Editor's note: This is one in a series of profiles on candidates for Lawrence City Commission. Each day this week, the Journal-World will profile one of the six candidates in the race.
Erv Hodges remembers a time when extending city services to accommodate growth wasn't quite so difficult as it is now.
Hodges was born on East 19th Street just as the Great Depression was starting, in 1929.
"At that time it was outside the city," Hodges said. "We had a little farmette."
The home burned in 1936, but the family rebuilt. There was no rural water district, so Hodges' dad, Buck, decided to tap into city water. He hooked a small pipe to the city's water line at 19th and Learnard and ran it east.
"All the other people on the street hooked into it," Hodges said. "All of us kids had to help lay the water line."
Hodges, who now is retired and running for re-election as a Lawrence city commissioner, said he has always called Lawrence home. But his career as a U.S. Marines Corps officer took him to other places for long stretches.
He joined the military after two years at Kansas University. Just as he was to be released, the Korean War broke out.
"I was held at what they called the 'convenience of the government,'" Hodges said. "By the time I was eligible to be released (again), I had a commission ... so I stayed in the Marine Corps."
Over the course of his 23-year career, Hodges was stationed on both coasts of the United States, in Paris, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean. Sometimes wife and children would accompany him; other times he would send them home to Lawrence.
Hodges retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1970; his last post was as a recruiter in the Kansas City regional office. That was followed by a six-year stint working for the city of Lawrence, then a job with Grinnell Corp., where he was sales manager for two valve companies and a supply outfit.
That job took him to South Carolina, Lenexa and St. Louis before he retired to Lawrence in 1992.
"Shirley thinks we've lived in 22 homes," he said. "I think it's 26. It depends on if you count the same one twice. But wherever we've been, we've come back to Lawrence."
After four years on the commission, one as mayor, Hodges acknowledges he has become a lightning rod in the city's ongoing debate over growth. He voted in favor of controversial tax abatements for American Eagle Outfitters and DST Systems Inc. and continues to be a proponent of abatements as an economic-development tool.
For those who say Lawrence should emphasize its quality of life to prospective industries, Hodges points to his years with Grinnell.
"They didn't give a hoot about the quality of life," he said. "They cared about the bottom line."
Hodges said the best thing the commission had done during his term was to take initiatives to help single-family neighborhoods most recently, by lowering the number of unrelated people who can live together in a home. Also, he praised the city's improvements in transportation and recreation, and to the wastewater treatment plant. Hiring more police officers also has been good for Lawrence, he said.
The city must work harder to hold the line on taxes, he said, perhaps by refinancing the city's debt. And there are still transportation problems, he said.
"We have too many automobiles going through our neighborhoods, because they can't find another way to move quickly through the city," Hodges said.
Although the Kansas Department of Transportation's proposed 32nd Street alignment for the South Lawrence Trafficway was a surprise, Hodges said it would remove 31st Street as an issue and help expand wetlands in the area.
Hodges said his leadership and experience in business, government, military and elective offices make him deserving of re-election.
"Quite honestly, I don't think anybody on that board has as much experience as I have," he said. "I'm in a position to be somewhat independent, and I think I can make the decisions on what's good for the city over the long haul."
Staff writer Joel Mathis can be reached at 832-7126.
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