CITY MANAGER’S REPORT

Week ending November 6, 2015

31.7 Tons of Electronics Recycled at Fall Event

Seven hundred and twenty nine (729) vehicles dropped off a total of 63,463 pounds (equivalent to 31.7 tons) of electronic equipment at this year’s fall Electronic Recycling Event hosted by the City of Lawrence Solid Waste Division. The event was held on Saturday, October 24^th from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm at the KU Park & Ride east parking lot. Electronic recycling was provided by Midwest Recycling Center (MRC).   See attached report for more information.

Did you know? The first Electronic Recycling Event hosted by the City’s Solid Waste Division was in the spring of 2008. Since then, a total of 816,275 pounds (equivalent to 408.1 tons) of electronics have been recycled through two collection events per year.

20^th Annual Phoenix Awards

The 20^th Annual Phoenix Awards Ceremony was held at the Lawrence Arts Center on Sunday, November 1^st at 2:00 p.m.  Three awardees were recognized by the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission along with some 150 audience members: Marty Olson for Exceptional Artistic Achievement; Dr. John Derby for Art Educator; and The Committee on Imagination and Place for Creative Spaces.   Photos

Lawrence artist Marie McKenzie created this year’s five Phoenix Awards―one each for the awardees, one for display at the Lawrence Arts Center and one for City Hall.

September 2015 Monthly Building Permit Reports

The Building Safety Division issued 193 building permits in September, with total construction for the month valued at $7,069,337.  Total permit fees assessed for the month were $50,114.  Permits were issued for eleven (11) new residential projects, including four (4) single-family dwellings and seven (7) duplexes.    Staff Report Monthly Report Year-to-Date Report

Hybrid Beacon on 27^th Street at Naismith Valley Park

Installation of the raised crosswalk and hybrid crosswalk beacon on 27^th Street at Naismith Valley Park is complete. City staff and USD 497 representatives will hold a public meeting at South Middle School on November 12, 2015 to go over the latest traffic counts, status of the traffic calming items and the hybrid beacon activation.

It is our intention to activate this new hybrid beacon the day after the public meeting (Friday November 13, 2015). This will require the existing temporary stop signs at this location to be removed. They were placed this summer as a temporary measure to reduce speed along this 27^th Street corridor.  The hybrid beacon will allow pedestrians and cyclists wishing to cross 27th Street at Naismith Valley Park the ability to activate the signal with a touch button that will then create a temporary stopping situation for vehicles on 27^th Street.

City staff plans to bring this traffic calming along 27^th Street back to the Commission on a future date to discuss any further traffic calming needs.

City switches streaming platform for meeting video

The City of Lawrence has been testing options for the streaming video, archiving and playback of city meetings. Several enhancements have been made that offer the viewer better quality of video as well as user-friendly tools for watching and reviewing meetings.  As of November, the city is now using YouTube Live.  The advantages of this include:

• YouTube Live streaming video works well on PC and Apple products, including mobile and table devices.
• Analytic data is available using YouTube Live. The city can tell how many viewers we have and promote the LawrenceKSvideo channel for residents to subscribe to in their YouTube feed.  Subscribers can also be ‘reminded’ about upcoming planned meetings.
• YouTube Live is accessible on ChromeCast and other new forms of technology.
• Through the YouTube Live streaming technology, we are able to offer higher quality video for the end-user.
• YouTube Live has a DVR feature. If a broadcast starts at 5:45 p.m., and the users starts to watch at 8:00 p.m., they can easily “rewind” to the start of the LIVE broadcast and watch from the beginning.
• Archives of meetings are nearly instantly available online and can be hyperlinked on the website quickly instead of converting files for placement on the city’s web server.
• YouTube Live technology provides automatic closed captioning services.  We are continuing to beta test closed captioning features.
• YouTube Live is free.  The city previously used a vendor that charged a monthly fee.

The city’s Communications team is committed to creating high quality audio and video. Using YouTube has reduced our streaming costs, added redundant backup features, DVR controls, notification tools for upcoming broadcasts, close captioning and remarkably better picture quality. The next phase of testing we will begin is linking agenda items to video. We will continue to work on this step in the future.  City staff members Kevin Powell, Nick Combs and Kurt Henning were instrumental in this process.