Lawrence City Commission candidate Bob Schumm will hold a live chat with LJWorld.com users Wednesday, March 16 at 1 p.m. You can submit your question in advance below.

Meatwad

The homeless shelter would like to increase their occupancy from 57 to 82. Do you feel this is a good idea and would you consider the concerns of the adjacent neighborhood and downtown businesses?

Puggy

Are you concerned that it could harm conservative candidates chances in Lawrence to declare party affiliation?

Puggy

Two part question:
What would you do to improve voter turnout in Lawrence for local elections?

Would you consider holding local elections at the same time as national elections in November?

foodboy

Would you favor quarterly meetings with the school board since their decisions affect so many city issues?

BruceWayne

Have you ever been banned from this or any other forum for violating the TOS?

stuartlongman

In 1991 at a Lawrence Leadership class you stated:
“I’ve had my business boycotted, I’ve had death threats”
Yet in spite of business boycotts and death threats you ran again unsuccessfully for county commission in 2000 and now you’re running for the third time for city commission.
Were you serious about death threats? Have you told your fellow candidate how dangerous being a city commissioner can be?
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/1991/apr/06/mayors_tell_group_pros/

rhd99

Reflecting your past experience on the City Commission, what will you do to clean up the tax code and reduce burdensome government regulation so that more higher paying jobs can come to Lawrence? Thanks.

1yardstare

American Eagle now has 700 employees occupying one million square feet in Ottawa. Many Douglas County residence commute there to work.
Given the loss to Lawrence of sales tax receipts of 1,000,000sf of construction and purchases of 700 employee’s was your opposition to American Eagle a mistake or would you continue to oppose companies like this in Lawrence?

1yardstare

Many property owners are concerned about increased real estate tax valuations some above market values.
Records indicate you sold 941 Mass, Mass Street Deli in 2007 for $749,000 or 2.4 times the assessor’s market value of $305,000.
What advice would you have for those who do not own property downtown…. and what will you do to lower our taxes?

kurata

Hi Bob,

I have 3 questions:

1. With regard to the Bauer Farm transportation development district and the Oread Hotel tax increment financing, if elected, what will you do to make the information public concerning how the developers are being reimbursed for the additional 1% tax? Do you have other plans to slow the pace of growing corporate welfare in Lawrence?

2. Do you or do you not believe it’s time for Lawrence to get real about energy management, conservation and efficiency? I have yet to see a plan posted on the city of Lawrence’s website that indicates anybody in the city government has given real energy management serious thought. If elected, what are your plans to deploy real-time information management software to collect, historize and present real-time and historical data to the public that describe the city’s actual energy consumption vs. a reduction target?As a taxpayer I want a single version of the truth about how efficient or wasteful the city is about energy consumption. The City of Lawrence’s website needs to be revamped to show at a glance a dashboard updating in real time showing the energy consumption of all city buildings and facilities. I want to be able to see energy management progress or lack thereof in terms of displayed indicators of actual usage vs reduction target. Will you make this happen on a campaign based on transparency?

3. In 2009 the waste water treatment plant was producing about 100,000 standard cubic feet per day of essentially methane gas from the onsite digesters. Unless practices have changed since then, about 80,000 cubic feet of the gas are being flared to the atmosphere on a daily basis. As a taxpayer, I consider this to be an egregious waste of a valuable energy resource that belongs to the taxpayers of Lawrence. If elected, will you push to implement a program to capture the excess methane not used internally at the plant and find a beneficial purpose for the gas for the community? There are a lot of people who cannot afford to pay increasing gas bills during the cold months.

Thank you for taking these questions.

1yardstare

American Eagle now has 700 employees occupying one million square feet in Ottawa. Many Douglas County residence commute there to work.
Given the loss to Lawrence of sales tax receipts of 1,000,000sf of construction and purchases of 700 employee’s was your opposition to American Eagle a mistake or would you continue to oppose companies like this in Lawrence?

Gandalf

Where does the city get the legal authority to bypass the courts by requiring involutary snow removal from public sidewalks, in violation of the U.S. constitution, 13th amendment?

1yardstare

The airport was an island annexation, East Hills was an island annexation. The city and county extended the infrastructure to each at their cost. How do you feel about those annexations and the resulting jobs East Hill created?

stuartlongman

You received over $36,000 from the city to install sprinklers in your buildings, why didn’t you pay for that yourself?

Moderator

Hi. I’m Chad Lawhorn, the City Hall reporter for the Journal-World. I’ll be the moderator for today’s chat with Lawrence City Commission candidate Bob Schumm. We have several questions already submitted, but we’re still accepting more from our online audience. Let’s get started. Thanks for being here, Bob.

Bob Schumm

Good morning. I’m happy to be here and I’m looking forward to answering your questions.

consumer1

It has been said you might be running to bring a special tax district into the downtown merchant area, what is your opinion on the special tax district tax? Are you for it or against it?

Bob Schumm

I do not intend to ask for any kind of special tax district downtown. In fact, I have taken a strong position against special tax districts because I believe that they are sneaky taxes. Many consumers are unaware of the special tax districts because the only notification they receive is on their receipt at the time of purchase and most people don’t look that closely at their receipt.

johnp

As a city commissioner how will you help resolve the homeless shelter problem?

Bob Schumm

I have publicly spoken in favor of relocating the shelter, contributed money to the building fund, and worked with the organization to help find a permanent site for the shelter. If elected, I will take a stronger leadership role in order to resolve the issue.

nativeson

When you campaigned in 2000 for County Commission, you referred to the potential American Eagle distribution jobs as “low wage, dead-end jobs.” How do you discern between good and bad jobs that create economic growth in the community?

Bob Schumm

A good job is one that can sustain a family and also provides benefits. In addition, a good job will create value for the community because individual workers will have the ability to provide for their family’s needs, will be less dependent on social services, and will make purchases locally benefitting local businesses.

dss

What do you think of the proposed changes in the library project, including an extra level in the parking lot and a bus station?

Bob Schumm

The north end of downtown is lacking parking spaces for swimmers, library guests, senior center visitors, and Mass St. shoppers and diners. I think it makes good sense to try and provide as many additional spaces as possible with this opportunity. However, I am reluctant to add spaces if the cost were to exceed the original bond issue. Finally, I don’t think the foot print is large enough for both the expanded library, additional parking, and a bus station, but I am willing to study it.

hipper_than_hip

What is your position on island annexation by the city of rural properties? If elected, will you give equal consideration to rural residents (who are not your constituents) when annexation issues come before the city commission?

Bob Schumm

In general, I am opposed to island zoning because extension of utilities and city services are very costly when you annex in this manner. Contiguous zoning is good planning. As a commissioner, regarding all city business, I will be happy to listen to each and every individual who has an issue.

stuartlongman

You were the foremost proponent of the Eastern Parkway. This ended up being a very contentious issue in 1990, 1991, and 1992. If elected will you try to resurrect the Eastern Parkway thru east Lawrence.

Bob Schumm

It made good sense at the time and I believe that it still makes good sense because it reduces traffic on neighborhoods streets. If there is enough interest at present, I would be willing to study it again with input from all the stakeholders.

fatarnie

How about revisiting the Lawrence fireworks ban since it seems it is never enforced. Any consideration in doing away with the ban?

Bob Schumm

I would be open to discussion on the issue as there does appear to be a lot of firework activity on the Fourth of July.

dss

How do we attract new businesses/jobs into the community?

Bob Schumm

If elected, my number one priority will be to create new jobs in Lawrence. I have several ideas including continuing to clean up the Farmland property in order to create new potential sites for businesses, continuing to promote the bioscience and technology incubator, and assist local startups by exploring the possibility of a general business incubator.

sunflowergirl

Last week, Hugh Carter said that he thought the issue of the living wage should be revisited. What is your position on the subject?

Bob Schumm

I am a strong supporter of the living wage because it’s necessary to sustain a family which adds value to the community. If elected, I would commit to supporting the living wage as a requirement to receive a taxpayer subsidy in the form of a tax abatement or issuance of an industrial revenue bond.

nativeson

In the article Sunday regarding economic development, you stated that CIDs grant an unfair advantage to certain retailers. However, as a downtown merchants the public funed a portion of your sprinkler system, maintains parking, provides landscaping and offers security in the right-of-ways. Is this an unfair advantage to downtown merchants?

Bob Schumm

My concern with CID taxes are that the taxes can be used by private businesses to fund private activities such as general maintenance, employee training, and other ongoing expenses. Instead of these costs being born by the private business, the business instead receives a subsidy from individual taxpayers who may or may not know they are paying a higher sales tax.

The city has designated downtown as an area in which they want to see additional growth and development. Therefore, the decision was made by officials to use some of the parking meter revenue fund for ongoing maintenance such as landscaping and litter control.

BruceWayne

Should Treanor Architects be granted the tax rebates they are requesting to move their headquarters downtown?

Bob Schumm

I support their request because this is an opportunity to take a vacant, dilapidated building and turn it into a state of the art, design and development studio. Because of the nature of the request (Neighborhood Revitalization Act), the city will not be losing any existing revenue and will in fact be gaining additional tax dollars.

Moderator

A version of this question has been asked by several members of our audience. I’ll try to merge them together into one: Amercian Eagle Outfitters’ warehouse now employs several hundred people and occupies several hundred thousand square feet of space in Ottawa. Given these facts, do you believe that your opposition to the American Eagle project was a mistake? Would you be more open to a similar project today?

Bob Schumm

In my opinion, this tax subsidy was a very bad deal for the taxpayers at the time. The City Commission approved America Eagle’s request for what I thought was an overly generous tax subsidy (80% for $45 million) which exceed the norm by 30%. In addition, America Eagle had selected a site for a warehouse that was to be located on prime farmland (type 1 and type 2 soils) and the proposed pay schedule was very low. If a similar request were to be submitted today, I would again weigh the costs and benefits to the community, however given the above facts and set of circumstances my position would likely be the same .

Moderator

Well, it has been an hour and we’ve gotten through a lot of questions. Thanks to everybody who submitted a question. And thanks, Bob, for your time today. Any closing comments?

Bob Schumm

Thank you for all your thoughtful questions, I have enjoyed this discussion. I believe that I have the necessary experience and knowledge to address the multiple issues facing the City of Lawrence at this time. I would ask for your vote on Tuesday, April 5th.