Watching TV on dull nights in bars is how Adam Mansfield began learning about the Lawrence City Commission.
Mansfield, who is challenging for a commission seat in the April 3 general election, manages Louise's Bar Downtown and has worked at a variety of other Lawrence watering holes.
Adam Mansfield, challenger for Lawrence City Commission, is a critic of special treatment for businesses and industries.
It was at one of those jobs that Mansfield found himself faced with a slow Tuesday night.
"So I thought I'd turn on the TV and watch the commission meeting," he said. "It was good for me to see the people in the bar talking about what was going on, commenting on how it affected them.
"I guess that's where the seed was first planted. I thought, 'I can do that.'"
Growing up in Garnett, Mansfield got interested in politics early. In high school, he participated in a model legislature sponsored by the Optimists Club.
"The first bill I wrote was about school finance, equalizing the valuations, because the school where I went in Garnett was scrimping," he said.
Mansfield came to Kansas University in 1992 and dabbled in a little bit of everything. He said he needs to complete one class to earn his English degree and is a few more hours short of earning one in biology.
The interest in politics held. The summer of his junior year he interned for then-Sen. Nancy Kassebaum.
"I've tried to pay attention," he said.
He was paying attention, too, when the city began the process of offering breaks to American Eagle Outfitters. That's when his interest in politics sparked into seriously mulling a run for the commission.
"That was the first time I saw a group of other people getting involved" in city government, he said of the controversy surrounding the abatements. "Although a large group got involved, their voice didn't seem to matter."
As a candidate, Mansfield has been a vocal critic of how tax abatements are used in Lawrence. More examination is needed, he said, about the effects of past abatements.
"They haven't gone back and looked at that, and they need to do that," he said.
Most people, he said, would oppose how abatements have been used, if they understood the process.
"The more information that's out there, the more people are going to understand it," he said. "That can only be good, no matter which side of the issue you're on."
Mansfield has made gathering information a top priority during his campaign. He's been a regular presence at city commission meetings since before he filed to run, and at candidate forums he often uses city documents to back the points he's trying to make.
"I think I understand the issues as well as the incumbents," he said.
Although Mansfield is running something of an outsider's campaign he's the only remaining candidate promising to raise and spend no more than $500 he does offer praise to city government, particularly recent purchases of future park land and the startup of the new bus system.
"Obviously, it's doing a lot of things well," he said. "Most people are generally happy with the way things are going."
But he says the city can do better on environmental issues. Alternative ideas are needed, he said, for wastewater treatment, and more efforts could be made for recycling and alternative forms of transportation.
"Not just a bike lane here or a bike lane there, but get it so you can see it on a map and figure how to get point-to-point and feel safe doing it," he said.
Mansfield said he would like to see a broader group of people appointed to the city's advisory boards. Although that, and other ideas, sound populist, he said he doesn't really have a philosophy.
"Right now, I'm just learning," he said. "I guess I'm idealistic enough to hope that the more people you get involved, the more things will look like what the community wants them to look like."
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