To the editor:

If you, like me, are talking with others about the City Commission and school board candidates, let’s make those conversations factual. At a benefit for Van Go I heard that an individual associated with a neighborhood “excluded the only currently serving City Commission candidate from participating in a forum and paid for mailing a postcard to vote for anyone but Littlejohn”.

I saw the individual a few days later and asked him about his involvement. I learned the “forum” was a “meet and greet” for Alvamar residents concerned about Land Development Code proposals; those residents already knew Littlejohn’s position. The postcard was paid for by Lawrence Professional Firefighters PAC (not the Lawrence Firefighters PAC dissolved some years ago).

I share concerns about the code undermining existing neighborhoods and believe we should support our firefighters with more than plans for a new station. Yet my strongest objection to a decision by the current City Commission was the vote to change the term of one of the sitting commissioners from a two-year term to a four-year term. If that change hadn’t been made, we would be voting for three, not two, city commissioners in this election. Perhaps this change would have made sense if the vote to change our form of government had passed, but it didn’t. The opportunity to “vote the rascals out” and elect a majority of new members to the City Commission (I’m saying this as a former rascal) was denied by their decision.

Marci Francisco, Lawrence