That armored vehicle is Olin's terrorist mentality still at work on our LPD and the city's budget.

Re.. armor power equal or more than the enemy..oopps...the criminals....remember the officer outside of Last Call who explained that the LPD couldn't go into the club because the club goers were heavier armed than the LPD and put the LPD in too graet a jeopardy to enforce the laws???

More Olin terrorism BS continued into the current discussions.

Olin was the one who touted how great it is that Lawrence can be a "safe" neutral meeting grounds for what turned out to be too great an armored force for the LPD to safely over see and police. More Olin propagada to justify his terrorism slant and the hardware it takes to support his failed terrorism career ambitions.

We have a chance to clean up Olin's mismagement along with the city commissioner's complicity now.

Khatib spent his entire 20 years on the LPD. Hired in the after math of ....one.... of the most corrupt cover ups in the history of Olin. All of Khatibs years are under the mentorship of failed terrorist expert, Olin. Khatib need to learn to think on his own on the big issues which hasn't happended yet. The commission needs to get a grip on reality.

For all the seemingly intelligent people in Lawrence, we sure have a difficult time not thinking like a small town. Do we really need to fix this problem using only one option, hiring more government service employees?

I am against any increase of personal in the police or fire departments. The city of Lawrence needs to focus on increasing private sector jobs NOT increasing government jobs.

This is not a difficult problem to fix. Downtown merchants want increased police patrols. I suggest DMA hire their own security department similar to what they do at the Plaza in KC. Win Win. We citizens get a tax break, the Downtown gets more security and this issue is now a revenue generator and not a bigger tax drain.

BTW, This idea is a freebe. I will not be billing the city for my consutation.

I find it difficult to form an opinion on an issue from information garnered from a news article so lacking in detail. If it is important enough to write a story about then it should be worthy of taking the time to conduct the research. Otherwise it's just stirring up emotions. Thanks Chad Lawhorn.

Information that includes quantifiable data would be helpful. How many man hours are required to police Lawrence around the clock? How much of it is done with overtime? What does the cost of new police officers do to the cost of overtime? Crime trends as well as staffing trends. Comparisons of the Lawrence community, police department, crime rates, etc. and that of other similar cities might give some perspective. I could go on and on.

At this point this story was an absolute waste of time to write. It reads more like a soap opera.

Recently there was $300,000 reduction in what the city spends each year to replace aging fire equipment despite the infrastructure sales tax voters approved in 2008 and the city agreed to spend about $500,000 of sales tax money each year to purchase new fire equipment. http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2011/jul...

This cut to the City fire department was approved by Mr. Schumm despite the fact that he received corporate welfare for new sprinklers in the form of tax payer subsidies. Here are the other private businesses who got corporate welfare for their fire sprinklers:

Tellers, 746 Mass: George Paley Lawrence Masonic Temple, 1001 Mass: Consolidated Properties, aka Doug Compton Buffalo Bob's, 719 Mass: Bob Schumm Goldmakers, Peter Zacharias The Bayleaf, 725 Mass: Anne Yetman The Casbah, 803 Mass, David Millstein Hobbs, 700 Mass, Mark Swanson Silverworks and More, James & Cara Connelly http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/apr...

At a Online Round Table on the future of downtown I asked Mr. Schumm, Mr. Compton, and Mr. Paley some questions:

Does the recent cut to the fire protection in the City of Lawrence, in spite of the the clear intention of the voters and promises of the Commissioners, concern downtown landowners less because they have taxpayer subsidized sprinklers? Do Commissioner Schumm, Mr. Paley, and Mr. Compton favor a special tax on all their properties to pay back those subsidies to mitigate the recent $300,000 reduction all of Lawrence now face in 2011? http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2011/jul/15/town-talk-downtown-roundtable-event-planned-monday/#c1689250

But somehow, cub reporter and PR hack Chad Lawhorn, never got around to asking any of them! http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2011/jul/18/live-blog-downtown-property-owners-discuss-future-/#c1694688

Bottom line? The police station is located downtown and although a few new officers would significantly decrease the response time to other parts of Lawrence, the response time downtown would not be significantly improved.

Isn't it about time the the downtown landlords and businesses start to give back to Lawrence Community for all that we do for them? Let's start with an additional 1% special tax on downtown businesses to help fund a few new police officers.

(quote)Why does the chief want to purchase a military grade Armored Personnel Carrier? (Yes, it is on his list of requests) And you want trust all his views of staffing levels?(quote)

Most likely planing on getting some of that gubberment drug war monies to fund it, that way they have a new toy show off to the public (help you feel all safe like) & to play with on all the K2 raids their planing..... guess is you'll see it parked through a window in a downtown business with in weeks!

Why doesn't the LPD use the training offered without fee to the City by the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center in Hutchinson, instead of replicating it all in-house?

How much would that save in personnel? Why is Lawrence so "special" about its officers that it doesn't use this option which most of the State of Kansas uses? If LPD needs customized training for Lawrence procedures, it can still do that.

Why does the chief want to purchase a military grade Armored Personnel Carrier? (Yes, it is on his list of requests) And you want trust all his views of staffing levels?

And yes, I was involved in a minor bump-from-behind accident (no damage to me) which required 4 police cars.

I don't know all of the facts, but it does appear that the taxes are on the table to increase at a significant rate in an already-higer property tax area.

Purely opinion from a limited standpoint...

http://www2.ljworld.com/weblogs/overnight-wrap-up/2011/aug/1/august-1st-overnight-law-enforcement-fir/

Another quiet Sunday night .....

This is pretty much what has been reported for months with rare exception.

Commissioner Schumm is correct to go with the lowest numbers.

It's unfortunate that the commission doesn't have Rundle on it now to assist Schumm.

I want the city to spend what is necessary for police officers.

How about cutting back on the tax breaks and other gifts to developers?

When it comes to the LPD budget never has the LPD taken a back seat. It eats up a large portion of the budget.

Comm Carter has no idea what he is talking about.

“Housing is such a critical element to our economy,” Carter said. “As a government, there is a not a lot we can do to create jobs, but we can help create an environment to support economic development.”

Our city's current budget crunch could easily be tied directly to infrastructure expenses needed to serve new residential developments. The community is way over extended in this regard.

If residential growth paid for itself and was financially positive, we would not be in a budget crunch. But with increased numbers of residential you have increased demand on services, and historically the funding of revenues generated by residential housing does not pay for the services, they require from a municipality.

Why not increased IMPACT FEES or EXCISE TAXES? Local real estate developers have had a great time laughing all of the way to the bank on the backs of taxpayers. Time to stop this nonsense.

Additionally Basic findings:

1. Lawrence is overbuilt in housing: Homes were built faster than popualtion growth supporting these homes. Excessive subdivisions caused an outmigration from older neighborhoods causing a severe loss of value, a loss of dwelling units, and a variety of other problems such as school closings. Basic strategy:

Lawrence should adopt a policy of "cooling off" the pace of development. Note: This is not a moratoriam; it is a consicous effort to redirect growth to existing neighborhoods and districts where it can be beneficial.

Housing: The city should stop approving new subdivisions until the existing supply of surplus homes is eliminated. It should direct housing investment back into older neighborhoods so as to preserve and protect the existing public and private investment there.

Kirk McClure – Lawrence,Kansas

Education Ph. D., City Planning, University of California, Berkeley, Department of City and Regional Planning, 1985. Concentrations in Housing Economics and Public Finance.

Master in City Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 1978. Specialization in Housing Policy Analysis.

Bachelor of Arts, University of Kansas, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 1974. Special Major in Urban Studies.

Bachelor of Architecture, Graduated With Distinction University of Kansas, School of Architecture and Urban Design, 1973.

I could agree more -

We don't need to add large number of cops to the police force. If anything - we need to educate the ones that are on the force now. A friend of mine's house was recently broken into and several pieces of computer equipment were stolen. We were able to track on of the laptops to an IP address. We gave it to the cop, but he didn't have clue one what to do with it.

A couple of years ago - I had a gun pulled on me while running in the evening. The people eventually drove off and I was only able to get the first couple of letters of the license plate. It took the cops over an hour to get to my house because they went to the wrong address. Then, they told me they would give the information to their detectives, but they wouldn't do anything with it. They also said that the first three letters of a license plate, Kansas plates, color of the car and ethnicity of the presumed owners were not enough to find the people involved. What?!?

Seriously - Lawrence cops are worthless.

“Two is a good number to start with, and if we keep doing that, we’ll have several new officers in a few years,” Schumm said.

How these local idiots elected you back onto the commission I do not understand. They must all be transplants unfamiliar with your prior years of "service" such as this idiotic comment. Adding "several officers" in a few years will not even compensate for the ones that will be retiring much less bring the force up to a decent level for barely adequate service. But then it, of course, would be you that has contempt for the police...not decent citizens.

You are not doing what you were elected to do, Bob, which is to make decisions in the best interest of the citizens...not according to your own personal agenda. We encountered plenty of that through others no longer on the commission.