A joint legislative task force report on transportation has a lot of promising recommendations for the county, the director of Douglas County Public Works says. The report released in January made recommendations to guide development of a new state transportation plan and reflected findings ...
As this never-ending winter has shown, severe weather can strike anytime and as often as it feels like it. At least the snow and dangerously cold temperatures back in the forecast for the Lawrence area over the weekend and into next week will coincide with Severe Weather Awareness ...
Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday approved some changes to bylaws for the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. The county established the council on March 9, 2016, to bring to the table a number of leaders with experience in different realms of the criminal justice system. Its ...
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office wants permission to move forward on a design for security upgrades at the local jail. Sheriff Ken McGovern wrote in a memo to the Douglas County Commission that a contract with Treanor Architects for planning and design for the upgrades would cost ...
Plans call for 10 cottages to be built on a site in northern Lawrence, but before a hammer is swung or a wall raised, the Delaware Tribe that once inhabited the area has asked that surveyors look below the ground. Delaware Tribe historians say there could be archaeological and human remains ...
Douglas County staff got a consensus from commissioners Wednesday evening to move forward on design plans for an estimated $23 million to $25 million expansion of the local jail. Interim County Administrator Sarah Plinsky asked the commission to determine that the latest proposed design ...
County staff hopes to get a consensus from Douglas County commissioners on updated design plans for an expansion of the local jail. On Wednesday, at its 6 p.m. meeting time reserved for items of public interest, the commission will hear an update from Interim County Administrator Sarah ...
If Kansas is going to get a new statewide highway plan to fund big projects — like widening the South Lawrence Trafficway — it must first finish building the projects left uncompleted in the last plan, a new report recommends. The state’s current transportation plan, which was approved ...
Residents of Grant Township in rural Douglas County will have help if snow strikes the area again later this week, despite a recent turn of events. Douglas County Commissioner Nancy Thellman brought the matter to the governing board’s Wednesday meeting. She said the roads in Grant ...
Story updated at 6:51 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019: The Douglas County Commission is making a few changes in an effort to improve transparency. The commission will start its meetings at 5:30 p.m. each Wednesday, beginning March 6, according to a news release from the county. The time change ...
Story updated 9:19 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019: After what Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew called a misunderstanding, a local coalition of faith-based organizations is on track to file a report detailing how much they spent to campaign against a county sales tax proposal. The Journal-World ...
The Douglas County Fairgrounds coordinator is asking county commissioners to waive purchasing procedures for a project because he’s only received one bid. Building 21 was not part of the nearly $8 million fairgrounds improvement project that culminated in the debut of several new facilities ...
Updated 7:30 p.m. Feb. 10, 2019 The group that unsuccessfully supported last spring’s countywide Proposition 1 referendum has filed an accounting of the money it raised and spent during the campaign, in contrast to the faith-based group that led efforts to defeat the measure. Shortly before ...
On an icy morning a few weeks ago, Ryan Eddinger was nearing the top of a slick hill when it hit him: “I’m in trouble.” “It’s just a sheet of ice,” he said, recalling when he realized he wasn’t going to make it up the steep stretch of Queens Road just north of Lawrence. “I ...
Sonia Jordan, of the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department, said she has felt as though she’s had a lead weight hanging around her neck, and it’s pushing her to action. “I've seen the faces of people of various populations around our county when they read this report and they ...
Douglas County residents who earn less than $35,000 are 6.6 times more likely to be uninsured and to be diagnosed with asthma. That’s one finding listed in the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department’s 2018 Health Equity Report. Those same residents are also more likely to not see a ...
Middle and high school-age students of Douglas County are invited to write up their business plans and polish their pitches for this year’s Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge. The competition, open to kids in grades six through 12, consists of a trade show booth, a 90-second elevator pitch ...
Douglas County commissioners voted Wednesday to hold public hearings for comment on the option to use a construction manager at risk method for two projects — the jail expansion and housing on the behavioral health campus. Interim County Administrator Sarah Plinsky said statutes demand that ...
The Douglas County Commission could take the first step in seeking out a construction manager to assist in the design of both a jail expansion and parts of planned behavioral health housing projects. Rather than the traditional design-bid-build method, a construction manager at risk, or CMR, ...
Douglas County’s pursuit of a study on law enforcement contact is unusual, a researcher told roughly 25 people who attended a presentation Thursday evening at Flory Meeting Hall at the Douglas County Fairgrounds. Jack McDevitt, of Northeastern University, has conducted similar studies in ...