photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Douglas County commissioners listen to a presentation from Sam Allison-Natale with Kansas Holistic Defenders during the Commission's meeting on Wednesday, March 20, 2024.

Douglas County leaders on Wednesday approved a one-year site plan extension for a private school located just south of Lawrence.

As the Journal-World has reported, Veritas Christian School needed the extension to hold onto its original site plan for 960 East 1296 Road first approved March 2, 2022. Site plans are only valid for two years from the date they’re approved, but county leaders can extend the expiration date for up to a year like they did Wednesday if “good cause” is shown and the written request for the extension is provided prior to the expiration date.

Planner Mary Miller told commissioners that Veritas made the request because it hasn’t had time to complete planned construction work on the site at 960 East 1296 Road. The site plan approved in 2022 proposed the addition of modular classrooms, expanded parking and an on-site lagoon sanitary sewer system.

One member of the public asked whether there are still plans to add that expanded parking on the site; they said people are parking along nearby U.S. Highway 59 whenever the school hosts sporting events at the indoor sports facility located on the site. Aaron Gaspers, an engineer working with the school on behalf of CFS Engineers, said Veritas is aware of the issue and still intends on expanding parking on the property.

Beyond that, commissioners didn’t have any other questions about the site plan extension and approved it unanimously.

“I don’t have any issues with, given the circumstances, extending for another period of time, and I’m glad that the parking is part of a discussion and that there’s been some feedback from the neighborhood also,” Commissioner Chair Karen Willey said Wednesday.

In other business, commissioners:

Received Kansas Holistic Defenders’ annual report for 2023, which provided detailed data about Kansas Holistic Defenders’ client demographics, attorney caseloads, case outcomes, eviction prevention and more.

Commissioners had a lot of technical questions about what was in the report. But they also voiced concerns about last-minute changes to the report, which happened so close to the start of Wednesday’s meeting that they weren’t included in the agenda materials provided to the commission.

One of the last-minute additions was a claim that some clients of Kansas Holistic Defenders had been banned from accessing mental health services through some local service providers, including Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center. No evidence was provided for this claim; members of Bert Nash staff weren’t at the meeting to comment on the claim; and Willey said she often hears service providers push back against claims like this one.

Commissioner Patrick Kelly said adding this type of claim to a report at the last minute could erode trust between Kansas Holistic Defenders and the agencies it works with.

“I want to echo something my other commissioners said earlier, because I think it’s important in working in partnership with people — what was presented in the slides is not entirely what we had (prior to the meeting), and one of those things that was not included in those slides was that people were banned from other providers,” Kelly said. “… I think it creates a trust issue with your other providers if they haven’t seen anything like that before you’re presenting it at a public meeting.”