Incumbent Rundle touts experience and pro-neighborhood stance

Mike Rundle has spent eight of the last 16 years on the Lawrence City Commission, but he has more that he wants to accomplish.

That’s why he’s on the campaign trail again, touting his experience as the only incumbent in the race.

“My priority is standing up for neighborhoods,” Rundle said at a recent campaign forum, sounding notes similar to his first campaign in 1987. “Lawrence can be a great city, but only if we insist on growing with character.”

He’s made his reputation by being a consistent opponent of developments he believes violates the city comprehensive plan, being a vocal critic of city management and for his votes against tax abatements he believes benefit businesses at the expense of taxpayers.

But Rundle suggests he would vote for an abatement if the right one came along.

This important economic development tool needs to be used judiciously,” he said. “Tax abatements cost us tax dollars and must be fair and equitable to the rest of the community. I believe the next commission needs to continue the public dialogue on this policy issue.”

And Rundle believes the city’s handling of growth is improving, but not yet perfect.

“The current commission gets high marks for choosing ‘Planned Growth’ as one of its goals for 2002,” he said. “However, we have not had any discussion of how we will achieve or implement that goal. Our planning commission needs to take our comprehensive plan more seriously. I do not believe that we have adequate staffing to manage growth for a city of our size and for the pace of our growth.”

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.

Rundle believes that raising taxes should happen only after a serious study is made of city services.

“This is not a choice that can be made blindly and I wouldn’t do so,” he said.

“We should look systematically at all city operations and services to see how we can be smarter and reduce costs throughout the organization,” he said. “Cuts are ill considered if we don’t know the impact on levels of service in the areas affected by the cuts.

“At the same time we need to know if citizens find lower levels of service acceptable,” Rundle said. “Raising taxes should be considered only when we are sure that we are using existing resources wisely.”

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