus, charges $3.25 per transaction when you pay your utility bill online or by phone. This is down from the $3.95 charge from the payment processor previously used by the city.
Discover Card added. In addition to Visa and MasterCard, you can now pay with your Discover Card as well. Discover wasn’t available as a payment option before.
Online and phone payment are only two of several options for paying your utility bill. For a full rundown of options, visit the Payment Options page of the Utility Billing section of the website.
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At the City of Lawrence, we take transparency and accountability seriously. Numerous steps have been taken in the past several years to provide citizens access to documents, records and information that is used to determine city policy, programs, budgets and priorities.
In recent years, the salaries of all city employees and vendor payments have been added to the city’s main Budget page. Additionally, the City Commission agenda packets are available online and include detailed information needed for analysis of future policy or direction. The agenda packets and meeting video are also archived online for reference at a later date.
Now, another tool has been added to the toolbox for citizens to use to request information. An easy-to-use page for Open Records Requests is available at the city’s website lawrenceks.org. The page includes information about the process to request records and a link to a records request form.
This is just another way we’re looking to make city government accessible to citizens – access to information, and, specifically electronic information, is critical to the process of democracy.
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Lawrence Transit System and KU on Wheels have a refreshed website.
We’ve gone all in for a complete overhaul of LawrenceTransit.org. There are three main changes I’d like to talk about with this refresh so let’s get started!
Simplified navigation: There are two options: Ride and Learn. Instead of a long menu of items, we’re using drop-downs to make your navigation experience straight to the point. If you’re an experienced rider, you should be able to click on the Ride section and find the information you need quickly. If you’re new here, you might want to check out the Learn section and find out how public transit can best suit your needs.
Visual refresh: Desktop monitors have gotten wider in the last few years, so we’ve designed the site to take up a little more screen real estate. We’ve added more images throughout the website, a little more color here and there, and great-quality images for the front page. We’ll be making changes and adding more pictures as we go along.
Mobile-friendly: There are a lot more mobile browsers out there these days, so the new site also has a mobile browser friendly version for the rider-on-the-go. The mobile site will be particularly useful to the experienced rider who needs to find times anywhere they have connectivity from the palm of their hands.
New content: One more thing – All the content has been refreshed this year. The new Transit Guide for transit routes goes in effect Aug. 1, and there’s a New to the Bus? page on the website for those who aren’t familiar with LawrenceTransit.org and riding the bus.
We hope you enjoy the new website! There will be more changes in coming weeks, but we’re really happy to share it with you now.
LawrenceTransit.org
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Have you ever gotten a ticket and hesitated to pay the bill online because of the costly extra fee?
The next time you need to pay your municipal court fine, you have a new option: the city has recently starting using CitePay for people to pay traffic tickets online. While the method of online payment is not new for Lawrence, the new vendor is much cheaper to pay off that “oops.”
The new system is like having a virtual court clerk to take care of the fines without having to leave your computer. That means you don’t have to leave work to make it down to municipal court.
To pay a ticket online, go to http://lawrenceks.org/legal/online_payments.
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Do you like web surfing? Who doesn’t, right? If so, and you would like to volunteer an hour of your time to help improve city services, we could use your help.
We’re putting the finishing touches on one of our websites and we’re very excited to roll it out. Before we do, we would like to do some usability testing with people in the outside (of our cubicle) world to learn how you would use it. Instead of making a best guess as to how the site will be used, we want excellent feedback before we launch.
Are you up for the challenge?
If so and you are available sometime from 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. in the few couple of weeks, simply fill out the form below. We’re taking a limited number of volunteers and we’ll close the form once that number is reached.
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For residential trash routes, the City’s Solid Waste Division collects tree limbs and brush bundled with a durable tie measuring no more than 5′ in length and 18″ in diameter and weighing no more than 65 pounds. Durable ties include heavy gauge wire, heavy twine or rope, and duct tape. Bundled brush should be set out by 7 a.m. on your assigned trash day.
Yard trimmings including brush collected on Mondays March through mid-December for the composting program should be set out in cans, City carts or compostable paper bags by 6 a.m.
Brush placed in these containers should not protrude more than one foot above the container opening or exceed 65 pounds. Bundled brush is not accepted for curbside collection on Mondays. The use of twine, rope and wire to tie bundles causes damage to the City’s composting equipment and a loss of labor efficiency.
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Since the release of the Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department’s 2011 Summer/Fall Activities Guide, we have seen an increased number of people having difficulty with our online enrollment software.
First off, we’re sorry.
Second, we want you to know we’re working with the vendor to fix any issues. Sometimes it’s a user error, sometimes it’s our software. Either way, we’re working on a fix.
Lastly, if you’re having problems, the best thing to do is to shoot us an email at parksrec@lawrenceks.org or call us at (785) 832-7920, so we can look at your account file and see what the problem is.
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Did you check your mail box last week to see if you were one of the lucky Lawrence residents who received a citizen survey?
We mailed out 4,000 surveys last week with focus on city services – everything from parks and recreation facilities to public information. If you receive a survey in the mail, please respond to the questions honestly.
The survey doesn’t take much time, is confidential and can yield good information for us to use in planning current and future services. A self-addressed stamped envelope is included with each survey.
Thank you for participating!
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Do you have an opinion about solid waste and the services provided by the City of Lawrence?
The city recently added a new feedback form online at lawrenceks.org/swtf/ for residents to comment on what they like, dislike, and think could be improved, about the city’s existing solid waste services.
These comments will be used by the Solid Waste Task Force to make recommendations to the City Commission on service enhancements and/or changes. Your feedback is critical to this process and we really need to hear your comments!
Also, if you’re interested in serving on the Solid Waste Task Force, you can sign up online to let the Mayor know you’d like to be involved. You can do it all online at lawrenceks.org/swtf/.
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Tonight, the Lawrence Transit offices begin a series of open house meetings to discuss changes to transit routes. The changes would go into effect later this year if approved.
The city strives to get feedback from citizens on services and programs and would greatly appreciate your input at the open houses the rest of this week or by submitting comments to info@lawrencetransit.org.
The changes recommended include both minor and major changes to routes throughout Lawrence. These include:
- Route 1 – Minor changes to routing and timing
- Route 3 – Minor changes to “Flex” service zone
- Route 4 – Major changes to routing and timing
- Route 5 – Minor changes in routing and timing
- Route 10 – Minor changes in routing and timing
- Route 11 – Major changes in routing and timing
The changes being recommended come from discussions with riders and a review of customer service issues.
The city invites you to attend the open houses this week at the following times:
- Wednesday, February 23, 5-7 p.m., Lawrence Visitor’s Center, Union Pacific Depot, 402 North 2nd Street
- Thursday, February 24, 5-7 p.m. Douglas County Fairgrounds, Bldg. 21, 2120 Harper St.
- Friday, February 25, 10-12 p.m. Lawrence Transit Administrative Office, 933 New Hampshire
- Saturday, February 26, 1-3 p.m. Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont Street
Thanks for your input and we sincerely appreciate your feedback and participation in your local government. Feedback on route changes will be accepted through March 15.
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Tagged transit
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