The City of Lawrence will receive a $446,000 grant as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. The CARES Act allocated $2 billion of additional funding to cities through the Community Development Block Grant program to prevent, prepare for and respond to coronavirus, according to a city staff memo to the City Commission. As part of the commission’s meeting Tuesday, City Manager Craig Owens said the city expected additional funds to be provided but that the grant was a start to meet the city’s challenges. “The needs here locally are substantial,” Owens said. “They will continue to be [...]

City leaders expressed support Tuesday for a new way of prioritizing infrastructure projects and other capital expenses, but some commissioners said they would like to see more emphasis on sustainability. As part of its regular meeting, the Lawrence City Commission provided feedback to city staff about a new prioritization method for the city’s Capital Improvement Plan that weighs one-time projects based on nine factors. City Manager Craig Owens told the commission that what staff had proposed was a starting point, and it was up to the commissioners to modify the method as they found appropriate. “You need to build the machine [...]

Even though sporting events have been canceled because of the coronavirus, Lawrence residents still can get in the competitive spirit. Mayor Jennifer Ananda recently accepted a challenge from the mayor of Manhattan for the two cities to compete for the highest self-response rate to the 2020 census for each city. The mayor of the losing city has to wear the other city’s university jersey to a City Commission meeting. Mayor Usha Reddi made a video challenging Ananda, who responded with a video of her own in which she accepted the challenge. Read more: LJWorld.com.