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TUESDAY • JANUARY 6 • 2015
Commission to decide on Rock Chalk Park audit
Maybe we should ask for directions
By Chad Lawhorn Twitter: @clawhorn_ljw
would allow businesses to refuse service based on a customer’s gender, martial status or sexual orientation.” The gun control issue hasn’t yet made the city’s Legislative Priorities Statement, but the northeast Kansas chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is asking the city to weigh in on the issue. It is
Lawrence city commissioners are set to decide today whether they want an audit of approximately $12 million worth of no-bid infrastructure work that was done at Rock Chalk Park. If commissioners decide they do want an audit, it appears likely it will be a quick one. Commissioners want a final report delivered no later than Feb. 3. “Getting responses back and getting the work done by then will be an aggressive time frame,” said City Auditor Michael Eglinski, who won’t be conducting the audit but rather is advising the commission on which auditing firm to select. “But I think it can still produce a meaningful product.” Mayor Mike Amyx said he’ll be urging commissioners to move forward with a Amyx thorough audit of the project, which involved a private firm led by Lawrence businessman Thomas Fritzel building roads, parking lots, sewer lines and other pieces of infrastructure under a no-bid contract that was part of a larger public-private partnership to build the sports complex. “I would have much rather seen the whole thing bid from day one, but we can’t go back and redo that at this point,” Amyx said. “I think it is essential that we go through this audit process now.” Exactly what will be involved in the audit is still a bit unclear. Eglinski has put together a potential scope of services that calls
Please see PRIORITIES, page 6A
Please see AUDIT, page 6A
Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
TWO DOGS WAIT for their owner inside a truck Monday in downtown Lawrence.
City’s legislative wish list likely to mention Obamacare, gay marriage By Chad Lawhorn Twitter: @clawhorn_ljw
Lawrence city commissioners are set to create their annual wish list of what they would like state lawmakers to do and not do during this upcoming legislative session — and this time the topics will include more than just the mundane discussion of roads, taxes and other such items. Commissioners also plan
to delve into Obamsignificantly reducacare, gay marriage, ing medical care acand perhaps even gun cess for Kansans and control, when they negatively impacting consider drafting their the ability of Kansas Legislative Priorities health care providers, CITY Statement at tonight’s COMMISSION including (hospitals), meeting. to provide care to As currently proposed, Kansans.” the statement asks lawmakOn the gay marriage isers to “reconsider Kansas’ sue, the proposed language participation” in the ex- is to the point: “The city of panded Medicaid program.” Lawrence opposes any efIt goes on to say that “our forts by the state legislature failure to participate is to pass legislation which
Read Across Lawrence adds teen book to repertoire Atwood’s ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ this year’s adult selection By Conrad Swanson Twitter: @conrad_swanson
The Lawrence Public Library is now offering a teenage book selection — John Corey Whaley’s “Where Things Come Back” — as
part of its annual Read Across Lawrence series. In addition, the library selected Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and Blue Balliett’s “Chasing Vermeer” as its adult and children’s selections, respectively.
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Karen Allen, the library’s youth services coordinator, said that as the young adult genre increases in popularity, it is important to recognize the literary value the genre offers readers. “We’ve been wanting to do a teen selection for
a couple of years,” she said. “Mostly because teen books are very popular and not just for teenage readers, but adults also love reading them as well.” For the past 13 years, the library has selected an adult book with mass appeal, said Jeni Daley, the library’s marketing coordinator.
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The library then buys hundreds of copies of the book and distributes them across town, she said. “We try to get as many people as possible to read the same book at the same time, and then we have a whole Please see READ, page 6A
Vol.157/No.6 20 pages
Fully equipped A more than two-year initiative to outfit every police vehicle in Lawrence with an automated external defibrillator has been successful. Page 3A
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Today’s forecast, page 6A
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