Lawrence Journal-World 07-21-12

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School ‘The starting place of my ancestors’ district finalizing budget By Andy Hyland ahyland@ljworld.com

Officials at the Lawrence school district will present a 2012-13 budget to school board members Monday night that will hold the line on property tax rates while using an increase in state aid to provide $1.4 million for teacher raises. Rick Doll, superintendent, said the district wouldn’t make its full Doll budget available to the board or the public until Monday’s meeting because the district is continuing to work on its estimates for enrollment counts and the number of students on free and reduced lunches, along with other estimates. “We’re going to budget for a few more kids,” he said, also adding that the district is projecting property values to remain flat. Although teachers and the district are still involved in negotiations over compensation, the district has offered $1.4 million for raises, which Doll said represented the entire amount of the estimated new funding received from a $58 increase in the district’s base state aid per pupil. “We realize that we’re butted up against Johnson County and the greater Kansas City metroplex where Please see BUDGET, page 2A

Nick Krug/Journal-World Photos

IRMA SCROGGINS, OF TOPEKA, COMFORTS HER OLDER BROTHER, Leon Lewis, of Denver, during the singing of “Amazing Grace” by his family Friday at the Lakeview cemetery. Dozens of relatives from 12 states visited the all-black cemetery between Lecompton and Lawrence. Leon Lewis, 91, the oldest member, gave the younger members a history lesson about how his family came to be in Douglas County.

Relatives come from across nation to pay respects at black cemetery By Adam Strunk astrunk@ljworld.com

ONLINE: Slideshow at LJWorld.com

In a once-forgotten cemetery, surrounded by family, both living and dead, 91-year-old Leon Lewis spoke of his heritage. “This is the starting place of my ancestors,” he said. “This is where they came out of slavery. It’s important for the children to see and know this.” Lewis, the oldest surviving member of the Lewis-Logan family of Lakeview, traveled from his home in Denver to address the group of about 35 relatives who gathered at the

acgarrison@ljworld.com

Lawrence residents are still going to the movies this weekend — and theaters don’t appear to be taking any special precautions. Twelve people were killed and 58 wounded in a shooting during a late-night screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” early Friday morning at a

James Holmes is the suspect in the mass shooting at a Colorado Please see THEATER, page 6A movie theater.

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Lakeview cemetery Friday. Buried in the all-black cemetery, on a hill east of Lecompton, were about 30 adults and about 20 infants. Lewis said Thomas Crowder donated the cemetery to Lewis’ greatgrandfather, a former slave, in 1879, and it was used as a burial site for African Americans from the Douglas County area until about 1940. Lewis said he thought there was no other place for the blacks of the area to bury their dead at that time because cemeteries were segregated. Lois Thompson, of Baltimore, or- AN UNMARKED headstone ganized the trip to the cemetery as a protrudes from the ground Please see CEMETERY, page 2A at the Lakeview cemetery.

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There’s a new number to focus on with the proposed redevelopment of Ninth and New Hampshire streets. After weeks of debate about whether a proposed hotel/retail building should be allowed to be four stories tall, the focus now shifts to a larger number: $12 million. City commissioners at their meeting on Tuesday will consider CITY an approxi- COMMISSION mately $12 million package of incentives that developers say is needed in order for them to undertake about $44 million worth of redevelopment at the intersection. Mayor Bob Schumm said an independent financial analysis of the proposed redevelopment — it would include both the hotel/retail building at the southeast corner and a multistory apartment and office Please see CITY, page 5A

New 300-employee call center to open soon By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com

A Florida-based company has signed a deal to open a 300-employee call center in downtown Lawrence. The Results Companies has signed a lease to occupy 22,000 square feet of space in the lower level of the former Riverfront Mall at Sixth and New Hampshire streets, said Doug Brown, a broker with Lawrence’s McGrew Commer-

cial Real Estate who negotiated the deal. The Dania Beach, Fla.based call center company will take over space that had been occupied by Affinitas, until the company closed its Lawrence operations earlier this year. The Results Companies handles customer service operations for a variety of Fortune 500 companies, and local leaders said they expect Results consistently will employ more people than Affinitas had in recent years.

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Today’s forecast, page 8A

City mulling $12M incentive package clawhorn@ljworld.com

By Alex Garrison

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9TH AND N.H.

By Chad Lawhorn

No special precautions here after Colorado massacre

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“From what we have been told, we think the positions will be a little bit higher end positions, which may translate into better things from a wage standpoint,” Brown said. An estimate on wage levels the company may offer wasn’t immediately available Friday afternoon. Brown said he expects the company to begin operations in the space by Sept. 1. According to the company’s website, Results has revenues in excess of $80

million and operates six U.S. call centers and four international centers. The site says it looks to locate call centers in “communities with small-town values, where courtesy and empathy are a way of life.” The 22,000-square-foot space in the Riverfront is owned by members of the Simons family, who also own The World Company. The World Company is the parent company of LJWorld.com and the Journal-World.

Murder files for sale Case files belonging to a KBI agent who investigated the 1959 murders that became the subject of “In Cold Blood” are being auctioned off. Page 3A

Vol.154/No.203 24 pages


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