Charitable services to merge boards

Officials today are expected to announce the details of a plan to merge Penn House with the Ballard Community Center.

“We are trying to increase efficiency and be more accountable to our donors,” said Dianne Ensminger, executive director of the Ballard Community Center.

Plans call for both programs remaining in their current locations – Ballard Community Center at 708 Elm St., Penn House at 1035 Pa. – but under one governing board.

Both programs have provided food, clothing, rent and utility help to those in need for many years. Ballard Community Center opened in 1964, Penn House in 1969.

After the merger, six members of the Penn House governing board are expected to join the Ballard Community Center board.

County commission

Moratorium set on five-acre exemption

Deeds and surveys filed on land by 5 p.m. June 1 will beat the deadline for a moratorium on the five-acre exemption rule.

Douglas County commissioners agreed Monday to approve a moratorium on use of the five-acre exemption. The commission will formally vote on the matter June 8. The moratorium would be backdated to June 1 and end at 5 p.m. Nov. 30.

Commissioner Bob Johnson said he hoped there wouldn’t be a rush of landowners working to complete paperwork. The idea behind the moratorium isn’t to eliminate the exemption, he said.

“It’s to eliminate the creation of five-acre subdivisions. It’s not to eliminate people from building individual homes,” Johnson said.

The exemption currently allows landowners with at least five acres of rural property to build a home without rezoning and platting, an often costly process. The moratorium will require landowners to have at least 10 acres instead of five.

Commissioners said they wanted a long-range plan for rural development before the moratorium ends.

Courts

Arguments slated in smoking-ban trial

A Lawrence bar owner will have another chance to argue that the city’s smoking ban is unconstitutional, a Douglas County District Court Judge decided Monday.

Judge Jack Murphy set oral arguments for 2:30 p.m. June 28 in a case involving Dennis Steffes, the owner and operator of Coyote’s Night Club, 1003 E. 23rd St., and Last Call, 729 N.H. The case is part of Steffes’ appeal of an April ruling in Municipal Court that found Steffes guilty on one count of violating the city’s smoking ban because of a customer smoking at Coyote’s. He was found innocent on four other counts related to customers smoking in his bars.

As part of his defense, Steffes argued that the ban on smoking at indoor public places was unconstitutional. Municipal Court Judge Randy McGrath did not agree and ruled the ban constitutional. Steffes on Monday said he still believed the ordinance, which became law on July 1, was overly broad and illegally trumped a state law that spelled out when businesses needed to provide no-smoking areas.

“You have an ordinance that tramples on a state statute,” Steffes said.

City prosecutor Jerry Little said the city was confident in the ordinance’s constitutionality and would fully defend the case.

Gasoline Prices

Patrol seeks fuel deals

The Journal-World has found a gas price as low as $1.90 at several stations in Lawrence.

If you find a lower price, call Pump Patrol at 832-7154.