The city of Lawrence was right last week to waive impact and building permit fees for projects undertaken by Douglas County and the Lawrence School District.

Ultimately, the waivers allowed county and school district projects to proceed without transferring taxpayer funds to each other and headed off a dustup among the entities over when it’s appropriate for dollars to change hands. That’s as it should be — it’s not too much to ask local government officials to work together on public projects of mutual benefit, especially when those projects are largely being paid for by the same pool of taxpayers.

Just to review: The county wanted the city to waive about $265,000 in sewer and water impact fees for the county’s new Public Works facility in eastern Lawrence, and the school district wanted the city to waive about $280,000 in building permit fees related to building improvements as part of the $92.5 million bond issue.

County and school officials appeared before the City Commission concerned about two issues:

l Douglas County Administrator Craig Weinaug was frustrated by a memo from Lawrence City Manager David Corliss that indicated the city should only waive impact fees for the county if the city could get “an appropriate level of consideration or compromise” in return.

l School Board member Shannon Kimball noted that the city waived building permit fees for Bliss Sports for the privately owned sports facilities at Rock Chalk Park. This was a highly questionable action. And as Kimball noted, if the city was going to grant such waivers for private development, then certainly the city should provide the same consideration for public entities like the school district.

Both Weinaug and Kimball make good points, especially as it relates to fees that require no cost to the city. At the same time, it seems fair for the city to ask other government entities to cover costs the city incurs in providing services for other government projects. For example, city commissioners should require some payment for conducting building inspections. Commissioners voted last Tuesday not to provide building inspections for the school district.

Perhaps above all, Tuesday’s meeting exposed a level of tension among the city, county and school district staff. Such mistrust benefits no one, as City Commissioner Mike Dever made clear.

“This was one of the most embarrassing interactions I have been a part of in the last seven years,” Dever said. “I felt like we were defending ourselves, the school district felt like it had to defend itself, and the county felt like it had to defend itself. The reason I am embarrassed is because we’re all here to serve the public.”

All three entities should keep the latter comment in mind. The taxpayers footing the bill for all of these projects deserve better from their local government leaders than territorial squabbles.