photo by: Chris Conde

The Douglas County Courthouse is pictured in September 2018.

Douglas County commissioners at their meeting on Wednesday will consider approving a process for appointing members to the Lawrence Community Shelter Board of Directors under a new shared governance model.

As the Journal-World reported in September, the City of Lawrence, Douglas County and the Lawrence Community Shelter have opted to move to a shared governance model for the homeless shelter at 3655 E. 25th St., which has been struggling financially.

The joint resolution regarding the seven-member board would allow the Douglas County Commission to appoint two members. The City Commission would appoint three, and two currently serving members would stay on the board.

The resolution does note that while the County Commission and City Commission would appoint a majority of the board, the shelter “will not become, or be regarded as, an agency or instrumentality of the City of Lawrence or Douglas County.”

In other business, the commission will:

• Consider approving, in the consent agenda, the appointment of Bradley A. Eldridge as Douglas County appraiser to fill an unexpired term that ends in June 2025. Steve Miles, the previous county appraiser, retired in June. According to a memo from County Administrator Sarah Plinsky, Eldridge assumed the role of interim county appraiser on June 21, but can only serve in that capacity for up to six months.

• Hear a presentation from Eldridge, for informational purposes only, explaining “assessment classification and the impact on property taxes when land use changes from agricultural to commercial assessment classification.”

• Hold a work session that details the results of a yearslong project aimed at gathering and analyzing information for Douglas County’s Rural Historic Resources Guide.

The commission’s work session begins at 4 p.m. at the Douglas County Courthouse at 11th and Massachusetts streets. The regular meeting follows at 5:30 p.m. A Zoom link can be found on the county’s website, douglascountyks.org.