photo by: Nick Krug

An aerial view shows the construction site at New York Elementary School on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2015.

It wasn’t a great Labor Day weekend for the Lawrence school district. On Sunday, J-W reporter Karen Dillon had an article about how a former supervisor at the New York Elementary School project quit after he became frustrated by many cut corners, including several that involved safely securing the construction site.

We’ll continue to follow this story, but as we do, I thought it would be good to throw in an additional piece of context. In a nutshell, it is this: The school district does have a reason to be mad at Lawrence City Hall about all of this.

It is still unclear why the school district allowed this project to move forward the way it did, but it is easy to see how the problem has its roots in a lack of cooperation between the city and the school district.

As we’ve previously reported, the school district’s construction projects aren’t being inspected by the city’s building inspections department. That’s because the school district balked at paying the estimated $285,000 in building permit fees that the city would charge for the approximately $92 million worth of school construction work happening across the city.

photo by: Nick Krug

An aerial view shows the construction site at New York Elementary School on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2015.

Previous City Manager David Corliss didn’t want to waive those fees, in part because it does cost the city real dollars to send inspectors to a job site. The building permit fees are the way the city pays those inspectors. The previous City Commission backed Corliss on the idea of not waiving the fees, but passed an ordinance that allowed the school district to hire its own inspectors, and thus be exempt from the city’s building permit fees. It is now becoming clear the school district’s idea of how to properly inspect a job is quite a bit different from how the city goes about inspecting a project.

But here’s the piece of context that perhaps some have forgotten: The city certainly does inspect projects without charging a building permit fee. It just chose not to extend that policy to the school district.

The example that sticks in my mind is Rock Chalk Park. Of the many incentives the city gave the sports complex, one of them was a rebate on the building permit fees for the track and field, soccer and softball facilities. According to information we gathered at that time, the city rebated about $65,000 worth of building permit fees to the Rock Chalk Park developers. The City Commission rebated the fees under the idea of an “economic development grant.” Certainly, the Rock Chalk Park project has the ability to be a positive driver for economic development in Lawrence. It would seem, however, that $92 million worth of school improvements could be an economic driver for the community as well. Think of how many people make their decision of where to live based off the quality of the public schools.

photo by: Nick Krug

City employees, Parks and Recreation advisory board members and guests get a tour of the 6,500-seat Kansas University track and field facility during a tour of Rock Chalk Park, Tuesday, June 10, 2014.

It is worth noting that none of the current commissioners voted for that Rock Chalk Park fee rebate. Only Mayor Mike Amyx was on the commission at the time, and he did not support the idea.

The Rock Chalk Park project, though, is not the only one to receive a break on building permit fees. The city historically has done building inspections for affordable housing projects, but has waived the building permit fees. In 2013 and 2014 the city waived a total of about $15,000 in building permit fees for such projects.

One other organization that routinely gets a break on building permit fees is Lawrence Memorial Hospital. The city inspects building projects at LMH, but the not-for-profit hospital doesn’t pay a building permit fee. Technically, the hospital is owned by the city, but it operates as an independent business. It doesn’t receive any Lawrence tax dollars to operate. The hospital is one of the more financially successful enterprises in Lawrence. I think most would agree that the school district is not.

The point of all this is to question whether the city needs to have further discussion about how it wants to handle projects in the future. What is done is done, but there is still quite a bit that is not yet done. For example, the school district is just now filing the necessary paperwork to begin construction on improvements at Pinckney Elementary School. Do the school district and the city think it is still a good idea that projects like that one and others don’t go through the city’s standard building inspections process? Is there a way that the two entities — which are funded primarily by the same set of taxpayers — could reach some sort of compromise on the building permit fees?

I don’t know. It will be an interesting issue to watch, and we’ll continue to report on it.

In other news and notes from around town:

• I don’t know if people should put a lock on their wallets quite yet, but it is beginning to feel a bit like election season. I’ve got two names for you of people who plan to file for the open seat on the Lawrence City Commission. Former City Commissioner David Schauner and former school board member Scott Morgan both have told me they plan to file for the seat, which is open after the sudden resignation of Jeremy Farmer following his financial problems at Just Food.

I’m hearing a few more names in the rumor mill, and we may hear some more today because the filing deadline is near: 5 p.m. Wednesday. As a reminder, this isn’t an election. It is an appointment process. The remaining four city commissioners will choose somebody by a simple vote to fill out Farmer’s term, which ends in January 2018.

Schauner and Morgan are in addition to former City Commissioner Terry Riordan, who told me last week he would file for the open spot.

Schauner served on the City Commission from 2003 to 2007. He won two elections — finishing third and receiving a two-year term each time. He then lost his bid for re-election in 2007. Schauner said he thinks his experience as a commissioner would be beneficial.

“I think my learning curve on how the process works is quite a bit less steep than it will be for people who haven’t served before,” Schauner said.

photo by: Scott Rothschild

KNEA general counsel David Schauner speaks Monday during a news conference announcing the group plans to sue over House Bill 2506.

Schauner was elected during a time period when the big issue was whether a new Wal-Mart should be built near Sixth and Wakarusa. He was part of the group that was concerned the big-box retailer would cause harm to the surrounding neighborhood, and Schauner said taking a long-term view of issues continues to be important.

“My goal has always been to balance competing interests,” Schauner said. “I don’t think we should sacrifice long-term sustainability for short-term gain.”

Morgan served on the school board eight years — once from 1999 to 2003 and then from 2007 to 2011. Morgan said he thinks his time period on the school board gave him some skills that would be beneficial to the City Commission. He noted he was part of the process of hiring two superintendents during his time on the board. City commissioners currently are in the process of hiring a city manager.

“The hiring of the manager is probably the most important thing the City Commission will do,” Morgan said. “So many of the day-to-day decisions flow from who you hire as a manager.”

Lawrence Republican Scott Morgan is challenging GOP incumbent Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

Morgan said his time period on the school board — which included the controversial discussions of consolidating some schools — taught him a lot about how to work in the public realm.

“I don’t feel like I’m in anybody’s particular camp,” Morgan said. “I know people in all the different camps. I’ve learned that you have to get along with a lot of different people in Lawrence if you want to accomplish anything.”

We’ll see who else may file before tomorrow’s deadline. I have heard a few other names, and have reached out to them for confirmation. So, at the moment, take these for whatever you think it is worth. I have heard David Crawford, who was a candidate during the last City Commission election, is contemplating applying. He’s an East Lawrence resident who got into city politics while trying to lure a grocery store to downtown Lawrence. UPDATE: I’ve just gotten confirmation that Crawford plans to file for the seat.

“I think I have some unfinished business from the last cycle,” Crawford said, referring to the most recent City Commission elections, where Crawford was eliminated in the primary. “The downtown grocery store project is not dead, and the issue of a food desert has not gone away either.”

I’ve also heard Charlie Bryan is considering applying. Bryan is a community health planner for the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department. Bryan has been fairly active in encouraging the city to undertake more projects related to pedestrians, bicyclists, and rethinking how large roads need to be to accommodate motorists.

I’ve also heard from a few other folks who have said they are not planning to apply. That includes former City Commissioner David Dunfield — who had helped on the recent campaign of Commissioner Leslie Soden. Stan Rasmussen, the fifth-place finisher in the most recent election, said he also would not apply. He said he thought the commission erred by creating the current selection process. He said the seat should have been given to Riordan, who was the fourth-place finisher in the election — or in other words, the person with the highest number of votes who did not win a seat.

“I think they are going to go out of their way to not select anyone from the general election,” Rasmussen said. “If they wanted to consider somebody from the general election, they could have just gone right to Dr. Riordan. They made a really conscious decision to not do that.”

I’ll let you know if I hear other names in advance of the 5 p.m. filing deadline tomorrow.