Interim director named for legal department

A seven-year member of the city’s legal staff has been appointed interim director of the city’s legal department.

Toni Wheeler, a staff attorney for the city, will manage the department that oversees the city’s Municipal Court and two other staff attorneys who advise commissioners and various city departments on legal matters.

Wheeler joined the city after working for a Kansas City, Mo., law firm. She is a 1997 graduate of the Washburn School of Law.

New pump station gets unanimous OK

A new $10 million pump station to serve the growing northwest area of the city received unanimous approval from city commissioners Tuesday evening.

Commissioners made only one change to the project. They directed city staff to collect from developers who hook their projects into the station a fee for the hookup and a fee to help compensate the city for financing the pump station project.

The city is not borrowing the approximately $10 million that will be needed to build the station, which will be just south of the Kansas Turnpike. Instead, it will use existing funds from its utility operations.

But City Commissioner David Schauner pointed out that by using those funds, the city will be losing interest that it otherwise would have gained on the money. Staff members will calculate how much interest the city will lose and add that to the amount developers will pay for the project.

Wal-Mart proposal delayed once again

Commissioners agreed to further delay consideration of a new Wal-Mart at Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive.

Commissioners had planned to consider approval of a preliminary development plan for the store at next week’s meeting. But commissioners Tuesday agreed to instead put the issue on their Oct. 24 agenda.

Next week commissioners instead will be dealing with a pair of East Lawrence planning issues. One is a request from Robert Krause to conduct catering services out of his home at 917 Del. The other is an update on planning issues related to a proposed redevelopment project for the area near Eighth and Pennsylvania streets.

Commissioners also wanted to give staff members more time to get minutes in order from the August meeting of the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission, which deadlocked on the Wal-Mart question.