photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Incoming Lawrence City Commissioners speaks to the Lawrence Home Builders Association on Nov. 21, 2025.

The top two vote-winners in the recent Lawrence City Commission election promised a group of home builders Friday that change indeed is coming to Lawrence.

The most visible sign of it, they suggested, will be a lot more growth for the community.

“What has been said to me is that we probably will have one of the most pro-growth commissions that you’ve seen in a very, very long time,” City Commissioner-elect Kristine Polian, who finished second in this month’s election, told the Lawrence Home Builders Association at its Friday meeting.

First-place finisher Mike Courtney, speaking to the same group, said he also believed he and Polian would find good growth allies on the City Commission when they join the five-member commission early next month.

But he also warned the group that some patience will be needed on at least one key task: Finding the next city manager for Lawrence.

“We do not need to rush the decision about a city manager,” Courtney told the crowd of a couple dozen home builders, bankers and others in related industries.

City Manager Craig Owens announced shortly after the election that he would be resigning his position in May. Courtney said he suspects there will be some pressure to get a consultant hired to get a national search underway. However, he said it is important for the new City Commission to do some careful thinking about what’s needed. Courtney, whose background is as an executive in technology firms, said he thinks the commission should undertake a SWOT analysis — a common corporate practice that looks at an organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Polian, whose background is in city and nonprofit management, said she agreed that the commission needs to figure out what areas of expertise are most important in the next city manager. She said it is difficult to find an individual who excels in all areas of city management, thus it is critical to understand what strengths the community is most in need of currently.

“Right now, I believe we need economic development,” Polian said.

Incoming Lawrence City Commissioner Kristine Polian speaks to the Lawrence Home Builders Association on Nov. 21, 2025.

Polian said she intends to be vocal about the city’s need to change, and wants to avoid the growth/no-growth debate, saying that Lawrence’s financial situation means that “we don’t have a choice but to grow.” She predicted that if the city doesn’t take steps to significantly grow its tax base in the next five years that many of the city’s remaining fixed income residents will be priced out of the community.

Both said a significant amount of new single-family home construction is needed to increase the city’s tax base and to make the community more affordable. Courtney said that is going to require the city to look beyond its recent preferred strategy of infill development, which seeks to build on property already within the city limits rather than expanding the boundaries of the cities.

Based on the chatter in the room on Friday, look for significant annexation requests to come before the city in the near future.

Also, look for a commission that becomes more actively involved in the management of the city, at least if the two new commissioners have their way. Courtney said his sense of the City Commission is that since the pandemic, it “has been a much more hands-off commission.” That’s not to say that city commissioners will now have a formal role in supervising city employees. That is a duty of the city manager. The city manager is the only employee the City Commission directly oversees.

But Courtney said the City Commission does get the opportunity to publicly interact with city employees and the city manager during the commission’s near-weekly meetings. He said there is a lot that can be accomplished there. During the campaign, Courtney frequently said the commission did not say “no” enough, and did not ask “why” enough.

“If you don’t have those questions, then a lot of stuff just sort of gets green lit,” Courtney said. “I think during this campaign, a lot of people talked to us and wanted us to ask these questions that they’re not hearing from the bench, and that’s something that we are committed to.”

Courtney and Polian — who struck on many of the same issues during the campaign — were not only the top two vote winners in the campaign, but they also were the top vote winners in virtually every area of the city. As the Journal-World reported shortly after the elections, every precinct in Lawrence, except one, was won by either Courtney or Polian.

Polian raised that point briefly with the crowd on Friday, noting how unlikely the result was given that neither candidate had run for office before and didn’t have a lot of name recognition in the community prior to the election.

She said the results were an indicator that Lawrence was at a pivotal moment, as voters sent a message that they were upset with the status quo.

“Sadly, that is why we are in a pivotal moment because everyone is upset,” Polian said. “But you capitalize on it regardless.”

Polian said to do that, the commission and the community need to be ready to embrace change, saying she knows “we don’t grow without it.”

“I promise you guys, we will make change,” she said.