From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for June 7, 1988:

• City Commissioner Sandy Praeger recently brought up the idea of replacing 319 one-hour parking meters along Massachusetts Street with two-hour meters. Some area residents said that they would spend more time shopping if they didn’t have to keep running back to their cars to re-feed meters. (Parking options for downtown visitors at the time also included free two-hour parking lots along New Hampshire and Vermont streets as well as longer-term metered parking on side streets.) At a cost of $16 per meter, the replacement project would cost about $5,000. City staff also supported the idea of eliminating the option of using pennies to pay the meter, an alteration which would cost another $1,000, according to assistant city manager Mike Wildgen. Wildgen added that it was hard to predict what effect the change would have on city revenues. The city was planning to collect at least $81,000 in parking meter fees and another $100,000 in ticket fines in 1988, according to the city budget.
• Ribbon-cutting ceremonies were planned for July 22 at the grand opening of the city’s fourth recreation center. The $1.3 million Holcom Park Recreation Center at 27th and Lawrence was to feature a large gym, racquetball court, fitness room, games room, meeting rooms and locker rooms. The facility had been financed by a $1 million bond issue and a private fund drive.
• In an early article on climate change, a group of scientists meeting in Sweden predicted that rising ocean levels would flood cities and the climate would become warmer and more stormy unless governments worked to curb gas emissions. The problem of “greenhouse gases” was “10 times or maybe 100 times more important and more difficult” than the thinning ozone layer, according to Bert Bohn of the World Meteorological Organization.