photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The Lawrence City Commission meets on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025.

Fines for some traffic offenses in Lawrence will be going up next year, in a move that Municipal Court staff says puts the city in line with other communities in the region.

On Tuesday, the Lawrence City Commission voted 5-0 in favor of the new fine schedule, which was originally on the commission’s consent agenda until Commissioner Brad Finkeldei pulled it off for a separate discussion.

The fines have not been raised in more than a decade, as the Journal-World reported. But starting in 2026, a minimum fine for traffic infractions will be increasing by $20, and a schedule of fines for speeding, which get higher the faster the driver was going over the speed limit, will go up as well.

Currently, for example, the fines for going 10 mph over and 30 mph over the speed limit are $80 and $245, respectively; the new fines for those levels will be $90 and $290.

On Tuesday, Vicki Stanwix, the municipal court administrator, called the fine increase “modest.” She also noted that she’d received some questions from the public about the new fines, and she wanted to provide some answers.

“There were some great questions posed,” Stanwix said.

Few traffic citations ever become delinquent, she said, and few warrants are served for traffic offenses. She said that this year, only 31 cases, or 7% of the total traffic cases in the city, were sent to collections. And out of the nearly 1,400 municipal court warrants served in the past year, only 30 were for traffic infractions, and most of those involved misdemeanor charges as well.

A couple of public commenters voiced their opinions at the meeting, too. One of them, Chris Flowers, wondered about whether the fines would affect people with lower incomes disproportionately.

“I don’t think this is equitable,” Flowers said. “I think if we’re going to have fines, it should be based on your income.”

Another, Samuel Carter, said via Zoom that it was important to consider the fines’ impacts on the rate of traffic crashes and fatalities.

“There are so many costs associated with speeding, and far too often the people who bear the brunt of those costs are people who are not driving,” he said. He also noted that “car use is generally tightly correlated with income — the higher income that you have, the more you drive.”

Stanwix said that the city did “not have the resources in house” to determine the income of every violator and tailor the fines to that.

“Our fines are not based on anyone’s income,” she said.

What they are based on, she said, are the rates charged in comparable communities in the area. For instance, Stanwix said that a citation that might cost $173 in Manhattan or Eudora would be slightly less, $163, in Lawrence.

“We’re still on the low end” of neighboring communities, Finkeldei noted before the vote, adding that it was important to dissuade people from speeding.

In other business, the commission:

• Authorized City Manager Craig Owens to execute land transfer agreements with US Engineering Metalworks for a new manufacturing facility in Lawrence VenturePark. The land transfer is part of the Catalyst Program, which the city created in 2017 as a way to attract businesses to its business parks.

• Awarded a nearly $5.4 million bid to Kings Construction Co. for improvements on Bob Billings Parkway from Wakarusa Drive to Kasold Drive.

• Approved a demolition request that will open up the alley behind the former Journal-World printing plant building. The structure that will be demolished is a corridor that connects the New Hampshire Street and Massachusetts Street sides of the building.

• Made a proclamation in honor of National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Month and recognized the city’s homelessness efforts.

Before the proclamation was read, Misty Bosch-Hastings, director of the city’s Homeless Solutions Division, looked back on the past few years of housing and homelessness initiatives. She said the city and its partners had created “healing, trusting relationships with hundreds of people” and had been “walking beside them as they rebuild their lives.”

City Commissioner Amber Sellers told the homelessness team that she’d heard from leaders of other cities who were impressed by Lawrence’s work.

“You guys are doing the work, and people are seeing it,” Sellers said.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

City Commissioners Bart Littlejohn and Amber Sellers greet members of the city’s homelessness team before the City Commission meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Misty Bosch-Hastings, director of the city’s Homeless Solutions Division, addresses the Lawrence City Commission on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. In the foreground is James Chiselom, executive director of the Lawrence Community Shelter.