Dear Mayor and City Commissioners;

The Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods asks that you do not change a Tuesday meeting for a Thursday morning meeting once a month. LAN is concerned that, inadvertently, items could be discussed that would impact neighborhoods without neighborhood input.

We appreciate your hectic lives, but we think that Thursday morning meetings would be inaccessible to most of the people in our neighborhoods.

Consent agenda items have always been discussed when pulled from the consent agenda by a City Commissioner or a member of the public and therefore the agenda item is open for a public hearing. A Thursday morning meeting to attend to consent agenda business would not be accessible to the public who are not able miss work to attend.

Long range planning and policy discussions are very important to the people of Lawrence and public input is vital to insure that all concerns and ideas are addressed before any decisions is made. Open discussion about any long range planning or policy need to be accessible for the public as well as the City Commission. Study Sessions are the City Commissioner’s best tools for long range planning and policy discussions for the purpose of gathering information.

Bill paying takes very little of your time during the evening meetings and is an important part of the meeting each week for those who need to wait for your approval in order to receive payment.

The loss of one accessible City Commission meeting a month, in the long run, will create longer meetings for the Commissioners and the public. Informational reports about everything from the transit system to Clinton Lake reservoir’s future are important to the community as well and need to be reported at an accessible meeting for the public. Between public hearing items and informational reports from various sources the time needed to address them would be forced into three days a month and therefore longer meetings on those three days.

As elected officials, we ask that you remain accessible to the community of Lawrence to hear Lawrence’s comments on any item that would be placed as an agenda item. Thursday morning meetings cut the majority of this community out of the public discussions and therefore the Thursday morning meeting is not accessible for the community as a whole to publicly comment on those agenda items.

Gwendolyn Klingenberg

Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods - President