photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

From left to right, Lawrence City Commission candidates Mike Courtney, Bart Littlejohn, Kristine Polian and Bob Schumm take part in a candidate forum on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025, at the Douglas County Fairgrounds.

Renter protections, affordability and the city’s $130 million public works campus were among the big topics that Lawrence City Commission candidates discussed at a forum on Thursday evening, just days before the election.

The forum at the Douglas County Fairgrounds was less than a week out from election day, and it was hosted by the Sexual Trauma and Abuse CARE Center. All four of the candidates in the running for the two City Commission seats took part: Mike Courtney, incumbent Bart Littlejohn, Kristine Polian and Bob Schumm.

There’s still time to vote early before the big day. Advance voting at the county election office, 711 W. 23rd St., runs from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. to noon Monday. Then, on Tuesday, polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; find your polling place at dgcoks.gov/county-clerk/voting-and-elections.

Here’s a look at what the candidates had to say on Thursday.

Affordability

Several questions touched on the city’s taxes and utility rates and what the city could do to lessen the financial burden on residents.

Littlejohn said that there were some things the city was already doing to mitigate the cost of living in Lawrence, such as supporting the Housing Stabilization Collaborative’s emergency rent and utility assistance. But he also said that to make Lawrence more affordable, city leaders had to draw in more businesses and create more jobs.

“Ultimately, I view this as a revenue problem,” he said. He later pointed to the fact that state and federal governments are looking less likely to help, and said if the city was on its own, it would have to invite new investments.

But the other candidates were interested in taking a hard look at the city’s spending.

Both Courtney and Polian mentioned that they wanted to look critically at the Capital Improvement Plan, a list of major infrastructure projects the city plans to undertake.

“One thing we need to do is reprioritize the Capital Improvement Plan,” Courtney said. He said the financial situation for many Lawrence residents was only going to get worse with the government shutdown and its impact on food assistance, and meanwhile the city “can’t even afford the projects we currently have.”

Polian said she’d run utilities in multiple cities, and that she was “very, very, very concerned” by the financial situation in Lawrence.

“Something is not right here,” she said, and she called for an accounting of the city’s CIP projects.

Schumm said that getting to the bottom of these types of issues was one of the reasons he was running. He said he wanted to make sure that “everything we approve is necessary today.”

“There’s no end in sight,” Schumm said. “It’s a runaway train.”

Public works campus

One big capital project in particular got a lot of discussion on Thursday night: the city’s $130 million Municipal Services and Operations Campus. The City Commission approved the funding for its second phase earlier this month, but some of the candidates wondered about what the city was getting for the money it was spending.

“Rock Chalk Park, our building there was $18 million,” Schumm said. “This is $130 million.”

And Polian compared the cost of the MSO campus to the $171 million cost of the Kansas City Current’s soccer stadium, which she said was at least generating revenue.

“What on earth are we putting out there?” Polian asked.

Schumm and Littlejohn both said that stopping or changing the MSO campus project midway through wouldn’t make economic sense at this point, and Courtney agreed that “I don’t think that we’re going to be able to claw money back.” He asked whether it might be worth exploring alternative uses for the facility, such as moving some city offices there to save money on a reconfiguration of City Hall.

But Polian had a different take.

“Can I (claw) it back?” she said. “As far as I possibly can, I will.”

Rental conditions

The candidates were also asked about how they would help renters in the community, including protection against retaliation from landlords and ensuring that maintenance issues at properties were resolved.

For Schumm, the key to helping tenants was something the commission adopted when he was last on it: the rental inspection and licensing program.

“It’s designed for that very reason,” he said.

Many improvements could be done within this existing program, Schumm said, instead of through some new program. While the inspection program “probably doesn’t cover everything,” he said, “the mechanism is there,” and the city could look at whether it should be expanded or strengthened.

Littlejohn said the inspections process needed more eyes on it, especially when it came to recurring problems. He also said the city needed to invest more in its code enforcement efforts.

Polian said city staff was stretched thin and that when tenants have complaints, the city isn’t very responsive. “We have a very difficult time, if we have rough conditions, for tenants to get the city out there,” she said.

And Courtney said that the city should work more closely on renters’ issues with the county government, which has held discussions about a possible legal assistance program for renters facing eviction.

Plans and partnerships

Many of the things the candidates were asked about, Littlejohn said, were already part of the strategic plans that the city follows, like the Community Health Improvement Plan and especially the “A Place for Everyone” plan on housing and homelessness.

“We can definitely make progress in those areas, and we have made progress in those areas,” Littlejohn said.

The candidates also said it was important for the city to work together with agencies and advocates in achieving long-term goals.

Courtney said that in his opinion, the city government often looked at nonprofit agencies as “antagonistic,” and that it needed to start viewing them as partners.

“They should see them as extra players on the team,” he said.

Schumm mentioned Tenants to Homeowners, the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority and Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center as among the most valuable partners in creating more housing. “Support them all,” he said, “… in their work to provide this housing for different areas of the community.”

And Polian said that “the amount of advocates we have in this town is beyond anything I’ve ever seen,” and that if elected, “I will immediately start recruiting folks.”

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Residents watch the City Commission candidate forum on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025, at the Douglas County Fairgrounds.