The Coalition for Collaborative Governance organizes advocacy efforts to achieve our mission to promote more collaboration, transparency, and accountability in our local governments’ cultures, budgets, policies, and practices.

City of Lawrence 2026 Budget Process

In February 2025, the City of Lawrence hosted community engagement opportunities about their 2026 budget. Because these discussions only addressed 24% of their budget, our coalition is requesting that the City of Lawrence host additional community engagement opportunities. Specifically, we would like community education, discussion, and input on the City's capital investments and debt payments, which accounted for 45% of their 2025 budget.

Outdoor Swimming Pool

Holly Krebs led an advocacy campaign to retain the size of the Lawrence outdoor swimming pool in the fall of 2024. She gathered almost 1800 signatures on a community-wide petition and organized a coalition of supporters to lobby the City Commission to reverse their decision to significantly shrink the size of our pool.

On Oct 12, 2024, this coalition presented a coordinated series of public comments before the Commission, which convinced them to reverse their decision. On Nov 19, 2024, we gave another series of comments outlining the significant flaws in the community engagement and planning process for this renovation. While the Commission did not grant our request for a citizen oversight committee of the remainder of the project, they did assign future community engagement to their Communications and Community Relations department, which has been great to work with.

Watch some of our coalition’s stellar presentations before the City Commission and read more about our pool campaign here!

Write Our City Commissioners to Make Your Voice Heard!

To: commissioners@lawrenceks.org, ccagendas@lawrenceks.org

Subject: [Include your specific request or complaint here]

Email content: Dear City Commissioners,

[Insert short message about your request or complaint. You may want to address how the issue at hand affects you.]

[Close with a respectful salutation and your name]

Notes:

• The Commissioners receive a lot of written information each week, so they may be more likely to read your full email if it's short and to the point.

• If you want your comments to be public, include the "ccagendas" email above, and your email will be published at the end the Commission's weekly packet.

• You can also email individual Commissioners here: Amber Sellers, Bart LittleJohn, Brad Finkeldei, Lisa Larsen, and Mike Dever