VOTER GUIDE: A proposal to change to the city’s form of government is on the November ballot; here’s what it could mean for Lawrence residents

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Lawrence City Hall is pictured on Oct. 11, 2024.

No city leaders will be on the ballot this November, but Lawrence voters will have an opportunity to change the structure of their local government to include a directly elected mayor and a City Commission that’s elected partly by geographic districts.

The question on the ballot, which asks for a simple yes or no answer, reads: “Shall the City of Lawrence, Kansas, abandon the Commission-Manager form of government and adopt a Modified Mayor-Council Manager form of government and become a city operating under a Modified Mayor-Council Manager form of government?”

What exactly is the ballot question asking, and how would it affect the way the city is governed?

What the city government looks like now

Lawrence currently uses a commission-manager form of government with five elected city commissioners and an appointed city manager.

Commission elections happen every two years — the last one was in 2023 — and the commissioners are elected at large, meaning they can come from any geographic area of the city. Only three seats are up for election at a time. All seats are now four-year terms.

The mayor is not separate from the commission in this system. Instead, the commission chooses one of its own members each year to serve as mayor; traditionally, this choice is based on the general election results. The mayor presides over City Commission meetings, but otherwise votes and participates in essentially the same way as any other member of the governing body.

What the proposed changes would look like

The proposed changes would grow the number of people on the commission from five to six. Four of them would represent specific geographic districts that would be drawn up by the city, and the other two would represent the city at large. All of the commissioners would serve four-year terms, though the elections would still be staggered so that no more than three seats would be up for election at the same time.

In addition, voters would also vote every four years for a mayor, who would be separate from the six commissioners. This mayor would still oversee commission meetings, but wouldn’t vote with the six-member commission except to break a tie.

Lawrence’s appointed, professional city manager position would stay the same under the proposed changes.

If voters were to approve the proposal, the first election that would reflect the new structure would be the November 2025 election.

Where did this idea come from, and what are people saying about it?

The idea of modifying Lawrence’s government structure came about in 2021, when a task force was created to review the current government structure and suggest changes to it. The last time Lawrence changed its form of government was more than 70 years ago.

John Nalbandian, a former mayor of Lawrence and professor at the University of Kansas, chaired the task force that provided the recommendations. He said although it sounds like there would be major differences under the proposal, it is not “diametrically different” from the current system.

Nalbandian said that other mayor-council governments in the country often use what’s known as a “strong mayor” system, in which the mayor serves as the head of a separate executive branch and the council serves as a different governing body. But that wouldn’t be the case in Lawrence, even with the proposed changes. The mayor and commissioners under this proposal would still serve as the same governing body.

“The proposed change does not alter the idea that there is going to be one governing body,” Nalbandian said.

One thing that some in Lawrence are hoping, however, is that directly electing the mayor would get more residents involved in their government. In a presentation to members of the chamber of commerce about the proposed changes, Chris Koliba, a distinguished professor of public administration, policy and governance at KU, said direct mayoral elections can help municipalities increase voter turnout. He also said studies suggest that having a mayoral race often puts more focus on policy issues during elections.

The task force’s recommendations differed slightly from the proposal that the City Commission put on the ballot for this year. Nalbandian said the task force initially proposed that the mayor would be able to vote in all instances and recommended that all six commissioners be elected by geographic districts. He said the task force felt using six smaller districts could encourage more residents to become politically involved and also make it less expensive to run for the commission.

Although the commission eventually put forward changes that differed from the task force’s recommendations, Nalbandian said he was still endorsing the proposal.

“I believe having a directly elected mayor will encourage an election more focused on issues than we have now and also on the future for the city,” Nalbandian said.

Other residents have expressed concerns about the potential changes.

During the presentation to Chamber members on Oct. 1, some attendees were skeptical about whether the changes were even needed. They said they felt the government was working fine as is, and saw no need for change. (The Chamber’s leader, Bonnie Lowe, said at the time the Chamber board had decided not to take a position on the issue yet.)

And Ted Boyle, the president of the North Lawrence Improvement Association, told the Journal-World that he would be voting no on the ballot question. He said that although he supported the idea of having a directly elected mayor, carving Lawrence into districts was not something he could support.

With Lawrence’s population being just under 100,000, it is likely that the districts would be split into portions of around 25,000 people each. Boyle said that means North Lawrence, with a population of about 3,600, would have to be paired up with neighborhoods from across the river.

Boyle said he’s been able to talk with commissioners about once a month to discuss the issues specific to North Lawrence, which include the need for better stormwater management and infrastructure in the neighborhood. He thinks the government is working fine as it is right now, and that changes would leave them in worse shape for representation.

“There is not one neighborhood that has anything in common with North Lawrence,” Boyle said. “We’re going to be buried.”

One thing we don’t yet know about the proposal is where the district lines would be drawn. Sherri Riedemann, the city clerk, said the city was advised to hold off on creating any districts until after the election. But Nalbandian said that just based on Lawrence’s population distribution, the east-west division for Lawrence could be so far to the east that the districts might not reflect the neighborhood identity of some areas.

Voters will decide the issue as part of the Nov. 5 general election. Voters have until Oct. 15 to register to vote in the election. Advance voting begins on Oct. 16.