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City primary narrows field to 6; Amyx on top By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
Amyx
Farmer
Chestnut
Riordan
Criqui
Soden
The old hand of the Lawrence City Commission finished Tuesday’s primary election with the upper hand, but two newcomers also closed in on commission seats. City Commissioner Mike Amyx, who is seeking his fifth term on the commission, took the top spot in Tuesday’s primary election, besting the 11-candidate field by more than 500 votes.
SANDRA ELSTON, a poll worker at Trinity Lutheran Church, knits by LED lantern because of a power outage during Tuesday morning’s storm. Elston walked to the polling place to await primary voters.
Political newcomers Jeremy Farmer — the CEO of Lawrence food bank Just Food — and Lawrence physician Terry Riordan took the second and third spots, respectively. Tuesday’s primary narrowed the field to six candidates. Also qualifying for the general election were former commisPlease see ELECTION, page 2A
Snow can’t stop
determined voters. Page 4A
Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
Slushy storm better for street crews, not for trees By Matt Erickson, Sara Shepherd and Ian Cummings
The second snowstorm to move through Lawrence in less than a week closed schools, cut power to some homes and reduced turnout for the city’s primary election Tuesday. But the snowfall wasn’t as heavy as expected, and the wet snow made for easier work for city road crews. In all, the city received 5 to 7 inches of snow before the storm ended around noon, according to the National Weather Service, on top of as much as 11 inches from ThursSara Shepherd/Journal-World Photo
SNOW-LADEN TREES CREATED A WINTER WONDERLAND around this woman walking her dogs down Crescent Road on Tuesday, after Lawrence received 5 to 7 inches of snow in the latest winter storm. See reader-submitted photos at LJWorld.com.
For Wednesday cancellations, see page
2A and go online at LJWorld.
Flurries
High: 37
Please see STORM, page 2A
Low: 23
Today’s forecast, page 8A
INDEX Business Classified Comics Deaths Events listings Food Horoscope Movies Opinion Puzzles Sports Television Vol.155/No.58
5A 1C-8C 7A 2A 8A, 2B 8B 7C 4A 6A 7C 1B-5B 8A, 2B, 7C 24 pages
INSIDE
Make coffee roast See this recipe and more on page 8B.
Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
BLOWING SNOW covers a downtown street light Tuesday and obscures the Douglas County Courthouse behind.
Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
A DOWNED TREE, which fell over sometime Tuesday morning, lies on the south side of the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center at 111 E. 11th St.
A WRIGHT TREE SERVICE employee blocks off an alley near 11th and Rhode Island streets Tuesday morning to remove fallen tree branches that hit power lines. Area streets and trees were packed with snow, and more than 1,500 Douglas County residents were without power in the morning as Lawrence woke up to its second major winter storm in less than a week.
Sequestration to have no immediate effect on schools By Peter Hancock phancock@ljworld.com
The Lawrence school district probably will not have to make immediate cuts to federally funded programs for the rest of this academic year if automatic U.S. government funding cuts take effect as scheduled on Friday. “We would have enough in reserves in those funds to get us through this school year, so we would not have to make immediate cuts,” Lawrence Superintendent Rick Doll said in an interview after the Lawrence school board meeting Monday night. Thursday is the deadline
for Congress and President Obama to reach agreement on a deficit reduction package before a series of automatic, across-the-board cuts known as Doll “sequestration” take effect. The federal cuts would mainly affect two programs in Lawrence and other public school districts: Title I funding, which provides supplemental money to high-poverty schools; and special education services under the
Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, or IDEA. Federal funding for subsidized school lunches would be exempt from the sequestration cuts, according to the Congressional Research Service. “We don’t know, but we think we have enough reserves to get us through on the Title I and the special ed piece to get us through this year so we don’t have to make any immediate cuts if that happens,” Doll said. Although state and local officials have not been given exact numbers, Doll said he has heard estimates that the cuts would be between 8 percent and 10 per-
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cent of annual spending. According to state-by-state estimates released by the White House this week, the cuts would mean a loss to Kansas schools of about $5.5 million in Title I funding and $5.3 million in special education funding. The Lawrence district has six elementary schools that qualify for Title I funding: Hillcrest, Kennedy, New York, Pinckney, Schwegler and Woodlawn. According to the district’s budget for this year, it expects to receive about $1.8 million in federal Title I funding and about $2.3 million in federal special education funding.