Candidates to go back to school

Program will offer campaign advice, answer elections questions

It won’t be called Lawrence Politics 101, but a new Lawrence Chamber of Commerce effort will attempt to lay out the basics of how to be a candidate in a sometimes contentious city.

The chamber’s Leadership Lawrence Program will have its inaugural Community Candidate School at 10 a.m. on Dec. 11 at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

“We think people should go into the process with their eyes wide open,” said Nancy Longhurst, executive director of Leadership Lawrence. “I think a lot of people have a lot of questions before they run for office. We wanted to try to do something to alleviate some of those question marks.”

The event primarily is designed to answer questions related to the upcoming City Commission and school board elections. The training session is open to the public and will feature a variety of speakers, including former city commissioners John Nalbandian, Jo Andersen and Bob Schulte, school board members Sue Morgan and Cindy Yulich, and several members of the city and school district staffs.

‘The big issues’

Nalbandian, chairman of Kansas University’s Department of Public Administration and former two-term city commissioner, will direct the event. He said he would try to help potential candidates get in the right frame of mind.

“Most candidates don’t understand that their role is to focus on the big issues,” Nalbandian said. “The tendency is to get too involved in details.”

Nalbandian said if commissioners or school board members didn’t adopt that way of thinking, they could find themselves overwhelmed with details that are difficult to grasp.

“If you are on the City Commission, you have to understand that you are not going to be able to learn everything there is to learn about treating wastewater, even though that’s very important to the city,” Nalbandian said. “You’re going to have to find a way to trust your administrators to deal with the details.”

Top city Commission vote-getter Mike Rundle, right, rewards the runner-up, Boog Highberger, with a yellow construction hat. Rundle and Highberger finished one-two in the last City Commission race. A new Lawrence Chamber of Commerce effort is attempting to teach candidates the basics of running for office.

Schulte, a vice president with Gene Fritzel Construction and a former one-term city commissioner, said candidates also needed an understanding of the time it would take to serve in various offices. That means talking about the decision to run not only with their families but also with their employers.

Thick skins

“It is really important to discuss this with the bosses,” he said. “It is time consuming. In the past, I know there have been some employers who have come to resent the amount of time that (commissioners) have to spend away from the job.”

Another consideration for candidates should be the thickness of their skins, Schulte said.

“Campaigns have always been a little bit rough and tumble,” Schulte said.

Again, he said candidates should talk it over with family members and bosses to determine whether they’re willing to go through some of the downsides of the process. Schulte said such realities caused some good people to take a pass on public service.

“There have been races in the past where I felt we had a lack of qualified candidates,” Schulte said. “As issues become more contentious, people tend to decide they don’t want to become a part of the process. They just don’t want to get beat up.”

Past City Commission and school board races generally have produced enough candidates to require a primary. But other high-profile positions, such as county commissioner and sheriff, have produced campaigns with only one candidate.

“We’re certainly hoping this school will help produce more civil campaigns,” Longhurst said. “We’ll definitely talk about what it means to have a civil campaign.”

Candidates for Lawrence City Commission and the Lawrence school board have until noon Jan. 25 to file for seats on either board.If seven or more candidates file for either, a primary election will be March 1. The general election will be April 5.

Nuts and bolts

The school also will discuss more behind-the-scenes issues related to campaigns. Items planned for discussion include how to organize a campaign steering committee, campaign paperwork and regulations, and perhaps the biggest behind-the-scenes issue of all — fund raising.

Nalbandian said the issue of money was becoming a bigger factor in Lawrence political races. When he last ran for the City Commission in the mid-1990s, he raised $12,000, then considered a healthy amount. Today, he said that would be closer to the minimum amount needed for a serious candidate to compete.

But Nalbandian said he wouldn’t be preaching the evils of money and politics.

“I don’t think it is a sad fact to say that you have to be able to raise money,” Nalbandian said. “If you can’t raise money, that means nobody knows you. You may have all these great skills for the job, but that is not what politics is about. If that was what it was about, we would have all these knowledge-based prerequisites for candidates. We don’t have that because that’s not what it is about.”

Candidates for City Commission and school board have until noon Jan. 25 to file for seats. If seven or more candidates file for either, there will be a primary March 1. The general election will be April 5.