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Removing snow this season has cost $317K ———
Amount is triple that spent last year By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
Nick Krug/Journal-World Photo
FROM LEFT, KANSAS UNIVERSITY SENIORS TRAVIS RELEFORD, JEFF WITHEY, ELIJAH JOHNSON AND KEVIN YOUNG huddle at midcourt for a photo Monday as they are presented before the Allen Fieldhouse crowd with their families on Senior Night prior to tipoff against Texas Tech. The Jayhawks routed the Red Raiders, 79-42. See a complete wrap-up of the game and Senior Night in Sports, page 1B, and photo gallery on KUSports.com.
A.M. snow shower
High: 40
Low: 21
Today’s forecast, page 10A
INSIDE Techniques to ease dental anxieties For those anxious about getting any work done to their mouths, different types of sedation dentistry are becoming more widely available, which make a trip to the dentist less scary and sometimes even relaxing. Page 5A
Mediation order in schools case is first of its kind in Kansas By Peter Hancock phancock@ljworld.com
The Kansas Supreme Court broke new legal ground in the state last week by ordering the two sides in the school finance lawsuit to try to resolve the case through mediation after the case had already been tried and was pending appeal. On Friday, the Court granted a motion by the state and ordered mediation of the issues in the case of Gannon vs. Kansas. “They have a pilot project they are just starting for appellate mediation and they have selected 10 or 20 cases
at the court of appeals level Center for State Courts, 15 to try it on, but that is just states currently have formal getting off the ground,” said mediation procedures in John Robb, one of the lead their appellate courts. Most attorneys in the case. of them cover civil cases, but Ron Keefover, some also involve famspokesman for the Ofily and domestic relafice of Judicial Admintions cases and workistration, said mediaers’ compensation. tion is a common form Robb said the deciof “alternative dispute sion to use a school firesolution” at the trial nance case as the first court level, where it’s COURTS test of appellate-level often used as a way to mediation was unusual resolve disputes to prevent in at least one respect. the necessity of a trial in the “Appellate mediation first place. But he said state shouldn’t be that unusual of a court officials were just be- concept,” Robb said. “School ginning to talk about using it finance would be unusual, at the appellate level. Please see ORDER, page 4A According to the National
City officials have their first glimpse at the costs associated with clearing the city of two late-February snow storms: $177,467 and still counting. And that’s on top of a $140,000 snow-clearing tab run up this winter prior to the February double-whammy. “It was a bad situation,” Mark Thiel, the city’s assistant director of public works, said of the two storms. “I went all the way back to 1900, and I couldn’t find where we had ever experienced two major storm events backto-back like that. We’ve had bigger snow events, but not back to back.” I went all the way And here’s a factoid: Someone back to 1900, and I with a City Hall couldn’t find where calculator determined city crews we had ever expepushed 77.6 million rienced two major cubic feet of snow. storm events backOf that total, about to-back like that.” 270,000 cubic feet actually had to be hauled away to the — Mark Thiel, assistant city’s storage lot at director of public works 11th and Haskell, with most of that snow coming from the downtown area and cul-de-sacs. The 270,000 cubic feet, according to the city, would fill the basketball court at Allen Fieldhouse to a depth of 57 feet. All that snow removal comes at a cost. For the entire 2012-2013 winter season — remember, the season’s first snow was on Dec. 19 — the city has spent $317,512 clearing snow, which is more than triple the approximately $95,000 it spent last season. This year’s totals are expected to grow because the city is still awaiting a bill from two private contractors — R.D. Johnson Excavating and King’s Construction — for work those companies did to assist city crews with snow removal. Those bills are expected to total about $70,000. Thiel, however, said he’s pleased with how snow removal progressed in the city. He said city crews worked eight straight days of 12-hour shifts to tackle the snowfall. “The dedication of city employees has been tremendous,” Thiel said. Private contractors were used to bring
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Please see SNOW, page 4A
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INDEX Business Classified Comics Deaths Events listings Horoscope Movies Opinion Puzzles Sports Television Vol.155/No.64
4A 6B-10B 9A 2A 10A, 2B 9B 4A 8A 9B 1B-5B, 10B 10A, 2B, 9B 20 pages
CITY COMMISSION
Expansion of rental inspection program to get hearing By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
Upon further inspection, a plan to ensure every rental unit in the city is licensed and inspected may not have smooth sailing through Lawrence City Hall after all. Two key commissioners on Monday said they had concerns with the latest proposal and likely would lobby to delay approval of a new rental registration and licensing program until more research can be done. “I don’t think we have hit upon the formula yet,” City Commissioner Hugh Carter said. “As it is proposed, I think it is a long ways from what I would be comfortable with.”
City Commissioner Mike Dever also said he had questions about the latest plan, which commissioners are scheduled to vote on at their meeting tonight. Carter The concerns are in contrast to a late November vote, when commissioners on a 5-0 vote asked staff members to prepare a plan to begin an expanded rental registration program. Staff members released the latest version of that plan last week. It includes:
The program would require registration and inspec-
tion of all rental properties in the city, which number about 18,000. Currently, the city’s program only covers rental properties that Dever are in singlefamily zoned neighborhoods.
Rental units would be inspected once every three years. The city, however, is proposing a system where larger complexes wouldn’t be required to have every unit inspected, but rather a sampling of units could be inspected.
The inspections would check for several items related to the
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city’s health and safety code. The inspection, though, could also be used to issue a citation related to the city’s occupancy code. No more than four unrelated people are supposed to live in an apartment in the city, or no more than three unrelated people in singlefamily zoned rentals.
Every apartment in the city would pay a $15 annual license fee. Apartments also would pay a $50 inspection fee in the year that they are due for an inspection. The city is offering a partial rebate on that fee, if units average five or fewer minor violations.
The city previously has estimated it will cost about $370,000 Please see RENTAL, page 4A