photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The Lawrence City Commission meets on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, at Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St.

At a brief Lawrence City Commission meeting on Tuesday, commissioners approved a slate of budget adjustments and procedural items — and heard from several public commenters who disagreed about whether one item was really procedural.

The comments, around half a dozen of them, were about a resolution that gives preliminary notice of the city’s intent to issue bonds for infrastructure projects on its Capital Improvement Plan. Commissioner Brad Finkeldei said that the “exact same” resolution had come up every year he’d been on the commission; that it didn’t actually obligate the city to take on any new debt; and that more votes would have to be taken before bonds could actually be issued on any future project.

“Every project that we decide to eventually bond will have, in my estimation, six or seven votes,” Finkeldei said. “To me, a lot of those votes are procedural.”

Some of the commenters wanted to express their opposition to the idea of the city taking on any new debt, and others were opposed to this item being part of the commission’s consent agenda, where it could have been approved on a single vote with several other items had Finkeldei not pulled it off for a separate discussion.

The commission voted 4-0, with Mayor Mike Dever absent, to approve the resolution.

The other items on the consent agenda were passed without discussion. They included a budget adjustment to Lawrence Transit and an amendment to its contract with service provider First Transit; another budget adjustment requested by Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical; and scheduling a public hearing for an amendment to the Fleet/Central Maintenance Garage Fund on Dec. 9.

The commission did not have any regular agenda items to discuss on Tuesday.