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WEDNESDAY • JANUARY 20 • 2016
Oread group again contests city’s demands Lawrence businessman Thomas Fritzel is part of the group that developed The Oread hotel.
By Nikki Wentling Twitter: @nikkiwentling
Another deadline has passed in the dispute over how developers have used a special taxing district at The Oread hotel, and city officials again saw their demands for
more information from the development group go unmet. Oread Inn, the development group behind The Oread hotel, responded in writing to the city Monday, again contesting the city’s demand that the group hand over financial documents
from one of its tenants, Oread Wholesale L.C. The dispute centers on whether the development group for The Oread inflated sales tax totals at the property in an effort to receive larger sales tax rebates from the city as part of a special
SO LONG, STOUFFER PLACE
taxing district that encompasses The Oread development. An attorney for the development group also lashed out at the findings of a city-hired auditor, calling the audit “one-sided,” “inflammatory” and “inaccurate.” Please see OREAD, page 5A
Markus officially hired as new city manager ——
Commission approves $205,000 contract By Nikki Wentling Twitter: @nikkiwentling
Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
DEMOLITION EQUIPMENT BEGINS RAZING KANSAS UNIVERSITY’S STOUFFER PLACE APARTMENTS, the 58-year-old, 25-building housing complex, on Tuesday. According to the 2014-2024 KU Campus Master Plan, the area will eventually be home to new science buildings, an open space tentatively dubbed Stouffer Green and some apartments for single students. The unit pictured was located just to the southwest of Hilltop Child Development Center, 1605 Irving Hill Road.
KANSAS LEGISLATURE
Report calls for overhauling school finance “
By Peter Hancock
... we’re taking away from them the ability to create a Kansas assessment for Kansas students creTopeka — A special legisla- ated by Kansans.” Twitter: @LJWpqhancock
tive committee voted Tuesday, largely along party lines, to issue a final report that calls for revamping the way Kansas funds public schools, focusing more on student outcomes and tightening state controls over how districts can issue bonds. Although it is not a formal bill, the document will likely serve as a guideline as lawmakers try to craft a new school funding system to replace the one they repealed last year. Kansas spends more than $3.5 billion a year funding public schools, by far the largest single category of state spending. The report by the Special Committee on K-12 Student Success makes only general comments about how a new
— Rep. Ed Trimmer, D-Winfield funding formula should be organized, saying it should “focus on each individual student” and “include accountability and reporting measures to ensure aid is being distributed according to the needs of each individual student.” But it does suggest a complete overhaul of the annual assessments the state administers to measure how well students are performing in math, English and other subjects by scrapping the tests administered by Kansas University’s Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation, and instead hiring a third-party ven-
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dor from outside Kansas to develop and administer tests. And for high school students, it calls for the state to pay for every student to take the ACT college entrance exam. Rep. Ed Trimmer, D-Winfield, said doing that might easily violate the Kansas Constitution. “We’re talking about the State Department of Education and the state school board, which is an elected body with the constitutional task of governing education in the state of Kansas,” he said. “And we’re taking away from them the ability to create a
Kansas assessment for Kansas students created by Kansans.” But Sen. Steve Abrams, RArkansas City, said the state exams provide little useful information to policymakers because the tests change so frequently, it’s difficult to compare scores from one year to the next. “Consequently we’ve got several years that we go through, it becomes difficult to get a longitudinal trend because we aren’t able to compare data from the previous year to this year,” Abrams said. Deputy Education Commissioner Brad Neuenswander noted after the meeting that it was only a few years ago that the State Board of Education voted to contract with KU’s CETE, specifically because of opposition in the Legislature to
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City commissioners unanimously approved a contract Tuesday for Lawrence’s new city manager, Tom Markus, agreeing to pay him approximately $205,000 total in salary and other compensation during his first year, plus benefits. The commission selected Markus on Dec. 18, and after about a month of negotiations, publicly named him Jan. 14 during a special meeting at City Hall. Tuesday’s action formalizes the hire. Markus, 64, is currently the city man- Markus ager of Iowa City. He has more than 40 years of experience in municipal government. “It’s a very good agreement,” Mayor Mike Amyx said Tuesday. “We look forward to Mr. Markus becoming our new city manager.” Commissioners approved the contract without much discussion. It requires the city to pay Markus $190,000 in base salary. He will also receive another $15,000 that will go into a deferred compensation fund in Markus’ first year. After his first year, the deferred pay will increase to whatever is the maximum amount of deferred payment allowed by law. Those maximums change annually. According to the Internal Revenue Service, the maximum amount of deferred compensation for 2015 and 2016 is $18,000, plus another $6,000 for those 50 and older. Please see MARKUS, page 5A l City approves incentives for
Menard project. Page 3A
More bad weather? After residents battled icy roads Tuesday, today’s forecast calls for potential freezing fog — and more snow on the way. Page 3A
Vol.158/No.20 40 pages