None of the three Douglas County commissioners was eager to move to approve the next year’s health plan for county employees on Wednesday. Interim County Administrator Sarah Plinsky had told commissioners at a March 20 work session that the county’s “extremely low deductible” health ...
When Christina Gentry first moved to Lawrence with her husband and four children, she began a long road of homelessness, she said Wednesday during a community meeting focusing on affordable housing. After plans to move into a five-bedroom home fell through, Gentry and her family were forced to ...
The Douglas County Commission’s work session on Wednesday will focus on Criminal Justice Services’ youth programs, including alternatives to incarceration and the future of the Juvenile Detention Center. Pam Weigand, the county’s director of Criminal Justice Services, will give a ...
LITTLETON, Colo. — The first SWAT team members to see the horror in the Columbine High School library had to step around bodies and ignore a wounded student’s plea for help as they searched for shooters they didn’t know had already died by their own hands. As member Grant Whitus put it, ...
Douglas County Commissioner Patrick Kelly on Wednesday asked why, with all the social services and programs available in the area, the county hasn’t seen one like what Artists Helping the Homeless has to offer. Kar Woo, the nonprofit’s founder, said it was because the county needed an ...
Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday will hear a proposal on respite housing that would aim to fill a gap in services for men with mental illness or substance use disorders. According to information provided in the commission’s agenda for its 4 p.m. work session, local behavioral ...
First responders do and see a lot of things that most people don’t, and it impacts them, Paul Taylor told Douglas County commissioners at their Wednesday meeting. As a result, they need a different kind of help — and Taylor, first responder assistance coordinator for the Douglas County ...
An Australia-based animal health company that received startup funding from both the City of Lawrence and Douglas County has been ordered to repay some of that money now that it has abandoned its local offices. However, city officials say there's no easy way for the local governments to ...
Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday will consider an agreement with United Way of the Plains that would allow residents to access an online database with a range of community resources, including help for food, housing, clothing, health care and more. Currently, any resident can dial ...
Before she came to Douglas County, Shannon Bruegge, behavioral health parole officer, worked for eight years in Cass County, Mo., supervising clients with substance use disorders as part of a drug court. “I saw people’s lives transformed,” she told Douglas County commissioners during ...
A key player in the Douglas County criminal justice system on Wednesday told county commissioners that he is “fully in support” of a drug court — “but I don't think that's the place where we ought to be stopping.” Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson said he wants to ...
Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday will attend a work session on specialty courts — such as a drug court — as possible alternatives to incarceration. The county launched a behavioral health court in 2017 as one means of keeping those with mental illness and behavioral health needs ...
In a quick motion on Wednesday, Douglas County commissioners approved a program that will place behavioral health peer specialists in the emergency department at LMH Health. The Douglas County Peer Fellows Program will train peer specialists and provide them with professional development, ...
A behavioral health program that would place several peer specialists in the LMH Health emergency department will come up for a vote at Wednesday’s Douglas County Commission meeting. As the Journal-World reported on March 11, the Douglas County Peer Fellows Program would train peer ...
It might not be long before the bubble around Douglas County employees’ “extremely low deductible” health insurance plan bursts. As county commissioners begin to wade into their 2020 budget process, the insurance concern looms on a slightly less distant horizon than the decisions that ...
Though Douglas County Commissioners appreciated his honesty, that’s ultimately what led them to defer a request from Rich Eckert, of Bettis Asphalt. Eckert, general counsel for the company, had come to the commission’s meeting on Wednesday with a request for a temporary business permit to ...
Douglas County staff has been eyeing the now-vacant space that, until late February, housed Lawrence Municipal Court. On Wednesday, interim County Administrator Sarah Plinsky will seek the County Commission’s approval to negotiate a lease for the space at 1006 New Hampshire St. Plinsky ...
Douglas County Emergency Management has two free events coming up for those who want to learn more about severe weather and how to help others, should disaster strike. Emergency Management will offer Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT, training, which aims to prepare citizens ...
Queens Road, or East 1000 Road, will be closed to through traffic from its intersection with Wakarusa Drive to Route 438 (or Farmers Turnpike, North 1800 Road), starting Monday, March 25. The project will repair the concrete deck of the bridge carrying Queens Road over Baldwin Creek, about ...
As part of efforts to pare down the numbers of people in the Douglas County Jail in recent years, the county has launched a few new programs. One of them has grown by 67 percent in just a year. Douglas County’s pretrial release, house arrest and behavioral health court are three of the key ...