The conduct of City Commissioner Mike Rundle continues to be questioned one week after he sent an inflammatory e-mail to the leader of the Lawrence Home Builders Association.

In an e-mail last Wednesday to Bobbie Flory, executive director of the association, Rundle urged her to not tout the results of a 5-year-old study that the organization did regarding whether new single-family growth pays for itself.

In that e-mail he said: “Please tell me that you are not really going to trot out the study that LHBA commissioned several years ago,” Rundle wrote. “I can’t recall something that was a bigger waste of time for city commissioners and the public than the time we spent reviewing that study and sitting through the presentation when it was unveiled.”

On Tuesday, Rundle’s comments drew some criticism from a fellow commissioner. City Commissioner Sue Hack, when asked by the Journal-World, said she found the tone of Rundle’s letter to be unprofessional.

“I thought the first sentence was extremely condescending,” Hack said regarding the reference of “trotting” out the study. “What’s disappointing is that we can’t possibly move forward on any kind of decision-making if we can’t be civil to each other.”

The home builder association’s study has become an issue again because the city is debating whether to charge new impact fees on new development. Impact fees are specific charges designed to help cover the costs that new development adds to the city’s budget.

The fees are controversial because builders and others contend that new development pays for its own costs.

Flory on Tuesday said she didn’t want to discuss her thoughts on the tone of Rundle’s letter. In an e-mail response to Rundle, she told the commissioner his “negative attitude and lack of respect towards me and the LHBA is disappointing.”

Rundle declined to comment for this story. In an e-mail to the Journal-World he said: “I don’t have further public comment on Bobbie Flory’s correspondence. I’m going to be responding to her short reply to my e-mail through another e-mail or a press conference.”

Political motives?

Rundle also did not comment on whether his e-mail to Flory was politically motivated. His seat is up for re-election in April, and the creation of new impact fees has been a major part of past campaigns.

Also just prior to Rundle sending his e-mail to Flory, leaders of the Progressive Lawrence Campaign – of which Rundle has been a member – were posting messages on a local Internet chat board critical of the previous night’s City Commission meeting. At that meeting, Flory spoke and asked commissioners to spend more time studying the issue. Some PLC leaders expressed disappointment that no one stepped forward to say that the issue had been significantly studied in 2004 and 2005 by a city-appointed group.

Flory on Tuesday said she hopes Rundle’s e-mail spurs more discussion about whether the impact-fee issue really has been studied. The city paid $140,000 last year for a consultant to study whether the city needs additional impact fees. But only half of that study has been completed. The portion of the study that determines how the city could implement impact fees for certain areas of town has not been completed.

“The real point I’ve been trying to make is that the city needs to finish that study before they start implementing new impact fees,” Flory said.

Study not last word

City Manager David Corliss, though, is recommending the city move forward on the issue before the study is completed. He said the city has enough information to craft ordinances creating new impact fees. He said the study only was designed to be one piece of the discussion, and was only providing a snapshot of whether new growth was paying for itself.

The first half of the study, which was presented to commissioners during a study session earlier this year, found that several types of residential growth were nearly paying for themselves. Medium to large-lot single family homes fell $26 short of paying their own way, duplexes fell $9 short, while small-lot single family homes fell $65 short. Apartments were the largest offender, according to the study, falling $341 per unit short.

Corliss, though, stopped short of saying he would use those numbers to form recommendations on what the new impact fees should be. He said conditions in the community likely had changed since the report was done in 2005.

Hack said she was concerned that there was a sentiment that the commission shouldn’t wait for the report to be completed.

“It concerns me greatly that we have spent all this money and do not have a report to help us make a decision,” Hack said.