From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Sept. 30, 1971:

On election day, Lawrence and Douglas County voters delivered a crushing defeat to the city-county proposal for a combined government center. The $5,640,000 bond issue, the largest ever in county history, had been defeated by a 5-3 margin. Of the 25 polling places in Lawrence and in the county, the proposition had failed in all but one. The city and county had proposed building the $5,979,000 city-county center on a site at 11th and New Hampshire, adjacent to the present courthouse. “We still haven’t solved the jail problem. We still haven’t solved the courthouse problem,” said County Commission Chairman Art Heck. “The problems are just as serious now and it will take us longer to solve them.” County Election Officer Delbert Mathia was disappointed as well, but for a different reason. Mathia’s prediction of a voter turnout of 10,450 was far over the actual vote total of 8,722. “I’m not going to do any more predicting,” Mathia said. “If they’re not interested in $6 million I don’t know what they are interested in. Even if they were all no votes, they ought to be interested.”