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‘It enables us to provide 21st century training’
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Majority of home values in county see decline ———
Notices to be sent later this month By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
sity Institute as well as the institute’s public face, the KU Natural History Museum. “It enables us to provide 21st century training and 21st century science to the next generation of scientists,” said Leonard Krishtalka, the director of the Biodiversity Institute and the museum. This is
About 60 percent of homeowners in Douglas County have had the value of their homes drop in the last year, according to the latest estimates from the county appraiser’s office. “It has been a chaotic year trying to keep up with the market,” Douglas County Appraiser Steve Miles said. It has By the be- been a ginning of next month, chaotic h o m e o w n - year trying ers ought to to keep up know whether their prop- with the erties are market.” among the group that — Douglas County Appraiser has declined. Steve Miles Miles’ office is set to send out change-of-value notices on Feb. 28 that show the new value the county will use to figure property taxes in the coming year. Here’s a look at the latest estimate the county has on the type of declines — or in a few cases, increases — in values residential properties have seen over the past year:
About 28 percent of homes are expected to see a decline in value between 2 percent
Please see LABS, page 5A
Please see VALUES, page 7A
Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photo
MARK ROBBINS, COLLECTIONS MANAGER for the ornithology department, displays an albatross in a spacious new lab Wednesday at Kansas University’s Museum of Natural History. Dyche Hall, where the museum is housed, now has eight new state-of-the-art laboratories after a two-year, $3.5 million renovation.
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New KU natural history labs ready for research after $3.5 million renovations By Matt Erickson merickson@ljworld.com
A fog envelops a 5-footwide, 6-foot-tall metal tank on the first floor of Kansas University’s Dyche Hall. Frost covers the hatch on top. Inside, it fills with liquid nitrogen, enough to freeze the pieces of animal tissue inside at about minus 170 degrees Celsius (about 270
below zero Fahrenheit). Before this winter, those tissues sat in a freezer plugged into the wall. The sometimes decades-old samples, and the genetic clues they might contain, were at the mercy of the electricity on campus. The two new cryogenic tanks — about $100,000 apiece — are just one piece of an effort to bring the KU Biodiversity Institute facili-
ties inside 110-year-old Dyche Hall into the current millennium. After a two-year, $3.5 million renovation, eight new Krishtalka laboratories plus those cryogenic tanks are ready for use in Dyche, which houses the Biodiver-
U.S. Postal Service to stop delivering mail on Saturdays By Ian Cummings icummings@ljworld.com
The U.S. Postal Service announced Wednesday that it will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week. Many in Lawrence say that is fine with them. The reason for the cuts, according to U.S. Postmaster General and CEO Patrick R. Donahoe, is the agency’s ongoing financial problems. The delivery change, which is expected
Many in Lawrence not concerned about measure that’s expected to save $2B a year to begin Aug. 5, would save about $2 billion each year. “Our financial condition is urgent,” Donahoe said at a press conference. In Lawrence, Donahoe officials at City Hall, Kansas University, Lawrence Memorial Hospital, busi-
a Lawrence church, said that would be good enough for him. He was at the Vermont Street post office Wednesday, and will still be able to access his post office box six days a week. “It’s just another day,” Nicholson said. “If I were a business, maybe that would be different.” But even local copy and printing businesses that depend heavily on mailings and delivery services said they would be
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ness owners and residents said they didn’t think the change would affect them at all. Under the new plan, mail would be delivered to homes and businesses Monday through Friday, but would still be delivered to post office boxes on Saturdays. The Lawrence post office branch at 645 Vermont St., would retain its Saturday hours, from 9 a.m. to noon. Dan Nicholson, a pastor at
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Today’s forecast, page 10A
After two Senate committee meetings on a business-backed bill aimed at curbing political action by state workers’ unions, the committee chair says the legislation needs to be studied more before a vote. Page 3A
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fine on Saturdays. At Copy Co, 1401 W 23rd St., store manager Evan Friedman said he had read about the coming change and, after thinking about it, decided things wouldn’t change much for him. The store, which uses other delivery services for important packages, depends on the postal service only for invoices and other smaller items.
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Please see MAIL, page 2A
Vol.155/No.38 20 pages