State of the City Address

April 1, 2008

Mayor Sue Hack’s state of the city address

Over the past several years it has become traditional for the outgoing Mayor to reflect on the past year, its ups and downs, and talk about hopes for the future. I appreciate the opportunity to address the citizens of Lawrence and discuss these things as I end my second term as Mayor.

First of all I would like to thank the hardest working staff that anyone could have the pleasure of working with. I wish that all of the citizens of this community would have the chance to see first hand the hard work…the professionalism of our administrative staff, the hard work of our pubic works staff…10,500 hours of work to keep our streets cleared during this past winter, the passion of our parks and recreation department, the devotion to this community and to each other of our police and fire and medical departments, the expertise of our planning staff, technical knowledge of our utilities department. These people are the backbone of this community and day after day, year after year, are committed to providing the excellent services that Lawrence citizens have every right to expect.

I would also like to recognize the hard work of my fellow commissioners. Each of us brings something different to the table, but we have managed to conduct the business of this city in a respectful manner and one that I am proud of. I am not sure if there is a clear understanding of the time involved in this job and how difficult it can be at times. Each decision that is made is going to make someone happy and make someone mad. As I was told during my first term, “If you do the job right, you will succeed in making everyone in Lawrence mad at you at one time or another.” That is probably the truest piece of information that I received…I imagine that there is a baby born recently at LMH that isn’t mad at one of us yet, but it is only a matter of time!

Last and most important, I want to thank my family and friends. You have been my support during difficult times, my sounding board, and the most important people in my life.

Being the Mayor of Lawrence can be both rewarding and challenging. I would have to say that the favorite times I had as Mayor was the chance to interact with young people in Lawrence and to represent the city at a variety of events. I will not forget the times reading my favorite story, “The Polar Express”, to the kids at Broken Arrow, or the group of 60 children from Kennedy who came to City Hall to learn about being mayor. They were surprised that I didn’t live in a mansion, have a limo and secret service.

As I was introduced to the third grade class at Deerfield, I was told by my 10 year old host for the day, that I could talk about that “WalMart Thing” if I wanted to. The thank you notes from that day indicated surprise that I knew Quantrill..perhaps it is time to do something about my gray hair.

In preparing my remarks for this evening, I spent some time looking at the speech that I gave one year ago, as I took office. My comments then and my comments now will have many similarities. As a city, we have accomplished a number of good things.

We have made progress on implementation of the Matrix report whose task was to look at our planning and development process to see how it could be streamlined while maintaining our high standards. Scott McCullough was hired as Planning and Development Director and he has had a full plate since the day he arrived. Implementation of the Matrix Report, continued work on the Development Codes, completion of the Transportation 2030 revisions, and moving the Smart Code through the planning process have been just a few of the items where incredible progress has been made.

After the departure of our Assistant City Manager, our City Manager Dave Corliss was pretty much a one man show. I would imagine there were times when he had to reintroduce himself to his wonderful wife and daughters.

We are fortunate to have added two terrific new Assistant City Managers in Cynthia Boecker and Diane Stoddard who along with Jonathan Douglass continue to show how valuable they are. We have hired a City Auditor, Michael Eglinski who certainly has hit the ground running. Toni Wheeler is leading Legal Services. Dave Wagner was hired as our Director of Utilities and brings a tremendous amount of expertise to the job, and Ernie Shaw has done a terrific job in filling the very large shoes of Fred DeVictor as Interim Director of Parks and Recreation. We are lucky to have you all.

The Coalition for Homeless Concerns has developed a strategic plan and vision for the issue of homelessness in Lawrence, bringing together a large number of social service agencies and individuals. As this work continues we hope to see a comprehensive plan for aiding those less fortunate in our community.

Probably the most difficult time during the last year was the need to reduce the 2007 budget and the preparation of the 2008 budget. We certainly didn’t give the new Commissioners much time to get acclimated to this job in public service before they were plunged into this responsibility.

We have had continuing conversations with the University of Kansas regarding the merger of our transit system with KU on Wheels. I thank Vice Mayor Dever for his efforts in working with our staff and Kansas University personnel to move this effort forward.

I am pleased with the continuing relationship with the University of Kansas. We have partnered in some wonderful facilities for KU athletes with First Serve, a wonderful tennis facility, and most recently the KU Boathouse, which will serve the university’s rowing team for years and years to come. It will be a tremendous addition to the community and a beautiful focal point on the river.

In addition to these relationships, we continue to work with the University regarding economic development in the bio-science field and with alumni connections. We must not fail to recognize the millions of dollars that flow into this community due to the efforts of the research done at KU. Encouraging individuals who called Lawrence home for their college careers to come back and invest in this community will be an added benefit of our positive relationship with the University.

There has been an increased effort on the part of the city to recognize the many contributions of existing businesses both large and small. Mike Dever and I, along with members of our administrative staff and the chamber have met weekly for the past several months with representatives of so many of our local businesses. We have talked about their dreams and challenges and how the city and the chamber can help them realize the dreams and deal with the challenges. We continue to recognize that approximately 80% of new jobs come from existing businesses. We have also had monthly meetings with our partners in economic development to provide an update on the status of various projects.

These are but a few of the accomplishments of this City Commission and staff during this past year. We can be very proud of what has been done, but we know that there are challenges ahead and some will be very difficult. It is those challenges that I would like to focus on now.

The largest challenge that we will face as a Commission this year will be the 2009 budget. We know that if we are lucky, our revenues from sales tax and property tax will be equal to what they were last year, but there is a strong possibility that they well be less. It will be difficult to maintain the same level of city service that we have become accustomed to with less resources. That brings me to the need for Economic Development.

I believe that there is a disconnect in much of the community between the city services that we have come to expect and how those are maintained. It is possible for a city to just do the basics…put out fires, arrest the bad guys, clean the water and pick up the trash. In my view, that is more of an institution than a community. Lawrence has always prided itself on being a community that enjoys its parks, its bike paths, it arts, its cultural heritage, and its downtown…just to name a few. Maintaining these important pieces of our community takes money and when the bulk of that money comes from residential property taxes, we are putting ourselves in a perilous position.

This Commission and this City Staff have been neither lazy nor complacent when it comes to economic development. We have worked diligently with existing businesses to make sure that the city is doing all it can to help these businesses continue to grow and provide jobs for Lawrence citizens. We have navigated the choppy waters of Farmland and continue to pursue that as a site for an employment center. However, if by some magic, the Farmland site became cleaned up and available tomorrow for industrial use, that would not solve all of our problems with economic development.

We must look for additional sites, for sites that have rail access, for sites that have access to I-70. None of these decisions are easy and none come without a fair amount of angst on the part of many citizens, but unless Lawrence wants to drop further and further into the bedroom community situation, we simply have to find a way to present to companies additional industrial sites. These decisions mean taking risks, but without taking any risks there will be no rewards.

When I ran the first time for City Commission in 2001 and the second time in 2005, one of my main campaign themes was raising the level of discourse in this community and working on being civil to one another. As I think back on my lack of success in this area, I am reminded of a former student that I taught. He decided to run away from home and he felt that going to Canada would be his best plan. He was picked up in Oklahoma….I was his geography teacher! I have had just about as much impact on the civility in this community as I did teaching geography for that child.

I am very concerned about how we treat each other and the tone of conversation here in the Commission room, in other community meetings, and on the internet. It is difficult to sit back and watch the slings and arrows that are thrown at candidates and those in public office at the national and state level, but Lawrence had always been above that. Lately our local campaigns have taken on some of that same “go negative” approach and that is so terribly discouraging. We should be able to be the ones who rise above that. We should be the ones who, while we thrive on controversy and process, should be the ones to set the example for others to follow. Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

I am particularly troubled by the lack of civility and level of nastiness that occurs on our local blogs. We are all grown ups, we can handle being the topic of conversation, but the conversation has sunk to new lows of discourse. I would challenge those who feel the need to communicate in this manner to step out from behind the cowardice of anonymity, get their facts straight and have a decent conversation about topics that are critical to the future of Lawrence and Douglas County.

That is probably enough of a sermon for the evening, but these are things that I feel so strongly about that I just could not let this opportunity pass by without talking about it.

Again, it has been my privilege and honor to serve as the Mayor of Lawrence and to work with such fine people as my fellow commissioners and our city staff.

Thank you for that opportunity.