Memorandum

City of Lawrence

TO:	Mayor and City Commissioners
FROM:	City Manager David L. Corliss
CC:	Debbie Van Saun, Assistant City Manager
Date:	April 19, 2007
RE:	Infrastructure Audit

Our review of our infrastructure is comprehensive and continuing.  We believe it is necessary to look at our infrastructure in a comprehensive format – to avoid lurching from one topic to the latest issue, perhaps ignoring critical, but silent issues.  Our review of infrastructure is continuing – it doesn’t stop, instead it is intended to put in place mechanisms for constant review.

We are asking three key questions:

1) What is the status of our infrastructure?

2) What is the desired level of service for a particular infrastructure?

3)  How do we improve our infrastructure to get to the desired level of service?

Commission direction on this effort is essential, particularly on the questions of the desired level of service and establishing priorities within limited resources.  We believe we are making strong progress on the identification of existing infrastructure conditions and the development of options to respond to our needs over time.  The list is robust – but it is not discouraging.  It is important to note that the community has made significant progress in a number of infrastructure areas.  A good example is stormwater management, where a stormwater utility and new stormwater management criteria – both established in the mid 1990s – has provided for a strong base of improvement in this critical infrastructure area.  The community still has stormwater needs – but in a decade we have made substantial progress and provide a higher level of service to residents and property owners.

While our list of infrastructure needs is both lengthy and costly, staff looks forward to the challenge of addressing this critical element – literally our foundation – for our community.