photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Douglas County commissioners met on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025.

Despite having an earlier interest in a tenants’ right to counsel program, a majority of Douglas County commissioners chose to halt the effort – at least for now – and pursue alternatives.

Discussions surrounding a program guaranteeing free legal representation to renters experiencing an eviction have been happening for months, starting all the way back in August.

County staff wanted direction from commissioners on Wednesday on how they might implement one of these programs or something similar so they could include it in the 2027 budget. That discussion, which the Journal-World reported on, lasted well past 10 p.m. and past the Journal-World’s print deadline. Commissioners ultimately ended their Wednesday meeting shelving plans to create a program that would guarantee every renter in Douglas County could have access to an attorney as part of any housing eviction matter. Instead, commissioners said they wanted to learn about how a mediation program could perhaps be used instead.

The advocacy group Lawrence Tenants met with commissioners in September, urging a county ordinance to guarantee the right to counsel for all tenants regardless of income. The proposal aligns with the city-county “A Place for Everyone” plan, and it is listed as a strategy for Douglas County to help reach its affordable housing goals. While commissioners took no action in September, several expressed support for creating a tenant right to counsel program.

This week — at Wednesday’s meeting — when County Administrator Sarah Plinsky asked commissioners what they wanted included to shape a 2027 budget request, several commissioners continued to raise questions already addressed in earlier meetings.

“I’m now going to be really honest,” Plinsky told commissioners. “We have had three conversations about this, and I’ve invested dozens of hours of staff time on working on this. I need to know if I have three commissioners’ support to continue to work on it because at a certain point, if we don’t have a majority that is interested in continued support and investigation, then we’ve got other things we can spend our time on.”

Commissioner Karen Willey said she was interested in looking into a mediation program, which gives a landlord and a tenant the chance to meet with a third party. The intent of the program is to resolve an issue before it reaches an eviction, but Commissioner Shannon Reid said mediation is not a substitute for legal representation and legal advice.

“It’s frustrating for me because it feels like we’re regressing the conversation after having had a lot of progress in this conversation and trying to overcomplicate it and restrict it is a little confusing to me,” Reid said.

Reid, who has expressed strong support for a tenant right to counsel program, added that at prior meetings, it seemed like there had been “real support and interest from the Commission.”

“There’s empirical evidence from multiple communities that support this,” Reid said, adding that its mention in the “A Place for Everyone” plan is a commitment the City of Lawrence and Douglas County made.

“It’s a community plan that the city and county passed after the community, including multiple stakeholders from all sides of the issue, worked for a very long time to develop specific strategies, and one of them was establish tenants’ right to access legal counsel, and that we would establish a pilot.”

County staff had given commissioners information about a case study from Johnson County highlighting the 10th District Court’s Eviction Mediation Program. According to a memo in the agenda, the program was launched in September 2023, and it requires mediation when tenants contest and eviction filing. As of May 2025, the program resulted in 602 mediation agreements, with 74% of cases complying and being dismissed — avoiding judgments and physical evictions.

Commissioner Patrick Kelly said based on what was presented about the mediation program in Johnson County, he was interested in looking into mediation. As a result, Kelly, Willey and Commissioner Gene Dorsey formed the majority on having county staff look further into mediation.

“I think what we saw in the Johnson County program, the information that was provided may give us some starts,” Kelly said. “I totally recognize that for some people, we’ve heard from some public comments that mediation is unacceptable. I do think we want to talk about it. There’s a way to do some mediation and some access to counsel. It gets complicated, but I’m willing to talk about it.”

The three commissioners were in favor of county staff bringing back more of a full picture about Johnson County’s mediation program as well as having conversations with Douglas County District Court to see if they would be open to a similar program. Commissioners were also interested in getting more information on a program providing a variety of free housing legal services to eligible tenants who live in the City of Topeka.

There were over two hours of public comment during the meeting on Wednesday, and the County Commission meeting room was packed with people who were in support or opposition of the program, as the Journal-World reported.

Many people involved in Lawrence Tenants said the creation of the program would “balance the scales between landlords and tenants, while people in opposition – mainly landlords – of the program said it would increase costs, reduce the housing supply and actually create an imbalance.