By: Kathy Runge – Jan. 2016 Happy New Year from recall central! Most of us in Lawrence are suffering from recall fatigue, with objections to signatures on the first recall petition due to be heard this month, while the second recall has until the 23rd to collect the required number of signatures. At the December […]
By: Kathy Runge – December, 2015 Merry Christmas and greetings from Apache territory! In a pre-election article published at editorialweek.com, Jose Alfonso Garica’s website, South Lawrence was referred to as Apache territory. I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be offensive to Apaches, Anglos, or both. This man works for the school department. It’s been […]
By: Kathy Runge – November, 2015 The election has come and gone and the good news is, I should have no scarcity of material for the foreseeable future. The bad news is that Brian DePena was top vote getter in the Councilor at-Large race. Mr. DePena, I will be thrilled if you prove me wrong. […]
By: Kathy Runge – Oct. 2015 I heard that the real reason for the extreme shortage of poll workers for the Preliminary Election was that the city required the poll workers to be citizens (of the United States). Does that mean that there were non-citizens working the polls for the other elections? There was at […]
By: Kathy Runge – August 2015 We’re starting campaign season and I’m already preparing myself for the onslaught of robo-calls and junk mail we’ll be receiving in a couple of months. Please don’t vote for candidates that spend thousands of dollars trying to impress you. The more money a local candidate receives in donations, the […]
By: Kathy Runge, July, 2015 The City Council, led by Council President Maldonado, a.k.a. Lawrence’s Ambassador to the UN, has been busy in the last month. The FY16 budget got approved with Maldonado providing the only dissenting vote. He proposed a series of potential cuts and argued for them while acting as president of the […]
By: Kathy Runge – June, 2015 Myra Ortiz, Candidate for District A Councilor I recently spoke with Myra Ortiz, who will be running against incumbent Sandy Almonte. Myra has made Lawrence her home for 15 years and currently represents District A on the School Committee. Although the school system is under receivership, Ms. Ortiz has […]
By: Kathy Runge – May, 2015 Although, in my opinion, violating the Open Meeting Laws is not unusual for our city council, the newest show of disrespect for city residents has to be the placing of this month’s Semana Hispana fundraising carnival at the South Common with no prior notice given to the neighborhood residents. […]
By Kathy Runge – April, 2015 Council meetings in February and March were a train wreck, but everyone got their vacations in. Councilor Maldonado opened the meeting of March 3 by saying that he hoped meetings would be regular now and they wouldn’t get snowed out anymore, as if that’s the reason their meetings haven’t […]
By: Katy Runge – January, 2015 Happy New Year to all of The Valley Patriot readers! If you missed the City Council meeting of December 16 you should watch it on YouTube (Channel: LawrenceCityCouncil), because it was a gem. Public safety loans were denied, a vote of no confidence in the mayor was attempted and confusion […]
By: Kathy Runge – December, 2014 The election has come and gone, the employee residency requirement has been discussed ad nauseam by the council with more to come, and we’ve had more senseless deaths of young people in Lawrence. The residents of Lawrence can breathe a sigh of relief that William Lantigua isn’t on the […]
By: Kathy Runge – November, 2014 I’ve been writing programs to look for duplicate registrations on the voter registration list in Lawrence for a few years. This list can be searched using many criteria; in this article I have used three of my algorithms. These programs can’t really tell if two registrations correspond to the […]
By: Kathy Runge – October, 2014 Once upon a time, a city council suspended the rules and had a redo vote on the proposed residency requirement. They waited and waited until they had a meeting with the right councilors in attendance. Finally it passed. Since the mayor wouldn’t sign the measure, it had little chance […]
Kathy Runge – June, 2014 Hi guys! The Valley Patriot decided to suspend the rules and I’m writing the column this month. Yes folks, it’s as easy as that; suspend the rules and anything goes. More on suspending the rules later. First up is important news affecting all renters and landlords in Lawrence. Renters and […]