Lehman rates city leadership on growth as ‘poor’

Eddie Lehman looks at Lawrence’s growth, and he doesn’t like what he sees.

“Developers are like little children — they want as much as they can get,” Lehman said at a recent forum for city commission candidates. “The problem, with the city commission, is that they’ve given them that.”

Lehman, 37, a resident assistant at Haskell Indian Nations University, is running for both Lawrence City Commission and Lawrence School Board. On city issues, he takes the stance of a skeptic regarding Lawrence’s current path.

“I would rate the current city leadership as poor in the management of Lawrence’s growth,” he said.

“We need to treat the city of Lawrence as a business,” he said. “And as a business the current leadership has done a poor job of marketing. We need to look at why desirable companies want to move here, (like) Serologicals, and why they move away, (like) Sportsvision/Coaches Edge.

“We also need to decide what type of community we want to be,” he said. “A bedroom community for Topeka and Kansas City or a free standing economic entity.”

Although Lehman rates City Hall as “user friendly,” he’s the only candidate to criticize the performance of City Manager Mike Wildgen.

“I would rate the city manager’s performance as poor … based on the performance of the Police Department’s senior management, the performance of the Planning Department in managing growth, and economic development or rather the lack of it,” Lehman said.

This is one of 11 city commission candidate profiles that will run in alphabetical order online each weekday, Monday through Friday, through Feb. 21.6News will provide an accompanying video profile at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. each weeknight through Feb. 21 on Sunflower Broadband’s cable Channel 6.Video and text profiles on the candidates will be compiled through the series online on our City commission candidates site.

And Lehman suggests the choice between raising taxes or cutting services to balance the budget can be resolved if city government is run more efficiently.

“Once you have defined the ‘needs’ and have determined that those services are being provided in the most efficient method and there is still a budget shortfall,” he said, “then unfortunately additional tax revenue would be required.”

Despite his skeptical stance, Lehman hopes for the best.

“The city is going to grow,” he said. “We need to maintain the qualities and character we value so much.”

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