CITY MANAGER’S REPORT

Week ending February 22, 2013

 

6th & Iowa project design update 

Attached is a project design update for the 6th and Iowa Street project.  

 

Public Works holds annual stakeholders meeting

The Public Works Department recently held its annual stakeholders meeting with contractors, vendors, consultants and other city staff.  Staff Memo

 

City Launches 2013 Green Business Leaders Program

Twelve downtown businesses have signed on to participate in Lawrence’s Green Business Leaders Program. These businesses will attend two informational sessions in February, covering energy efficiency solutions, rebates and incentives, and how to track their business’ energy usage with SmartStar. Westar Energy and GBA Architects + Engineers will provide a free on-site energy audit for each participating business. After completing the energy audits, participants will reconvene to share the results from their energy audit and their plans for energy improvement projects. Each business has committed to making one energy-saving improvement resulting from the energy audit.

 

The 2013 Green Business Leaders are:

·         The Roost

·         Pendleton & Sutton

·         OneTwoThree

·         Mass Street Sweet Shoppe

·         Shark’s Surf Shop

·         Weaver’s

·         Callahan Creek

·         hobbs.

·         Global Café

·         Z’s Divine

·         GouldEvans

·         Buffalo Bob’s Smokehouse

 

Lawrence’s business sector presents significant opportunities for energy efficiency gains. The business sector can help the City meet our greenhouse gas reduction goals, while helping themselves cut costs and boost their profits. As 2013 is the pilot year of the program, the City focused on downtown businesses. The City is planning to open this program to businesses city-wide next year. Special thanks to Westar Energy, GBA Architects + Engineers, Downtown Lawrence, Inc., and the Chamber of Commerce in helping with the creation and implementation of this program.

 

Planning Commission Meeting agenda improvements

The Planning and Development Services Department recently made some changes to Planning Commission Meeting agendas, to make them more user friendly for Planning Commission members and the public. The agendas are still posted as single PDF files (compared to the HTML based City Commission agendas) because Planning Commission members often download the packet and read it in places with limited internet access, but each individual item is now posted as well as its own PDF file. This makes it easier for people interested in a particular item jump straight to it rather than search through the packet. The agendas can be viewed at:  http://www.lawrenceks.org/pds/pc_agendas_minutes