The Douglas County District Court has stopped assessing fees to indigent offenders in misdemeanor cases. The county made the change to make the court more efficient; in trying to collect from people who could not pay, the court was expending more resources than it was recovering in money owed, said Douglas County Administrator Sarah Plinsky. “That fee did not offset the cost of that expense,” Plinsky ...
Douglas County fire crews have extinguished 15 grass fires this week, according to the chief of Consolidated Fire District 1, which responds to fires outside the Lawrence city limits. In total, Consolidated Fire District 1 has seen 48 grass fires throughout the county since Feb. 1, despite cold weather and snow. Fortunately, property damage has been limited to several vehicles and has not reached any ...
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office is leading a training program focused on understanding the decision-making processes of criminal offenders and how to help them make better choices. The training is for a program called Decision Points and it is led by the Sheriff’s Office Reentry staff for community organizations that work directly with people reentering society from jail or prison. The program is used ...
The U.S. and Kansas departments of agriculture have issued a warning to Kansans to protect their poultry and waterfowl. A flock of birds in Franklin County was reported to have the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Franklin County borders Douglas County directly to the south. The flock was a mixture of different birds at a home farm including chickens, ducks, and other types of birds, said Heather ...
The job of a Lawrence police officer isn’t confined to Lawrence, and some days it is not even confined to traditional police work. There are those rare days they come home feeling more like a firefighter. Lawrence police officers Alex Brittain and Stephen Ramsdell can attest to the twists and turns after an investigation on Feb. 23 took them to Garnett, a town of about 3,200 people 60 miles south of ...
A Lawrence man convicted of a misdemeanor and a low-level felony in a stabbing case was sentenced to 17 months in prison on Friday. Brian Samuel Stubbs, 25, was originally charged with attempted first-degree murder in the stabbing of a 38-year-old man in March 2021 at an apartment on West 24th Street. But last month, a jury found him not guilty of the attempted murder charge and convicted him of two lesser ...