photo by: Mike Yoder

Concrete infrastructure is shown in the parking lot outside Sports Pavilion Lawrence at Rock Chalk Park.

An old name has popped up in the city’s new lawsuit alleging a fraudulent tax scheme related to The Oread hotel. The name: Rock Chalk Park.

If you haven’t already, read LJWorld reporter Rochelle Valverde’s excellent account of what’s included in the city’s lawsuit against Thomas Fritzel and his entity Oread Wholesale. I also spent some time going over the many pages of documents released by the city yesterday. Among those was a new audit report produced on the city’s behalf, and that audit had a brief reference to Rock Chalk Park work.

In a nutshell, the Rock Chalk Park reference created questions about whether a Fritzel-led entity had improperly charged the city sales tax for construction materials used at Rock Chalk Park. When I asked the city about it, the city attorney said there was little she could say about the matter currently.

I’ll give you more details in a moment, but as a reminder, Thomas Fritzel — a defendant in this new lawsuit — was at the center of a controversial public-private partnership with the city and the University of Kansas to build the Rock Chalk Park sports complex in northwest Lawrence. The previous city commission and administration paid a Fritzel-led firm more than $20 million as part of the partnership, which included about a $12 million no-bid contract that was given to Fritzel’s construction company.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Concrete infrastructure is shown in the parking lot outside Sports Pavilion Lawrence at Rock Chalk Park.

The audit report released Wednesday included an exhibit that listed transactions that the city alleges were improperly credit to The Oread hotel’s special taxing districts. The exhibit listed three deliveries that were made to Rock Chalk Park addresses. One of the deliveries was noted as “concrete products,” while the exhibit didn’t list what the other two deliveries involved.

What we don’t know currently is whether those Rock Chalk Park deliveries had a sales tax charge attached to them. That’s a key question because it seems clear that construction products used at Rock Chalk Park were exempt from sales tax. If sales tax were charged, it would create a question of whether the city was paying more for construction materials than it should have.

To be clear, the audit report doesn’t tell us whether that was the case. But it did cause me to have the question, so I asked it of the city. City Attorney Toni Wheeler did confirm that sales tax should not be charged on construction materials used at Rock Chalk Park. But when I asked whether sales taxes were charged on the Rock Chalk Park items, or whether the city had any concern that it was improperly charged a sales tax as part of the construction project, Wheeler said she was unable to comment on those matters due to the pending litigation.

The city has the invoices. They were included as Exhibit No. 2 of the recent audit. However, the city removed that exhibit from the audit report before it was released to the public. I asked if the city could make the invoices available for review, and Wheeler declined.

Again, it is too early to know what to make of this. But given the questions of the financial accounting of the Rock Chalk Park project, it seemed like an issue worth noting.

I guess one thing that the lawsuit has made clear is that Oread Wholesale — the company the city is now accusing of defrauding the city — was involved to some degree in the Rock Chalk Park project. Worth watching.

In other news and notes from around town:

• In some people’s books, Lawrence has just become hipper. If you remember, there were people who said Lawrence’s hipness factor got a boost back in April 2015 when Uber announced it would bring its ride-sharing service to Lawrence. Well, now there is news that Uber’s main competitor also has started service in Lawrence.

The ride-sharing company Lyft has announced that it is launching service in Lawrence and Kansas City at noon today. Lyft operates much like Uber. You use a digital app to schedule a ride with a Lyft driver who uses his or her own car — as opposed to an official taxi — to pick you up and deliver you to your location.

The signature pink mustache of ride-booking company Lyft sits on the hood of a vehicle during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., on Thursday, Aug. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

Lyft’s service territory includes all of Lawrence, south to the Gardner area, north to the Lansing area, and all of the KC metro that is on the Kansas side of the state line. Lyft noted that it will not provide service into Missouri.

As for rates, thus far Lyft and Uber seem to be pretty comparable. Both companies have rate estimators on their websites. A trip from 31st and Iowa to Sixth and Massachusetts in downtown Lawrence was estimated at $7 to $10 on Uber’s site. It was estimated at $9 on Lyft’s.