photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

The Douglas County Commission authorized county counsel to move forward with drafting ballot language related to increasing the size of the commission from three to five members Wednesday night.

Douglas County leaders are interested in asking voters whether the County Commission should add more members, and on Wednesday they took a first step toward putting the issue on the ballot.

At its meeting Wednesday, the Douglas County Commission directed the county counsel to draft a ballot question about expanding the commission from three members to five. Before that, several members of the public spoke in support of holding an election, and the commissioners said they also thought the public should have the chance to sound off.

“I agree with our public commenters on this one; I think we should put this in front of our voters and see what they have to say,” Commissioner Shannon Portillo said.

The topic of expanding the County Commission has come up several times since the 2020 election, which resulted in a commission made up entirely of Lawrence residents. Some rural residents have worried that the commission might be too focused on Lawrence issues and were interested in adding more seats to the commission to increase representation for other parts of the county.

One of the people who spoke during public comments was Douglas County Sheriff Jay Armbrister. He said that adding seats to the commission wouldn’t necessarily guarantee more representation for rural residents, because Lawrence makes up the bulk of the county’s population.

That’s been discussed at previous listening sessions about expanding the commission, as well. Under state law, districts must be compact, contiguous and equal in population, and Lawrence has about 80% of the county’s population, as the Journal-World previously reported. At a listening session in December, County Clerk Jamie Shew said that with five County Commission districts, it might be possible to create one district that was only made up of unincorporated areas of the county. However, Shew said that would mean the other four districts would all be in Lawrence.

At Wednesday’s meeting, commissioners didn’t set a specific date for when the draft ballot question should be brought back to them for approval. However, the deadline to put a question on the general election ballot is Sept. 1. Shew told the board the wording of the question should be fairly straightforward.

The general election will be Nov. 8.

In other business, the commission:

• Heard a presentation from Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center about its plans to apply for Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic status from the state over the next several months.

To earn the new certification, Bert Nash would have to collaborate more with other agencies in Douglas County. Bert Nash COO Stephen O’Neill said that the certification would allow the center to get paid for services that Medicaid might not have covered before.

Sarah Bishop, a grant consultant with Coneflower Consulting, also said the center would be applying for a grant through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. That grant would help Bert Nash fund some of the changes it needs to make to become a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic.

• Authorized using up to $155,000 in state grant funding to help nonprofit Tenants to Homeowners acquire a duplex for a “housing-first” pilot program.

The money will come from a $500,000 grant the county received from the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services to help place people experiencing homelessness in their own housing, as the Journal-World has previously reported. The duplex will provide two rental units for the housing-first program.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Commissioner Patrick Kelly said the pilot program was a step in the right direction.

“This isn’t enough, in my opinion — we need more of this,” Kelly told David Tucker, Douglas County’s homeless services coordinator. “For those people who are vulnerable and are homeless, we need to lower barriers whenever possible, so I really appreciate the work you’re doing. This really feels like that first step toward ‘housing first’ we’ve been talking about.”