photo by: Matt Resnick/Journal-World

Incumbents Amber Sellers and Brad Finkeldei look at the early results in the Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023, primary election for the Lawrence City Commission. Sellers and Finkeldei are two of six candidates moving on to the November general election.

Lawrence voters have narrowed the field from eight to six candidates in the race for three available seats on the Lawrence City Commission, according to the unofficial results of Tuesday’s primary election.

Of that group, all three incumbent commissioners whose terms are expiring this year — Brad Finkeldei, Amber Sellers and Courtney Shipley — received enough votes to move on from the primary, but it was a former commissioner, Mike Dever, who led the way with the most individual votes.

Dever, who served on the City Commission from 2007 to 2015 with two terms as mayor and now works as an environmental consultant, earned 4,049 votes, more than 500 more than the next closest candidate.

Shortly after the Douglas County Elections Office posted the final unofficial vote tally for the day, Dever told the Journal-World he was “humbled” by the results — and thought that voters sent a message as well.

“All I’m doing is reflecting the community’s view and trying to make it amplified, in a position of notoriety,” Dever said. “… It does reflect what I believe the majority of the people’s opinion is, that I can help speak to the problem and help the commission resolve the problem … because of the information I’ve collected.”

Dever said he doesn’t think his main focus on bringing a “sense of urgency” to resolving the city’s homelessness issue is going to change in the time between now and the general election. He said he’d like to address “both ends of the spectrum” in how an ongoing housing shortage leads to the greater likelihood of folks being unhoused, as well as short-term plans for fixing those problems.

Housing and homelessness are among the issues set to be a continued focus for Finkeldei, who was elected to his first term on the commission in 2019 and earned the next-most votes with 3,531.

Finkeldei told the Journal-World that the issue of homelessness, especially, is still top of mind for him and is important to voters from what he’s heard so far.

“I think the big issues are still the same, which are affordable housing, homelessness and economic development,” Finkeldei said. “These results show, I think, there are a lot of people interested in these topics, so we’ll continue to talk about them.”

Finkeldei was followed by Sellers, who was elected to her first term in 2021 and earned 3,186 votes this time around. She listed the same issues as Finkeldei as areas of focus between now and the general election. Sellers specifically pointed to the city’s and Douglas County’s long-term comprehensive plan to combat homelessness, which is still in progress, as one piece of the puzzle. She said there are still some “gaps as far as the vision for the plan” that will need to be addressed moving forward.

Sellers said the primary is just the first step in the election process, and she’s hoping voters will stay engaged and aware ahead of the general election.

“This is just the first half of the journey,” Sellers said. “We’re not going to change too much of what we do; we are a relational campaign, so we believe in getting in front of people and talking to folks and educating. That’s how I’ve made my success. I truly believe we’ve got to come to people to make sure that they come first, and we’re not going to stop that.”

Those three candidates will be joined by Shipley, who also was elected back in 2019 and earned 2,504 votes this time. Newcomers Dustin Stumblingbear — who ran in the last City Commission election and last year’s primary for a seat on the Douglas County Commission — and Justine O. Burton — who also ran in the primary election for a special seat on the Lawrence school board but will not move on in that election — will round out the general election ballot. Stumblingbear earned 2,090 votes, while Burton earned 1,003 votes.

The other two candidates on the ballot, newcomers Joshua Olafson and Chris Flowers, received 702 and 547 votes respectively.