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City wants payment over Varsity House spat
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‘I have been had’ in deal to move historical building, commissioner says By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
MORNING SUNLIGHT FINDS AN OPENING IN DARK CLOUDS above a welder Tuesday morning as he works atop steel girders at the Theatre Lawrence construction site near Sixth Street and Folks Road and in front of Free State High School. Theatre Lawrence celebrated its 35th year in April and hopes its new 300-seat theater with dressing rooms and offices, plus an education wing, will open in spring 2013.
In efficiency fight, school officials counter that cuts have already left deep wounds By Peter Hancock phancock@ljworld.com
After taking criticism for the last two years over cuts that have been enacted for Kansas schools, Gov. Sam Brownback is now shifting the focus in the debate over education by calling on schools to be more efficient with the money they get.
But local school officials in Lawrence and Eudora say the cuts enacted since 2008 when the recession began have already forced them to lay off teachers, increase class sizes and cut or eliminate services for students and their families. They warn that any additional cuts will result in lower quality education
and, ultimately, less efficiency. “We feel like there are consequences for the cuts we’ve sustained, and certainly there will be consequences for further cuts,” said Kristin Magette, communications director for the Eudora school district. Please see EFFICIENCY, page 4A
Lawrence city commissioners are convinced the integrity of the old Varsity House has been ruined by a faulty redevelopment project, and they agreed to begin seeking a “cash payment” from local developer Thomas Fritzel as compensation. Commissioners at their Tuesday evening meeting said they believed a previously agreed upon deal to move the 1908 home at 11th and Indiana streets to make way for a new apartment complex had not been upheld. “I have been had in this deal,” CITY said City Commissioner Mike COMMISSION Amyx, who helped broker a deal that called for the old three-story house to be moved to a new site so Fritzel could build an approximately 50-unit apartment complex in the Oread neighborhood. Commissioners and members of the public began expressing concerns earlier this month as crews began reassembling the house on the Please see HOUSE, page 2A
Commissioners split on proposed
Doll
roundabout for downtown. Page 2A
New recycling program to kick off at Saturday’s football game By Matt Erickson merickson@ljworld.com
As Blaine Bengtson walked around outside Memorial Stadium following the Kansas University football game against Rice last month, he didn’t like what he saw in the trash cans. “So many just plastic bottles and things that were totally recyclable were being thrown away,” Bengtson said. For Bengtson, a KU junior
from Salina, it was an assessment that confirmed the need for a project on which he was already hard at work: a new KU football gameday recycling program, which will kick off at Saturday’s homecoming game against Texas. He’s the director of Recycle & Blue, KU, a group that received about $7,700 from KU’s
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ing areas, outside the stadium entrances and on Campanile Hill to the south. Bengtson, who works as an intern at KU’s Center for Sustainability and hopes to work in environmental policy after graduation, took charge of the project after Student Senate leaders proposed a new gameday recycling effort. Many other universities around the Big 12 and the country have programs encouraging football fans to recycle,
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Student Senate this year to encourage tailgaters and other football fans to put their bottles and cans in recycling bins rather than the trash. Nearly all of those funds will go toward providing those recycling bins in the first place. The group has bought 60 of them that a group of volunteers will distribute throughout the tailgat-
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Bengtson said. “We figure we need to be getting on board,” he said. Bengtson said he’s hoping to gather a group of around 50 student, faculty and staff volunteers to swarm the areas outside the stadium. In addition to setting out recycling bins, they’ll visit tailgating groups with bags in hand to collect plastic bottles and aluminum cans, and they’ll hand Please see RECYCLING, page 2A
Comment under fire A comment made by a Douglas County prosecutor in a murder trial four years ago became the focal point of discussion Tuesday before the Kansas Supreme Court. Page 3A
Vol.154/No.297 28 pages