The following is the content of Mayor Mike Rundle’s State of the City Address delivered on Tuesday, March 26, 2002.

Good Evening. This is the traditional state of the city address delivered each year by the mayor of the city of Lawrence. I appreciate the honor of serving in this position for the past year and I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you tonight.

We are barely six months past the tragic events of September 11, 2001; the impact of those events on our lives is not yet clear. Our community is also facing financial uncertainty due to a budget shortfall at the state level. In spite of these and other uncertainties I want to focus on our future as a community and as a city. Our future is indeed bright before us like a flame.

Lawrence is a good city without question. I don’t believe good is good enough. You or I can list many assets. We can be proud of the character of our people and the quality of our city. However, I believe the best is out on the horizon – we are on our way to being a great city and we will need to work together as a community if we are to realize that potential for greatness.

Let me first take stock of the year just past and the city of Lawrence today. The landscape of our community continues to change rapidly with expansion of new housing stock, a steady stream of renovation, restoration and remodeling in established areas of our community, newly constructed public facilities, the acquisition of park land and improvements to existing public facilities and parks. The challenges facing our community are those of a vibrant growing city. Those are the challenges a governing body wants over any other. It is an exciting time in local history to be a commissioner and mayor.

It has been my pleasure over the last year to preside over the opening of many park facilities including the restored Teddy Roosevelt fountain and the renovated wading pool, both in South Park, nature trails in Prairie Park and our new off leash dog park near Clinton Lake.

Many projects and programs were launched before I began my term as mayor and they continue to grow and unfold. Airport improvements will continue this year; ridership of our bus system continues to expand as the Public Transit Advisory Committee guides us along a path of success; construction of a new fire station moves ahead; some divisions of our police department now occupy a new center in West Lawrence; our waste water treatment plant expansion is progressing as scheduled; the Bowersock dam on the Kansas River over 100 years old has been given an extension of its life through repairs completed over the winter; we are using our new parking garage at 9th and New Hampshire; and we are all looking forward to the opening of the new Lawrence Arts Center on April 8, 2002.

These are just a few projects that provide the infrastructure for city services and give a home for programs that benefit our citizens.

The Lawrence City Commission has formed and nurtured many successful partnerships throughout the community with other agencies and elected officials. Our meetings with the Douglas County Commission and school board members continue to be productive; the University of Kansas has been meeting over this past year with neighbors, staff and myself in an attempt to foster a better working community relationship as the university and the city grow together. The city commission has moved forward on a variety of fronts to develop policies that foster neighborhood stability and balance inevitable change with preservation.

During the last year I was able to appoint the founding members of the Housing Trust Fund Advisory Board; The Waste Reduction and Recycling department continues to expand composting, recycling services and hazardous waste collection programs to the citizens of Lawrence. That department has also created innovative partnerships to encourage energy conservation, buying recycled products and preventing pollution from occurring within our community; City Hall now remains open over the lunch hour; our staff regularly receives recognition and awards from peer organizations.

Before I go any further let me also acknowledge our city staff who work diligently throughout the year to provide the services we depend on every day — water, public safety, streets and recreation needs are all met almost without interruption. We never thank staff enough. Our expectations continue to grow and staff always responds.

Along with staff we are very fortunate that Lawrence is home to so many talented people willing to serve on our boards and commissions. The new programs and those expanded in the last year depend on both our dedicated staff and community volunteers.

These brief highlights help illustrate that our city employees are one of our greatest assets. I hope that we can maintain a climate of support for staff so that they in turn are able to remain enthused about what they do and so that both the commission and our city employees share an understanding of the importance of their work.

How can we build on the foundation that exists today so that Lawrence becomes the great city it can be?

We have to dream together of the ideal city that our citizens and future citizens might want and we need to facilitate that process. This will enable us to create a clearer vision of our future in all aspects of our daily life.

We need to study cities throughout the country and even the world so that we may create new ideas of what we can become. We have tremendous capacity among our citizens for identifying the ideals for becoming a great city, for evaluating their practicality and appropriateness for this Midwest community of Lawrence, Kansas. We have not used the brain power and willingness of the many people who could contribute to this effort to the full extent that is possible. We can build a consensus that narrows these ideals to a community focus and translate that into a detailed strategic plan and put those plans into action with clear goals and timetables.

The great cities of the world are not accidents. The residents of those cities dreamed, planned and implemented a shared vision to become great cities. Lawrence can be a model for cities in the 21st century; there is no need for us to settle for becoming another good “anywhere, USA” bedroom community of urban sprawl.

Let me focus the balance of these remarks in the area of our economic well-being.

We have enjoyed a decade of unbroken prosperity and there is no reason to believe that we can not sustain that trend. Our community has supported initiatives that have contributed dramatically to the quality of our lives in areas of the arts, education and recreation. All of this has been accomplished through the efforts of countless individuals working behind the scenes and out in front of the public. It is time to concentrate the same kind of effort in the area of economic prosperity.

We need to do at least the following two things. First we need to play to our strengths and second we need to create and implement strategies that have a solid base of support in the broadest cross section of the community that is possible. The community journalism project of the World Company was called, “Lawrence Is Growing: Finding Common Ground.” That title also translates to a substantial challenge for our community. The work of ECO2, a group convened by the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce is an example of the kind of work that we need to continue. Diverse interests gather around a common table take ownership of, participate in and have taken responsibility for the success of issues that are important to the entire community.

Our planning commission provides another example of community based efforts that shape our future. There is no matter of greater consequence to our future than the management of growth. That management must reflect the breadth and span of community interests. We have made strides toward balance on the planning commission and it has responded admirably. Over the recent months the planning commission has been tackling tough issues and working toward consensus on a variety of policy questions. I would like to add my thanks to the planning commissioners for their effort and the care they bring to their work.

We must not shy away from the goal of enabling all of our citizens the opportunity to earn a living wage. We can think more strategically about supporting economic development efforts in organized and pragmatic ways to improve the odds that our economic development efforts lead us toward the goal of providing opportunities to earn a living wage. Earning a living wage has just as much to do with quality of life as bike trails and art programs.

I think we can concentrate our efforts on attracting companies or growing companies that contribute more to the community than they extract. We can concentrate our efforts on attracting companies that the vast majority of our citizens are happy to have here – companies that appreciate being here and are appreciated in turn. We have to be more targeted in our approach to economic development to attract the types of companies that play to our strengths and those opportunities that hold great potential for our community.

We have been divided as a community by many issues in the past whether it is the idea that we are unfriendly to business and or unfriendly to citizens with alternative points of view. It is time to identify and focus instead on our strengths as a community and the goals for our future. It is time for a commitment as a community to work together in organized and practical ways to build on the foundation of those strengths and work together in reaching the goals we create together.

Playing to our strengths and implementing community based strategic planning can apply to any effort in our community. Historic preservation; the creation of a national heritage center; addressing affordable housing needs; planning for the success of every young person in our community; economic development and the preservation of open space are challenges facing us today and there are many people in our community now who are willing to engage those and many other challenging issues and projects.

“We have tomorrow before us bright like a flame.” The poetry of Langston Hughes calls to us from the past and points to our future. Our future is indeed bright. I hope that we continue to search for common ground; that common ground is the foundation for Lawrence’s future as the great city it can be.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to the citizens of Lawrence for allowing me the honor of serving as your mayor for the past year and I pledge to continue to work for you to the best of my ability as a city commissioner.