A Lawrence resident with experience as a fundraiser for nonprofit agencies has been named the new executive director of Downtown Lawrence Inc.

Sally Zogry has been selected by the Downtown Lawrence Inc. board to replace retiring director Cathy Hamilton. Zogry currently is the development officer for the Kansas Historical Foundation in Topeka and formerly worked as the development director for Lawrence-based Health Care Access.

Zogry will start work July 1. Hamilton has agreed to stay on the job through July 19, which will allow Zogry to receive some on-the-job training during the busy time period of Downtown Lawrence’s annual sidewalk sale, which is set for July 18.

Expect to see a few hundred enthusiasts of both Elvis and running in downtown Lawrence on June 22. A group of area Rotary Clubs will host a unique event: Elvis Visit to End Polio Now.

The event is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. at Watson Park with a 5K walk and run that will travel around the park and through the Old West Lawrence neighborhood. (Just to be clear, you don’t have to wear an Elvis costume to run, but all the cool kids will be.) The Rotary Clubs that evening will host a concert by noted Elvis tribute artist Joseph Hall at 7:30 p.m. at the Lied Center. Unless you are like me, the 5K run and walk shouldn’t take you until 7:30. (In my defense, blue suede shoes, a guitar, and 15 pounds of hair oil will slow a guy down.) Organizers will provide lunch to the runners, host several Elvis-themed contests, and also have some tours of Lawrence set up for out-of-town visitors to enjoy before the concert.

The event is part of Rotary’s effort to eradicate polio, which is known to still exist in three countries: Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan. Rotary has made eradicating polio by 2018 a major international mission for years, but this is the first time they have enlisted the help of the King. The idea of combining the worldwide brand of Elvis with the worldwide effort to end polio was the brainchild of Lawrence Rotarian Bob Swan.

“I just felt like we needed a new tool to fight polio,” said Swan, a member of Lawrence’s Central Rotary Club. “We need to do something to get the support of nonRotarians.”

Swan had seen Hall — who was a finalist on the television program America’s Got Talent — perform several time at Branson, Mo. Swan figured nothing packs in a crowd like Elvis, so he began planting the seed of an Elvis-themed fundraising event.

Members of about a dozen area Rotary Clubs have helped organize the event. Proceeds from both the concert and the run will go to Rotary’s worldwide fund to fight polio. Swan said he hopes the event will raise several thousand dollars, and will become a model for area Rotary clubs across the country to use in fundraising.

But if Elvis isn’t your thing, there will be another celebrity of a sorts on hand. Mary Jean Eisenhower, a granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, is lending her support to the event. Eisenhower — who is a Kansas City area resident and has been a leader of the People to People International organization founded by her grandfather — is a polio survivor, and plans to be on hand for both the race and the concert event.

People interested in more information on either the race or the concert, can find additional details at elvisendspolio.org.

Lawrence city commissioners at their meeting tonight are being asked to give final approval for the group’s use of Watson Park for the race and associated events. The item is on the city’s consent agenda, so approval is not expected to be a problem.

UPDATE: Since we're talking about Elvis, I also put a call into Downtown Lawrence Inc. to see if it was again planning to host its Elvis Spectacular, an event where numerous Elvis personalities come to downtown. Well, you are in luck King fans. The second annual event is set for Sept. 28. It will be held in conjunction with the Rev It Up car show that is held in and along South Park. Look for more details as the event gets closer. But DLI director tells me the event will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of "Viva Las Vegas."

The national attention on the Oklahoma City tornadoes has begun to fade a bit, but the tragedies still are very much are on the mind of one Lawrence city commissioner.

Commissioner Jeremy Farmer vowed shortly after the storms to make improving storm shelter availability in Lawrence a major issue during his four-year term. He plans to get started on the subject by convening his own task force on the topic on Thursday.

Farmer will host a meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday at Lawrence High School for anyone interested in serving on a task force that will examine ways the city could better ensure that residents have a safe place to take shelter from a storm.

Currently, there are no public tornado shelters available in Lawrence, none of the Lawrence Public Schools have FEMA-approved safe rooms and Farmer believes many businesses don’t have adequate shelter areas for employees and customers.

“I really want to focus on what we can do to make the community safer and what we can do to make our schools safer too,” said Farmer, who was elected to the commission in April.

He said two school board members tentatively have agreed to come to Thursday’s meeting. As we've previously reported, other school districts in the area — most notably Baldwin City, Eudora and the private Bishop Seabury Academy — have won grants to build significant FEMA-approved concrete-encased safe rooms at several of their facilities.

Farmer said he is still uncertain about an idea requiring all new homes to be built with storm shelters, although he said he wants to hear what task force members think.

“My inclination is that it is really hard to legislate a change in the development code that all houses built from this point forward have a place to go,” Farmer said. “I think it would be good to make it a strong suggestion, but to make it a requirement that could stop people from building a new home, I’m not sure of that.”

That will be an issue the local building community will want to watch, and it may be a bit ticklish. No one wants to come out against people having a place to take shelter in a storm, but adding safe rooms for new construction could add several thousand dollars to the price of a new home.

The idea of creating a network of publicly accessible storm shelters throughout the community could be an interesting one, too. The number of public shelters needed to adequately cover the entire community would be very large. An emergency management official has told me that FEMA recommends that effective public shelters need to be within five minutes of a person’s home.

If local officials find that standard unworkable, they could choose to build shelters in the most vulnerable areas of town — but how they determine those areas could be tricky. Previously there have been suggestions that mobile home parks be required to have a storm shelter for residents.

Even if city officials do settle on some shelter locations, there still will be the issue of who is responsible for running the shelters. That’s no small task. Essentially, someone always will have to be ready to unlock the doors during the event of a storm. Plus, in a previous interview, Jillian Rodrigue, assistant director of Douglas County Emergency Management, brought up a point I hadn’t thought of: Somebody also has to be responsible for locking the door when a storm is bearing down upon a shelter. Think about that for a second: People are still pulling into the parking lot but the storm is nearing. Someone with some training will have to make the call of when the door must be locked to preserve the safety of those inside.

But other communities figure out how to deal with these type of issues, and I suspect the task force will spend some time researching what other communities do. Farmer said he envisions the task force could have 25 to 30 people on it. He said he will start recruiting members — depending on who shows up to Thursday’s meeting — to ensure that it has a good mix of interested citizens and professionals. He will be looking for architects, construction engineers and others with technical expertise. Farmer hopes to have a set of recommendations to deliver to the other city commissioners by the end of the year.

“We’ll have to go into this understanding that everything will cost money that we don’t have,” Farmer said. “Is this something that people in our community will support? I think they will. We just have to package it in the right way.”

Despite an earlier exit by the Jayhawks in the NCAA basketball tournament this year, Lawrence residents still did a pretty decent job of buying veggie trays, guacamole dip, crimson and blue face paint, beer koozies, extra televisions for the bathrooms, 50-foot Jayhawk yard inflatables and all the other standard March Madness purchases. (My list probably misses a couple of items for your typical basketball party, but I didn’t want to be accused of going overboard.)

City officials have received their latest sales tax report, which covers mid-March through mid-April. Even though the Jayhawks’ run in the tournament ended a few games earlier than the 2012 trip to the championship game, sales totals for the period were off by only 0.1 percent.

The report found that retailers did about $111.9 million in sales for the period, down from about $112.1 million during the same period a year ago.

As usual, it is never wise to put too much stock in one month’s worth of sales tax data, so let’s take a look at the broader picture. The most recent report represented the fifth of 12 sales tax reports for the year, and, thus far, sales in the city are up about 2.4 percent compared to the same period a year ago.

Taxable sales in the city check in at about $568 million through the May reporting period, up from about $554 million a year ago. The totals represent a slowdown in the growth rate from a year ago, when retail sales grew by a little more than 5 percent, and from the 2011 growth rate of 4.5 percent. Lawrence’s growth rate of 2.4 percent is just a bit behind the statewide average of 2.7 percent. As for how Lawrence stacks up to some of the larger retail centers in the state, here’s a look:

• Emporia: up 2.2 percent

• Hays: up 2.3 percent

• Kansas City: up 4.3 percent

• Manhattan: down 3.4 percent

• Olathe: up 2.9 percent

• Ottawa: up 4.2 percent

• Overland Park: up 2.9 percent

• Salina: up 1.0 percent

• Shawnee: up 4.5 percent

• Topeka: down 0.2 percent

The latest numbers also show that the Douglas County communities of Baldwin City and Eudora also are having nice years thus far on the retail front. Sales tax collections in Baldwin City are up 6.8 percent, and in Eudora collections are up about 15 percent.

Forget about the city waiting for its ship to come in. Its train finally has arrived.

Lawrence officials have been awarded a federal transportation grant that will pay for 80 percent of the approximate $1.5 million cost to renovate the Santa Fe depot in East Lawrence.

The 1950s-era depot at Seventh and New Jersey streets would receive a major makeover with that level of funding. The building, currently owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, long has needed a new roof, new heating and cooling systems and other mechanical repairs. But with the grant money, improvements to parking and other improvements also are likely. The station already has received $1.5 million in upgrades to its boarding platform from Amtrak to help make the station ADA compliant.

Now city officials will need to restart discussions with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway about purchasing the depot. The railroad previously has expressed interest in selling the station to the city for a nominal amount. There have been conditions — such as the railway not wanting to sell the ground the station is on, and the need for the city to accept any environmental liability that exists on the property — that are likely to require more discussion. But city staff members have said indicated railway officials are still open to negotiation on the purchase terms.

The city also will have to come up with a little more than $300,000 in local money to meet the 20 percent matching requirement of the grant. That probably will be an unexpected expense in the 2014 budget, but it is a one-time expense, and the city previously has made it a priority to find money to take advantage of federal grants. What won’t be a one-time expense will be the city’s costs to maintain, heat and cool the building. Those expenses will have to be built into future budgets.

It also will be interesting to see if the city starts looking for additional uses for the building. Its main use will continue to be as a train depot, particularly for the Southwest Chief Amtrak train that comes through the city twice daily. The city, however, had been seeking other uses for the building, in part to improve the building’s chances of receiving grants. A plan to make the depot the central station for the city’s bus system was considered but ultimately rejected because of space concerns and objections from several neighbors.

Now that the building seems to have a much brighter future, I wouldn't be surprised if other groups start getting more serious about ways that they can use the building during the day. The Amtrak stops are late at night and early in the morning, leaving the station largely unused during normal business hours.

Based on the terms of the grant, the city needs to have a renovation project underway by September 2014. The grant the city received was a Transportation Enhancement grant, which is funded with federal dollars but is awarded by the Kansas Department of Transportation. I’m a bit surprised the TE grant program didn’t become wrapped up in the federal sequestration, but it appears it hasn’t.

The depot project was the largest TE grant project the city applied for in this funding cycle. But there were others, and there is good news on those fronts, as well. City officials have received word they’ve received Transportation Enhancement funding for two other projects:

• A grant of $218,838 to extend the paved Burroughs Creek Rail Trail from 23rd Street to 29th Street. The trail — which runs along the eastern edge of Haskell Indian Nations University — currently exists as a paved gravel path. The funding will allow the route to be paved, similar to the Burroughs Creek Rail Trail that is just north of 23rd Street. In case you are having a hard time picturing the area, it is just below the recently-replaced 23rd Street bridge. That project included a new parking area for people to access the trails. Like the depot grant, the city will need to come up with a 20 percent match in local funds — about $43,000 for this project.

• A grant of $55,000 to restore some old stone monuments at the entrance of the historic Breezedale neighborhood just south of 23rd and Massachusetts streets. The city will need to provide a 20 percent match, or about $11,000.

City commissioners will be asked to formally accept the grants at a future City Commission meeting.

My wife tells me I don’t know anything about spas. Once again this summer, our two kids are raising pigs for the Douglas County Fair, and I tell my wife all the time to come out to the pen with us. It is a great way to get a mud bath.

Somehow, I think she is going to be more interested in a new business venture in West Lawrence. A pair of sisters is teaming up to open a new spa that combines everything from chiropractic care to hair and beauty treatments to a nutritious meals program.

la Bella Vita Studios and Rodrock Chiropractic are set to open early next month in a 4,000-square-foot space at 1440 Wakarusa Drive. In case you are having a hard time picturing that, it is the building just north of the Social Security Administration office at Bob Billings and Wakarusa. The space previously was occupied by a women’s health care group.

“We’re trying to create a concept that is about total body wellness,” said Kristie Denham, owner of the la Bella Vita side of the business. “My sister is working on the inside, and I’m working on the external beauties.”

On the la Bella Vita side of the business, Denham will have six studios that she will rent out to independent beauticians who will run their own small businesses out of the space. Those are expected to include hair, nail, skin care, waxing and facial services. Denham is a longtime hair stylist who will be moving her hair studio, currently located in the 700 block of Massachusetts Street, to the new location.

Denham’s sister, Amelia Rodrock, will run the Rodrock Chiropractic side of the business and also will offer a food program called Optimal Living. The food program delivers a week’s worth of meals to people’s homes. The meals are made from locally sourced meat and produce and are prepared by the chef at Antonucci’s Italian restaurant in Baldwin City. As for the chiropractic side of the business, it takes all types of clients but specializes in care for women and children, Denham said. Rodrock’s husband, Jeremy Rodrock, operates Rodrock Chiropractic in Baldwin City. That business will remain open.

Denham said she thinks the new spa model will create excitement both among clients who are looking for one-stop-shop service and among beauty professionals who are looking for a chance to rent their own studio space. “We’re seeing success of similar models in Kansas City and Overland Park,” Denham said.

Remodeling work is already under way at the location, and the businesses hope to be open by July 1. In the meantime, I’ll keep mentioning the pig pen to my wife. You should see how I exfoliate out there.

Excuse me while I put away my cot here at Lawrence City Hall. City commissioners met from about 3:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday. And with several big topics — the recreation center and the budget — there were a few items of note that my deadline didn’t give me time to write about. So, let’s fix that:

• The Lawrence Community Shelter will get more bus passes to provide to residents of the shelter. There was much discussion at Tuesday’s meeting about simply making the bus stop at the homeless shelter a free stop, meaning people entering the bus at that location wouldn’t have to pay the $1 fare.

Transit staff members recommended against that option. They were concerned about the precedent it might set. Commissioners instead decided to give the shelter 50 bus passes a day. At $1 per pass, the passes have a market value of a little more than $15,000 for a year. Currently, the shelter receives about seven passes per day from the city, although the shelter uses private money to buy additional passes.

Shelter director Loring Henderson said the demand for bus passes from residents is far outstripping the supply. As you probably remember, late last year the shelter moved from downtown to the far eastern edge of the city, next to the Douglas County Jail.

Both city and shelter leaders knew transportation would be an issue, but it has been a bigger problem than expected, Henderson said. The shelter gives passes to residents for purposes such as job interviews, doctor’s appointments and other appointments related to their efforts to find work and housing. The shelter operates its own van service as well, but has found that fuel prices alone will total about $15,000 a year.

“I want people to understand we’re not unhappy with the facility or its location at all,” Henderson said. “If we were in the middle of downtown, there would be other issues we are dealing with. There are always issues to deal with. This is the issue we’re dealing with at this location.”

• The more interesting information about the shelter is that the facility already is running at near capacity, Henderson told commissioners.

The shelter has been at or near its 125-person capacity on most nights, even as the weather has turned warmer. “The 125 number is one that we thought we may reach on freezing nights, but it really has become an almost every-night number,” Henderson said.

Henderson said he thought the increase largely could be attributed to the rise in the number of homeless families that now feel comfortable using the new shelter.

• Shelter officials also are asking for a unique piece of financial assistance from the city. Shelter leaders want the city to provide financing for about $500,000 in construction costs that were related to the new facility.

The shelter currently is repaying a $500,000 construction loan to a local bank, but that loan has a 5 percent interest rate. If the city shifted the loan over to the city’s books, the interest rate would be significantly lower. Shelter officials believe the interest rate could drop to about 2 percent, although that is dependent on the bond market. Henderson estimates the new financing could save the shelter about $15,000 a year in interest costs.

The shelter is proposing to repay the city the $500,000 in principal and interest over a 30-year period. City commissioners took no action on the request. Instead, city staff members are researching the feasibility of the proposal.

• Tennis courts also were discussed at Tuesday’s meeting. The Lawrence Tennis Association has been lobbying for the city to install lights at the eight tennis courts near Lawrence High. Nearby residents have staunchly opposed the idea because they fear the lights would shine into their homes.

Commissioners thought they had settled the issue earlier by agreeing to build eight lighted tennis courts at the Rock Chalk Park property in northwest Lawrence. Tennis association members said they’re excited about the prospect of those courts, but they still feel that lighting the existing courts makes sense and would complete a promise made by the city.

So commissioners agree to re-open the issue. But the effort to add lights was about as successful as my backhand volley. (If I played on the courts, neighbors would need to worry about tennis balls entering their homes, not light.)

Residents around the court nearly filled the City Commission room to express opposition to the lighting plan. Commissioners had heard enough, and voted 5-0 to deny the lighting. Commissioners also directed staff members to look at the special-use permit for the tennis courts and determine whether language could be added to the permit to make it clear there won’t be lights at the facility in the future.

The tennis issue has been a lengthy one. The issue has been brewing since 2008, when the school district approved plans to remove the previous courts to make way for renovations at Lawrence High.

The issue also has been a costly one. Originally, the city was planning on spending $100,000 to add lights at the new facility. But when neighborhood opposition emerged, the city eventually shifted gears to the new tennis facility at Rock Chalk Park.

The city had estimated it would cost about $640,000 to build those courts, but it appears that estimate was low. Although it didn’t receive much discussion last night, commissioners did learn that the cost for the tennis facility has increased.

As part of the new estimates for Rock Chalk Park infrastructure, it was learned a $170,000 retaining wall will need to be built as part of the tennis court project. In case you add like I volley, that brings the tennis court portion of the project to $810,000.

Lawrence city commissioners soon will get to weigh in on the issue of domestic partnerships versus traditional marriages.

After digging through a few more documents related to the city’s proposed budget, I found a memo detailing changes to the city’s health insurance plan. One recently implemented change and one proposed change caught my eye. The recently implemented change: City commissioners are now eligible to be on the city’s health insurance plan. (More on that in a moment.) The proposed change: Staff members are recommending that domestic partners of city employees be eligible to join the city’s health insurance plan, just as spouses of city employees are eligible.

Lori Carnahan, human resources manager for the city, said several city employees have been asking about the availability of a domestic partner benefit. The city recently conducted a survey of its employees, and of the 146 respondents, 30 percent said they would use the domestic partner benefit.

“It is an issue that my colleagues in the human resources industry have discussed the concept of for probably six to eight years,” Carnahan said. “But the discussion really has been increasing over time.”

Obviously there are several large, international private companies that offer domestic partnership benefits. But I’m not sure how many area governments have adopted the practice. Douglas County approved a similar health plan benefit for domestic partners in 2011.

As far as the logistics of this go, the city is well-positioned to deal with it. In May 2007, Lawrence became the first city in the state to create a domestic partnership registry. The registry allows domestic partners — both gay and heterosexual couples — to file paperwork with the city clerk’s office that provides evidence they are living in a true domestic partnership. The registry then can be used by insurance companies to verify that a domestic partnership exists.

The city will use that registry to verify domestic partnerships involving city employees. The registry requires that partners share a common permanent residence, have agreed to be in a “relationship of mutual interdependence,” both “contribute to the maintenance and support of the household,” are not married to a third individual or are a member of a domestic partnership with a third individual, are 18 years or older, have the mental capacity to enter into a contract and are not related by blood in any way that would prevent a marriage in the state.

Carnahan said the city’s insurance plan manager — the city is technically self-insured but hires a professional company to help manage the operation — has said the change is not expected to create any increased underwriting costs. The city will have to comply with a federal law that does not allow insurance premiums of domestic partners to be paid for with pre-tax dollars — married couples can have their premiums deducted from their paychecks before taxes. But Carnahan said the city has the necessary software to accomplish the task.

Now all that is left is to determine whether city commissioners have an interest in creating the new policy. Commissioners will get briefed on insurance issues at today’s budget study session, which begins at 3:30 p.m. But commissioners don’t take formal actions at study sessions, so I would expect the issue to come up at a future City Commission meeting.

•••

Beginning June 1, city commissioners became eligible to enroll in the city’s health insurance program. They have the Affordable Care Act — or Obamacare — partially to thank for that.

City commissioners previously had not been eligible for the health care benefit because they are not considered full-time city employees. But the Affordable Care Act mandates that large employers generally offer health insurance to employees who average 30 hours per week for a year.

Do city commissioners work 30 hours per week? Well, that’s tough to say because city commissioners don’t punch a time clock.

Carnahan said her staff decided that making city commissioners eligible for the health care benefit would be the safest way to ensure the city was in compliance with the new federal law.

It is unclear how many commissioners may take advantage of the new benefit, but it is a significant benefit.

If a city commissioner wanted to insure just himself, it would cost only $5 per pay period — or $130 per year — to be covered under the city’s plan, which is considered to be a good one. That’s the same rate all city employees pay for single coverage.

Commissioners also can choose to have their families and spouses covered under the plan. Those rates — which are the same for all city employees — range from $69 a pay period to $118 per pay period, depending on the type of coverage.

City commissioners currently receive a $9,000 per year salary, while the mayor receives a $10,000 per year salary. However, commissioners in April said they wanted to have a discussion about possibly raising those salary levels.

I know there have been lots of folks in Lawrence doing various projects or fundraisers to help the victims of the tornadoes in the Oklahoma City area. Well, here’s another one and this one involves an opportunity to stuff your gut full of pizza and to break out your best New York accent.

Morningstar’s New York Pizza, 4931 W. Sixth St., will donate the proceeds from all of its Tuesday sales to The Salvation Army in Oklahoma City. In addition, staff members at the restaurant have agreed to donate all their tips for the day to the effort.

Roger Morningstar, the former KU basketball player who opened the store at Sixth and Wakarusa, said he wanted to make sure people understood this wasn’t an “after expenses” type of donation. He said, for example, if a person orders $50 worth of pizza and tips the server $10, all $60 will be shipped to The Salvation Army in OKC.

All that is left for me to do now is practice my New York accent. I think when my wife asks me to take out the trash tonight, I’ll say : “Fuhgeddaboudit.”

Look for me at Tuesday’s fundraiser. I’ll be the guy gumming my pizza.

If there is one thing I know about gardening, it is that change is inevitable. For instance, I’ve observed that plants in my yard are green for about a week and then brown for much longer.

Well, change is in store for Sunrise Garden Center, the popular nursery and landscaping center at 15th and New York streets. But we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see exactly what the changes mean.

Longtime Sunrise owner Greg McDonald confirmed that he is retiring from the business and has placed the nearly three-acre property up for sale.

McDonald plans to keep the business open until he finds a buyer for the property and he hopes that the eventual buyer will want to keep the garden and nursery business open. But there are no guarantees on that.

“I think it can be very successful doing what it does today, but I think there are a lot of possibilities for people who have new ideas,” said McDonald.

The centerpiece of the property is a large greenhouse that McDonald said is about the size of a football field under glass. That’s enough space that if someone wanted to do some truck farming or shift the business over to more a specialty wholesale operation, it could do so, McDonald said.

Veteran commercial real estate broker Doug Brown of Lawrence’s McGrew Commercial is listing the property, and plans to market it to both retail and wholesale interests. But Brown said he plans to focus on marketing the property to people who want to use the greenhouse as a greenhouse in some way, shape or form. In other words, the plan isn’t to completely redevelop the site.

“We think that is the way to go with the success the business has had over the years,” Brown said. “It would be an attractive business for somebody to get into. It is a good business for Lawrence because it certainly has the green factor.”

As for McDonald, he has owned the business for the last 14 years, and he is ready to have more time to spend on other pursuits. But he said business at the garden center remains strong and that gardening remains very popular in the Lawrence area.

“This Mother’s Day was probably one of the best weekends we have ever had, and I know Memorial Day was the best Memorial Day weekend we’ve ever had,” McDonald said. “There are just so many people who enjoy doing things with the products that we sell.”

My neighbor tells me that some people even enjoy watering their plant products after they buy them. She reminds me of that frequently, for some reason.

The idea of a destination-style resort at Clinton Lake — an old proposal that resurfaced late last year — is becoming more serious.

Officials with the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism are seeking proposals, due next month, to develop a 175-room hotel with a conference center and various restaurant and recreational facilities somewhere inside Clinton Lake State Park.

Robin Jennison, the state’s wildlife and parks secretary, confirmed to the Journal-World last September that he was seriously studying the idea of a significant resort development for Clinton Lake, which is just west of the Lawrence city limits.

According to new state documents, Jennison is negotiating a 50-year lease with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the lake and owns the property around it.

The resort would be run by a private development company, but through a contract with the State of Kansas. Private money would be used to fund the construction of the resort.

HVS Consulting and Valuation Services, a national hotel industry consulting firm, has prepared a feasibility study that suggests a number of amenities that would be needed to make Clinton Lake a regional destination. They include:

• a 175-room hotel

• a conference center, including a 6,500-square-foot ballroom and about 9,000 square feet of additional meeting room space

• three restaurants, including a full-service restaurant, a lakeside bar and grill with courtyard, and a poolside bar and grill

• a spa

• an outdoor pool

• an indoor/outdoor pool

• a water sports center, which would include equipment for kayaking, sailing, wakeboards, jet skiing and water skiing

• an outdoor sports center, which would include hiking guides, bike rentals, and sports court. Guests also would be expected to have access to the city-owned Eagle Bend Golf Course, which is below the Clinton Lake Dam.

Of course, all of this still is in the concept stage, and there is one big detail that is still very much unknown: The specific site for the development. The request for proposals asks developers to specify where they would like the resort to be located within the state park.

The development group also would have to make the necessary arrangements with the city of Lawrence to extend water and sewer service to the site. Currently, the state park is not connected to the city’s water and sewer service.

I haven’t had a chance to talk with Secretary Jennison today, but will try to do so. When I chatted with him in September, however, it was clear he was very excited about the prospects and had taken a personal interest in trying to get the idea moving ahead.

“I can tell you that is an idea that is very important to me,” Jennison said. ““With K-10 (the South Lawrence Trafficway) on track to be completed, that really adds to the potential of Clinton. Clinton is one of our great lakes. It may have one of the nicest marinas in the state, it has a stable water source, and it is close to a vibrant community. It has a lot going for it that would be attractive for a resort.”

There has been at least one other previous serious discussion of a resort at Clinton. That was back in 2001, but negotiations with the Corps of Engineers to allow a resort at the lake were difficult.

We’ll see how things progress this time. The hotel market already has been an active one in Lawrence. This project could be a game-changer for that industry.

Proposals are due into the state by July 17.

It is a popular game with a certain someone in my household: Where is the downtown parking meter patrol officer?

I suspect you know how the game is played: Park in one of the many metered parking spaces in downtown or the free two-hour lots, and then start calculating when the parking control officer will next be by to check the area. Perhaps you figure you don’t need to pay the meter this time, or maybe you can stay a bit longer than the two-hour time limit.

Oh, it is quite the game with some. (Note to parking control officers: If a certain someone from my household tries to give you a hug, that’s her way of trying to plant a GPS tracking device on you.)

Well, the rules of the game may change dramatically when the city opens its new multi-level parking garage in the 700 block of Vermont Street, next to the expanded public library.

City Manager David Corliss last night told commissioners he’s seriously considering recommending that automated gates be installed as part of the new garage. Motorists would receive a ticket as they enter the facility, and then they would put the ticket in a machine and pay to leave the garage.

Kansas University has such systems on some of their garages and they’re quite common elsewhere. But the system hasn’t made it to downtown Lawrence. Instead, the city employs a crew of people who constantly walk around downtown, checking meters, chalking tires and writing tickets.

Apparently, Corliss is rethinking that strategy, at least for the new garage.

“One of my mantras is to use automation to save on labor costs,” Corliss said.

No final decision on the system has been made, but it is clear that it is a real possibility. A decision may need to be made sooner than you think.

Corliss said he believes there is an outside chance that a portion of the parking garage may be open to the public by late July. In fact, he’s challenging construction crews to have at least part of the facility open by Downtown Lawrence’s Sidewalk Sale day July 18. No promises on that, he said, but it is a goal. He hopes to have the entire garage open by the end of August, but that also is dependent on weather factors and such.

It will be interesting to see how the public responds to the idea of a new parking enforcement system. The gated, pay-as-you-leave approach would allow for more flexibility. For example, commissioners could say that two-hour parking in the garage is free, and then you pay a certain amount for each fifteen minutes thereafter. Such a system would allow any parking space in the garage to be used for two-hour free parking. In the city’s other garages, that’s not the case. The city marks a certain number of them as free two-hours spaces, while the others are marked as spaces that require you to insert your money into a pay box.

What will get really interesting is to see how far the city carries out this idea. Just to be clear, Corliss didn’t mention anything about a gate system for anything other than this new garage. But clearly, if the idea is a success, the city may want to try it with other downtown locations. There are two other parking garages in downtown, and the city has many surface parking lots where the gate system could be installed as a method of charging people who overstay the two-hour time limit.

How much would the city save in labor costs and in time spent by Municipal Court processing the thousands of parking tickets that are written in downtown Lawrence? I don’t know. But it would seem unlikely that the need for parking enforcement officers would disappear altogether. The meters on Massachusetts Street would still need to be patrolled. But the officers could focus on that area more intensely, giving motorists more of an incentive to use those premium spots as the short-terms spaces they are meant to be.

It will be interesting to watch. I know a certain someone in my house will be watching, and, of course, scheming.

Buses, builders and bulldozers, oh my.

It is not the latest elaborate act for Lawrence’s Busker Fest. Instead, it may be the newest solution to finding a location to temporarily house downtown Lawrence’s public transit hub.

Commissioners at their meeting tonight will consider a new option for the transfer point: the 700 block of Vermont Street. For those of you who have forgotten your downtown geography, that’s where construction crews are building a $19 million expansion to the Lawrence Public Library.

The latest bus proposal calls for using the east side of the 700 block of Vermont Street for bus parking, and loading and unloading. That is the opposite side of where the construction work for the library is happening. (We’re basically talking about in front of the AT&T building and the vacant Local Burger building.) City transit officials have evaluated the site and haven’t come out against it, but they expressed several concerns. Transit staff believes there is a “high potential” for service disruptions or delays due to the library construction under way across the street. Construction vehicles often use the center lane of Vermont Street to make deliveries to the site. Transit officials also note the large number of buses that will be turning onto westbound Seventh Street may create problems for motorists trying to back out of the parking spaces in front of the post office.

But the new location was suggested by City Commissioner Mike Amyx, who is trying to find a location that doesn’t upset the parking balance downtown. City commissioners late last year agreed to move the transit hub to the 800 block of Vermont Street, but as the time came closer for the move, several merchants objected to the 13 long-term parking spaces that would be lost from the 800 block of Vermont. This new proposal for the 700 block of Vermont Street also will eliminate parking spaces. Transit staff estimates 12 to 16 spaces will need to be removed from the street. But I guess the thinking is the loss of parking in that area will be less objectionable because the new multi-level parking garage next to the library is expected to open this fall. We’ll see whether that theory holds. Thus far complaints about loss of parking haven’t emerged with this proposal, but that may be just because many folks in the area don’t know about it yet. (The proposal showed up on the city’s agenda late yesterday.)

Staff members have countered the new proposal with additional ideas on how they could mitigate parking problems in the 800 block of Vermont. They think they can place six five-hour parking meters on the north side of the 100 block of W. Ninth Street to partially offset the loss of the 13 meters in the 800 block of Vermont. In addition there are eight existing short-term spaces in the 200 block of W. Ninth Street that could be made into five-hour metered spaces. Staff members also believe about 20 two-hour spaces in the public parking lot near Ninth and Vermont could be signed so that people with 10-hour parking permits could use the spaces.

With all those changes, the number of long-term parking spaces near the 800 block of Vermont would nearly double. Merchants have said the need for the long-term spaces is critical because the area is used by downtown employees.

In case you have forgotten what started all this, the city is seeking a temporary home for its transit hub because its current location will become unworkable once construction begins on a new hotel at Ninth and New Hampshire streets. Word around town is that work on the hotel is expected to begin by the end of the month. City officials already have commissioned a consultant to help find a permanent home for the transit hub. It is likely that hub will be outside of downtown, but it may take a year or more to make the necessary improvements and route changes to accommodate a new transit hub. City commissioners later this month are expected to receive information from the consultant.

As for tonight, it is hard to say where the transit hub may land. Staff members thought the issue was settled months ago when they first presented the 800 Vermont proposal.

But this process has kind of turned into one of those complicated home improvement projects. You know they type: You remove, by hand, 20 cubic yards of soil for your new swimming pool only to have your spouse walk out the back, give the dreaded shake of the head and suggest a bird bath and herb garden instead. (The home improvement analogy is appropriate because as we’ve previously reported, the big item at tonight’s meeting is consideration of Menards’ plan to build a home improvement center near 31st and Iowa streets.)

We’ll have to wait and see how the transit hub debate plays out. In the meantime, I’m going to rest up for tonight’s meeting by doing the backstroke . . . in my birdbath.

Being a pioneer in a new industry can be a bit like taking a ride in my old F150: It can get mighty bumpy, and you’re wishing you would have known beforehand that the brakes sometimes don’t work.

Scott Zaremba, owner of the Lawrence-based Zarco 66 gasoline and convenience store chain, has been a pioneer in the industry of E15 ethanol. As we’ve previously reported, Zaremba’s Zarco chain became the first in the country to sell the E15 product, which is gasoline that contains 15 percent ethanol rather than the more standard blend of 10 percent ethanol.

According to an article this week from the news organization Reuters, Zaremba is finding out how rough the ride can be in the E15 industry. The article paints a picture of some of the largest companies on the planet — oil companies like Exxon, Chevron, BP, and Phillips 66 — taking aim at the E15 industry. Zaremba and his Zarco stations, apparently, have become one of the first targets.

Phillips 66 has sent Zaremba a new set of regulations on how he must sell the E15 product in order to stay in compliance with his marketing contract with Phillips 66. The end result has been Zaremba stopped selling the E15 product at his stations last month. It is estimated there are now fewer than 30 stations nationwide that sell the product.

The new protocols would require Zaremba to add special yellow hoses to all his pumps to dispense the E15 product. Previously, Zarco dispensed the product through the same hose that carried traditional unleaded gasoline, which has up to 10 percent ethanol in it.

Zaremba said adding the hoses would cost several hundred thousand dollars. In the Reuters article, Phillips 66 officials said the change is about ensuring motorists know that they are buying a different product than traditional gasoline. The article notes that use of E15 can void the warranty of many vehicles that are older than 2013 models.

But Zaremba told me he’s convinced the new regulations are part of an effort by Big Oil to nip the E15 trend in the bud. Zaremba said the stakes are significant for Big Oil because E15, if widely adopted, could reduce the oil company’s market share in the gasoline industry by 5 percent. In addition, it would create new competitive pressures that, in theory, would help control the upward price pressures in gasoline.

“I’ve had people complain to me for 40 years about the price of fuel,” Zaremba said. “I tell them we need to find something different. That is what we’re trying to do.”

Zaremba, who also is an advocate for biodiesel, compressed natural gas and other fuel alternatives, said he knows ethanol has received some negative publicity because of the impact it may have on the country’s food supply and the amount of water it takes to produce.

But he said the potential is strong for ethanol to be produced from other nonfood-producing crops, if the ethanol market can withstand the negative publicity that he believes is being generated by the Big Oil companies.

Zaremba, who is the president of the state’s petroleum marketers association and also an officer with the national trade group, said the figures he’s seen indicate the big oil companies will spend tens of millions of dollars this year lobbying against the E15 product.

“I understand what is going on,” Zaremba said. “If you were making a billion dollars a quarter, would you want some little guy from Kansas trying to change your dynamic? Of course you wouldn’t. Would you try to create every negative article you could to protect your product? I bet you would.”

As for the future of E15 in Lawrence, Zaremba said he’s not sure at the moment. He said he hasn’t yet filed any legal action against Phillips 66, but said he’s still crafting a strategy that would allow him to resume selling the product at some point.

“When you are the first, it is never easy,” Zaremba said. “That’s where we are right now. But I chose this path because I believe we have to do something different.”

If City Manager David Corliss has his way, property tax bills in Lawrence may go up just a bit in 2014.

Corliss is in the process of preparing his recommended 2014 city budget, but he has provided city commissioners a peek at one of the bottomline numbers. Corliss is forecasting that his recommended budget will call for at least a 0.4 mill increase in the city’s property tax rate, mainly to pay for four new positions in the city-county 911 center, for increased overtime costs for the police department and for additional equipment in the public works department.

In case your abacus is acting up in the heat, let me take my shoes off and do the math for you. A 0.4 mill increase would amount to an extra $9.20 a year in property taxes for the owner of a $200,000 home.

But as the saying goes at City Hall, the city manager proposes and the City Commission disposes. In other words, just because Corliss is recommending a mill levy increase doesn’t mean that City Commissioners will approve one.

Corliss is scheduled to provide a budget update to commissioners at their Tuesday evening meeting. But most of the heavy budget lifting for the commission comes after Corliss releases his recommended budget, which is scheduled to happen in the last week of June. Commissioners then have until early August to finalize the budget for 2014.

There are still several questions outstanding on what else will be included in Corliss’ recommended budget. Budget-makers will have to make some decisions related to the budget for the Lawrence Public Library. Leaders at the library have asked for about $173,000 in additional funding for its operations. The library’s mill levy is separate from the city’s general fund mill levy, but both are controlled by city commissioners. Corliss didn’t provide a forecast for what may happen to that mill levy, but staff members previously have said the additional funding would either require a mill levy increase or a draw down of the library’s reserve funds. In other words, the total increase in the tax rate for city property owners may be more than 0.4 mill, depending on what happens to the library fund.

A mill levy increase for the library shouldn’t really catch anybody by surprise. During the bond election, library supporters said they would need a mill levy increase for both the construction of the expanded library and for the operations of the larger facility. Thus far, city commissioners have mainly just increased the mill levy to cover the construction costs but not the operational costs. The library is expected to move into the larger facility in 2014.

If the city’s mill levy does increase, it will continue a trend. The city’s property tax rate has increased each of the last two years, mainly due to increased spending to add more police officers and the voter-approved $19 million library expansion. The increases ended a period in the mid-to-late 2000s where the mill levy either held steady or declined. Here’s a look at mill levy rates:

• 2003: 28.09

• 2004: 27.86

• 2005: 26.36

• 2006: 26.36

• 2007: 26.79

• 2008: 26.65

• 2009: 26.69

• 2010: 26.69

• 2011: 28.61

• 2012: 29.53.

It is also worth noting that in 2008, city voters approved three new sales taxes — two for public transit and one for infrastructure — that took significant pressure off the city’s property.

It will be interesting to see if city commissioners balk at any increase in the mill levy this year, or whether they are willing to live with a small increase. An increase this year will come on the heels of the city’s decision to use recently unencumbered sales tax dollars to pay for a $25 million recreation center and infrastructure for the KU-oriented Rock Chalk Park project. City commissioners resisted calls to use those recently unencumbered sales tax dollars to fund other city budget priorities.

Commissioners meet at 6:35 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.

And here you thought property maintenance just meant keeping the grass mowed, the house painted, the roof shingled, and other such matters.

Well, add one more item to the chore list: Controlling bedbugs.

City commissioners at their meeting on Tuesday are scheduled to approve a new ordinance that will get the ball rolling on creating regulations to control bedbug infestations in the city.

Commissioners are creating a new “Property Maintenance Code.” Most of the code provisions are just a rewrite and combination of two different sections that existed in the city’s building permit codes and in the city’s general code book.

But the city doesn’t have much on the books in terms of how property owners must treat bedbug infestations. The new code doesn’t create a specific set of requirements, but rather gives the city’s director of planning and development services the authority to create specific regulations on how bedbugs should be dealt with.

Lawrence has had some issues with the pests, which frequently live in mattresses or clothes and create health risks by biting and sucking the blood of their victims.

We reported in 2010 a spike in the number of bedbug complaints in the city. That was about the time that bedbug infestations were starting to get publicity in other parts of the country as well.

In a memo to commissioners, city staff members argue that the city should get involved with the regulation of bedbug extermination because the pests can quickly grow into a citywide problem. The pests can embed themselves in clothing, mattresses or furniture that may be moved from one residence to another.

Lawrence may be at particular risk for bedbug infestations because of the number of students who move in and out of the community or who travel home and unknowingly may bring the bedbugs back with them. Our 2010 article noted that KU officials had spent some time talking with students about the risks of bedbugs, and how to prevent their spread.

I’m not sure what the situation is today with the number of bedbug cases in the city, but I’ll check with the proper officials and report back.

I suspect people who have had bedbug infestations will appreciate the city getting involved in the issue. According to the last article we wrote, it sounds like figuring out how to get rid of the pests can be confusing. It also sounds like it can be expensive. Back in 2010, one exterminator estimated that a typical heat treatment — a process where the infested area is heated to about 130 degrees — would cost more than $500.

While reading through the code about bedbugs, I also found several other items of note about what the city requires in terms of property maintenance. I don’t think any of these are really new requirements, but under the new code, they may become easier to enforce. Here’s a look at a few:

• Here’s the list of no-no’s that you should not allow to accumulate in your yard or on your porch or deck: lumber, wire, metal, tires, concrete, masonry products, plastic products, supplies, equipment, machinery, auto parts, stoves, refrigerators, televisions, sinks, garbage, refuse, junk, or the like.

• No person shall allow in their yard a dead or substantially dead tree.

• Water from a sump pump shall not be discharged at a point closer than five feet from any adjoining property line.

• Essentially every window used to ventilate a room should have an insect screen.

• “Leaning, buckling, sagging or deteriorating” fences shall be repaired. Any fence that was painted and now has “chipping, peeling, scaling or missing paint” on at least 20 percent of its area shall be repainted or stripped and given a water-resistant coating.

• It is against the code to put out your city-issued trash cart before 7 a.m. the day before your scheduled trash day. It also is against the code to leave your trash cart out at the curb for longer than 24 hours after your trash has been picked up.

• It is legal to store your city trash cart outside your house or garage, but the code says it should be stored no farther than three feet from the exterior wall of your house or shed. In other words, storing it in the middle of your yard would be a violation.

One thing that this new code isn't expected to change is that most of these property maintenance code violation matters are dealt with on a complaint bases. In other words, the city doesn't send out inspectors to search for such violation, as a general rule. The city also has taken an approach of trying to get property owners to simply remedy the violation rather than writing an actual ticket. But the code does allow for Municipal Court fines for $100 to $500 for violations of the code.

This is fair warning to all you K-10 commuters who may stop at the McDonald’s in De Soto to get your morning caffeine fix: By Thursday morning, the restaurant will be rubble. (Perhaps like you without caffeine.)

Lawrence-based Dobski & Associates, the owner of the area McDonald’s franchise, has confirmed it will tear down the De Soto store on Thursday morning and begin building a larger McDonald’s that is expected to open in late September.

The new store will have seating for 89 people, up from 40 in the current restaurant. Other design features:

• Free Wi-Fi Internet service and a host of electrical outlets designed for customers to recharge their laptops.

• A side-by-side double drive-thru window system to increase drive-thru capacity.

• A special third window designed to serve customers who have to wait for a special order. (Perhaps caffeine-laced french fries. They can’t do that, can they?)

Michael Dobski, owner/operator of the De Soto location and son of Dobski & Associate founders Tom and Marilyn Dobski, said the De Soto restaurant was 22 years old and the decision was made that the restaurant needed an expansion and update.

The store has about 30 employees, and Dobski spokesman Patrick Manning said those employees will be transferred to other Dobski-owned McDonald's restaurants during the construction period.

The new restaurant will be on the same site as the current McDonald’s, which is along Kansas Highway 10, just east of the primary De Soto interchange.

Forget about the city waiting for its ship to come in. Its train finally has arrived.

Lawrence officials have been awarded a federal transportation grant that will pay for 80 percent of the approximate $1.5 million cost to renovate the Santa Fe depot in East Lawrence.

The 1950s-era depot at Seventh and New Jersey streets would receive a major makeover with that level of funding. The building, currently owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, long has needed a new roof, new heating and cooling systems and other mechanical repairs. But with the grant money, improvements to parking and other improvements also are likely. The station already has received $1.5 million in upgrades to its boarding platform from Amtrak to help make the station ADA compliant.

Now city officials will need to restart discussions with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway about purchasing the depot. The railroad previously has expressed interest in selling the station to the city for a nominal amount. There have been conditions — such as the railway not wanting to sell the ground the station is on, and the need for the city to accept any environmental liability that exists on the property — that are likely to require more discussion. But city staff members have said indicated railway officials are still open to negotiation on the purchase terms.

The city also will have to come up with a little more than $300,000 in local money to meet the 20 percent matching requirement of the grant. That probably will be an unexpected expense in the 2014 budget, but it is a one-time expense, and the city previously has made it a priority to find money to take advantage of federal grants. What won’t be a one-time expense will be the city’s costs to maintain, heat and cool the building. Those expenses will have to be built into future budgets.

It also will be interesting to see if the city starts looking for additional uses for the building. Its main use will continue to be as a train depot, particularly for the Southwest Chief Amtrak train that comes through the city twice daily. The city, however, had been seeking other uses for the building, in part to improve the building’s chances of receiving grants. A plan to make the depot the central station for the city’s bus system was considered but ultimately rejected because of space concerns and objections from several neighbors.

Now that the building seems to have a much brighter future, I wouldn't be surprised if other groups start getting more serious about ways that they can use the building during the day. The Amtrak stops are late at night and early in the morning, leaving the station largely unused during normal business hours.

Based on the terms of the grant, the city needs to have a renovation project underway by September 2014. The grant the city received was a Transportation Enhancement grant, which is funded with federal dollars but is awarded by the Kansas Department of Transportation. I’m a bit surprised the TE grant program didn’t become wrapped up in the federal sequestration, but it appears it hasn’t.

The depot project was the largest TE grant project the city applied for in this funding cycle. But there were others, and there is good news on those fronts, as well. City officials have received word they’ve received Transportation Enhancement funding for two other projects:

• A grant of $218,838 to extend the paved Burroughs Creek Rail Trail from 23rd Street to 29th Street. The trail — which runs along the eastern edge of Haskell Indian Nations University — currently exists as a paved gravel path. The funding will allow the route to be paved, similar to the Burroughs Creek Rail Trail that is just north of 23rd Street. In case you are having a hard time picturing the area, it is just below the recently-replaced 23rd Street bridge. That project included a new parking area for people to access the trails. Like the depot grant, the city will need to come up with a 20 percent match in local funds — about $43,000 for this project.

• A grant of $55,000 to restore some old stone monuments at the entrance of the historic Breezedale neighborhood just south of 23rd and Massachusetts streets. The city will need to provide a 20 percent match, or about $11,000.

City commissioners will be asked to formally accept the grants at a future City Commission meeting.

Reading the agenda for Tuesday night’s Lawrence City Commission meeting is kind of like reading my household’s credit card bill: There are plenty of questions, and all the answers seem to have dollar signs.

There are three outside organizations requesting financial assistance from the city, with two of them each asking for a half-million dollars.

We’ll try to fill in more details later, but here’s a look at the basics of the requests:

• Lawrence-based Wicked Broadband announced last month that it will start a pilot project to bring super fast 1-Gigabit Internet service to a neighborhood later this year.

A kick-off event for the project spelled out a lot of details about how the company, which previously did business as Lawrence Freenet, could bring the same type of high-speed Internet service to Lawrence that Google Fiber is bringing to Kansas City. At that event, the idea of financial incentives from the city wasn’t envisioned. Well, it is now.

The company has filed an application for a $500,000 economic development grant from the city, plus is asking to receive up to a $20,000 a year rebate in franchise fees it pays to the city. It also wants to have the right to enter into $10 per year leases to use a portion of new fiber optic cables that the city plans to install throughout the community in future years.

Joshua Montgomery, co-owner of Wicked Broadband, said there are several factors that have caused him to rethink the need for city incentives for the project. But perhaps the largest is that he’s been contacted by several significant New York-based capital investment companies that are interested in investing in a locally owned, high-speed Internet service. Those investors have made it clear that the city of Lawrence needs to do something to show that it is committed to the idea of bringing a high-speed network to the city.

“If the city says that it is behind it 100 percent, that opens the door for the next $30 million in private funding that will be needed to spread this service to the rest of the community,” Montgomery said.

Montgomery said the $500,000, one-time grant would allow the service territory for the pilot project to grow to 1,000 households, up from 500. The neighborhood or neighborhoods haven’t been selected yet. Wicked is taking pre-registrations for the service on its website. The neighborhood with the highest percentage of residents pre-registered will serve as the pilot project. An announcement is expected June 15.

Montgomery said he and his business partner and wife, Lawrence school board member Kris Adair, are putting up $500,000 in private money for the pilot project.

City commissioners on Tuesday aren’t being asked to approve the request. Instead, Tuesday’s vote is just to direct city staff to begin analyzing it.

Wicked Broadband’s service will be a direct competitor to existing Internet providers, such as Knology and AT&T, which generally do not receive such city subsidies. So, it will be interesting to hear what those companies have to say as the process unfolds.

As for Montgomery, he said he’ll argue that the city won’t be making an investment in a private company as much as it will be making an investment in a new infrastructure system that will be critical to future commerce. “It is an economic enabler,” Montgomery said.

•••

The second request comes from a group led by Lawrence businessman Doug Compton, which is seeking to build a new hotel at the southeast corner of Ninth and New Hampshire.

It is a bit more complicated to understand, and I’ll try to get a better handle on the numbers before Tuesday’s meeting. But the request seeks to raise the amount of Tax Increment Finance dollars the hotel is eligible to receive to $4 million, up from $3.5 million.

Unlike the Wicked Broadband request, this doesn’t involve the city writing a $500,000 check to the development. Instead, a TIF allows the project to get a rebate on a certain percentage of the property taxes it pays. It is kind of like a tax abatement, except the money has to be used to pay for infrastructure type of expenses. In this case, that includes a private parking garage for the hotel.

What makes it a bit complicated is that the developers also have proposed a multistory apartment/office project for the northeast corner of the intersection. It also uses Tax Increment Financing. It looks like a likely option is to increase the amount of TIF money available for the southeast corner hotel project by reducing the amount of projected TIF revenues available to the northeast corner apartment project.

If that is ultimately what happens, then the overall amount of incentive basically would be a wash. We’ll have to see how those details work out.

The more interesting part is what developers have said about the hotel project. It has had its necessary building approvals for months, but hasn’t yet started construction. A letter to the city now makes it clear that there are financial questions the investors are trying to answer.

Bill Fleming, an attorney for the development group, told the city in a letter that “the hotel investors are keenly interested in the ‘cost per key,’ which is the average cost for each hotel room.”

If the additional $500,000 in TIF money is not available to the hotel project, then that will raise the average cost per room the investors must pay.

“The investors may conclude the project is not feasible at that cost per key, and the project in that case will not proceed,” Fleming wrote.

That would be a major turn of events for the project, which faced stiff opposition from the adjacent East Lawrence neighborhood, and had to fight hard to win city approval.

•••

Maybe the folks at the Douglas County Historical Society are more than just masters of history. Perhaps they also are masters of timing. After those two big-ticket items, they are asking for a mere $20,000 in city funding. The money will be used to help fund a permanent exhibit on the second floor of the Watkins Museum commemorating the 150th anniversary of Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence.

The new exhibit is set to open on Aug. 17, and will “explore Douglas County’s history, issues that shaped the development of the community, and events that made it a focus of national attention.”

Ultimately, the exhibit will be expanded to the third floor of the museum. The bulk of the nearly $257,000 in exhibit costs has come from private individuals, businesses and grants.

City staff members are recommending approval of the $20,000 in funding. The money would come from the city’s guest tax fund, which receives its revenue from the guest tax charged at hotel and motel rooms.

Commissioners meet at 6:35 p.m. Tuesday.

Excuse me while I put away my cot here at Lawrence City Hall. City commissioners met from about 3:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday. And with several big topics — the recreation center and the budget — there were a few items of note that my deadline didn’t give me time to write about. So, let’s fix that:

• The Lawrence Community Shelter will get more bus passes to provide to residents of the shelter. There was much discussion at Tuesday’s meeting about simply making the bus stop at the homeless shelter a free stop, meaning people entering the bus at that location wouldn’t have to pay the $1 fare.

Transit staff members recommended against that option. They were concerned about the precedent it might set. Commissioners instead decided to give the shelter 50 bus passes a day. At $1 per pass, the passes have a market value of a little more than $15,000 for a year. Currently, the shelter receives about seven passes per day from the city, although the shelter uses private money to buy additional passes.

Shelter director Loring Henderson said the demand for bus passes from residents is far outstripping the supply. As you probably remember, late last year the shelter moved from downtown to the far eastern edge of the city, next to the Douglas County Jail.

Both city and shelter leaders knew transportation would be an issue, but it has been a bigger problem than expected, Henderson said. The shelter gives passes to residents for purposes such as job interviews, doctor’s appointments and other appointments related to their efforts to find work and housing. The shelter operates its own van service as well, but has found that fuel prices alone will total about $15,000 a year.

“I want people to understand we’re not unhappy with the facility or its location at all,” Henderson said. “If we were in the middle of downtown, there would be other issues we are dealing with. There are always issues to deal with. This is the issue we’re dealing with at this location.”

• The more interesting information about the shelter is that the facility already is running at near capacity, Henderson told commissioners.

The shelter has been at or near its 125-person capacity on most nights, even as the weather has turned warmer. “The 125 number is one that we thought we may reach on freezing nights, but it really has become an almost every-night number,” Henderson said.

Henderson said he thought the increase largely could be attributed to the rise in the number of homeless families that now feel comfortable using the new shelter.

• Shelter officials also are asking for a unique piece of financial assistance from the city. Shelter leaders want the city to provide financing for about $500,000 in construction costs that were related to the new facility.

The shelter currently is repaying a $500,000 construction loan to a local bank, but that loan has a 5 percent interest rate. If the city shifted the loan over to the city’s books, the interest rate would be significantly lower. Shelter officials believe the interest rate could drop to about 2 percent, although that is dependent on the bond market. Henderson estimates the new financing could save the shelter about $15,000 a year in interest costs.

The shelter is proposing to repay the city the $500,000 in principal and interest over a 30-year period. City commissioners took no action on the request. Instead, city staff members are researching the feasibility of the proposal.

• Tennis courts also were discussed at Tuesday’s meeting. The Lawrence Tennis Association has been lobbying for the city to install lights at the eight tennis courts near Lawrence High. Nearby residents have staunchly opposed the idea because they fear the lights would shine into their homes.

Commissioners thought they had settled the issue earlier by agreeing to build eight lighted tennis courts at the Rock Chalk Park property in northwest Lawrence. Tennis association members said they’re excited about the prospect of those courts, but they still feel that lighting the existing courts makes sense and would complete a promise made by the city.

So commissioners agree to re-open the issue. But the effort to add lights was about as successful as my backhand volley. (If I played on the courts, neighbors would need to worry about tennis balls entering their homes, not light.)

Residents around the court nearly filled the City Commission room to express opposition to the lighting plan. Commissioners had heard enough, and voted 5-0 to deny the lighting. Commissioners also directed staff members to look at the special-use permit for the tennis courts and determine whether language could be added to the permit to make it clear there won’t be lights at the facility in the future.

The tennis issue has been a lengthy one. The issue has been brewing since 2008, when the school district approved plans to remove the previous courts to make way for renovations at Lawrence High.

The issue also has been a costly one. Originally, the city was planning on spending $100,000 to add lights at the new facility. But when neighborhood opposition emerged, the city eventually shifted gears to the new tennis facility at Rock Chalk Park.

The city had estimated it would cost about $640,000 to build those courts, but it appears that estimate was low. Although it didn’t receive much discussion last night, commissioners did learn that the cost for the tennis facility has increased.

As part of the new estimates for Rock Chalk Park infrastructure, it was learned a $170,000 retaining wall will need to be built as part of the tennis court project. In case you add like I volley, that brings the tennis court portion of the project to $810,000.