Coalitions amplify city race tensions

Past, future mayors fear 'us vs. them' campaign effects

In 1995, John Nalbandian was elected to the Lawrence City Commission with 6,239 votes — 1,000 more than any other commission candidate has garnered in the past decade.

But Nalbandian, now a former mayor, isn’t sure he could get elected in Lawrence today. He’s not sure he’d even want to try.

This year’s City Commission campaign has become that divisive.

“It’s become an ‘us vs. them’ campaign,” Nalbandian said. “I don’t see myself stereotypically, on one side or another, and I don’t know if there’s a place for me — people like me — in this political environment.”

The fear and anger go both ways, and observers say it’s more intense than recent campaigns.

Members of the business and development community privately express concerns that Progressive Lawrence Campaign candidates, if elected, will adopt policies that will harm business, economic development and the city’s growth. They see in Dennis “Boog” Highberger’s 16-year-old essays for anarchist magazines confirmation of their worst fears — even though the most inflammatory quotes in some versions of the writings’ circulation were proved false.

Backers of the Progressive Lawrence candidates, meanwhile, say the ruckus about Highberger’s essays are part of a smear job by their political opponents. And they say predictions of economic disaster are being trumped up by the business community in a desperate bid to hold on to the power to allow unfettered growth in the community.

The lines have been drawn.

But after the April 1 election will come two years of governing before the next campaign. What will happen during that time?

The Journal-World talked to four once and future mayors of Lawrence to find out what ramifications the divisive campaign could have for the city’s governance.

Come together

“Clearly the political process is one of separating yourself from the other candidates and drawing distinctions,” said Commissioner David Dunfield, who is expected to become mayor in April.

“The process of being a city commissioner is one of trying to bring people together and get things done,” he said. “It really is a shift in goals — running and doing the work are two different things.”

Nobody denies making the transition might be harder to do this year. But there are different theories as to why the campaign has gotten so rough.

“I think it’s because this is the first year in recent memory that I can recall having a slate,” Nalbandian said, referring to the rise of the Progressive Lawrence Campaign. That “smart growth” political action committee’s candidates — Highberger, Mike Rundle and David Schauner — took the top three places in the February primary election.

Last week, it prompted the launch of the Truth for a Better Lawrence campaign, backing the candidates who placed fourth through sixth in February’s primary — Lee Gerhard, Greg DiVilbiss and Lynn Goodell.

Nalbandian, a member of candidate Goodell’s steering committee, said the divisiveness has come from both sides. But the existence of a slate, whatever its political leanings, makes the division possible.

Nothing new

“Now you can take a potshot at a candidate, and you’re really taking a shot at” the other candidates on that slate, he said. “A shot at Highberger is a shot at a slate; a shot at Lynn is a shot at the four, five, six finishers.”

Progressive Lawrence officials see it differently.

“There’s really clear contrasts between the candidates PLC endorses and the other three candidates, and when you have those kinds of contrasts, you’ll see sparks and light,” said Karl Brooks, Progressive Lawrence’s chairman. “But sparks and light can be good for a community.”

Politicians with longer memories say this isn’t the worst it has ever been in Lawrence. League of Women Voters President Marci Francisco served as mayor during the 1980s, when the city was torn over proposals to create a “cornfield mall” in the southern part of town.

Things now are nowhere near as hot as they got back then, Francisco said.

“There’s no rumors about any of the candidates being pregnant this time,” she chuckled.

What then?

Mayor Sue Hack will remain on the commission the next two years along with this year’s winners. She said she was worried the politics would carry over onto the Commission bench after the election.

“I am worried,” she said. “I think it’s a slippery slope to those governing bodies that we have seen that are dysfunctional, like the Kansas City school board. I’ve not seen a Topeka City Council meeting, but I’ve heard rumors.”

That would be a change from the normally genteel manner of Lawrence City Commission meetings.

“I think one of the things that’s distinguished the commission while I’ve been on it has been what might be considered a lack of friction,” Dunfield said. “There’s certainly different viewpoints, but we have conducted ourselves for the most part in a civil and appropriate manner.”

Dunfield suggested the long knives used during the campaign could be put away after the election.

“The politics never really ends,” he said. “But I think there will be plenty of opportunities for the new commission to demonstrate what it’s really about, as opposed to what people might be saying it’s about.”

Stereotypes at play

Francisco said there were ways to make peace after elections.

“I’ve always thought it would be good to think about the other candidates when there are openings on boards and commissions, and be inclusive,” she said. “These people have said they’re willing to take a great deal of time to serve — why not take advantage of that?”

Hack said the commission would have a chance to reach early consensus during an annual goal-setting session after the election.

And Nalbandian said that campaign rhetoric exaggerates the divides between candidates. That’s important to remember after April 1, he said.

“Nobody is for ‘no-growth’ and nobody is for ‘pave everything.’ And growth is not the only issue the city faces,” Nalbandian said.

“But it’s important it gets looked at in all its dimensions rather than a stereotypic fashion,” he said, “and that’s what’s happening.”