Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Dennis "Boog" Highberger, incumbent, talks to a reporter Tuesday night at City Hall. Highberger took third seat for city commisioner. With 17.39% of the votes, Highberger will serve two years as city commisioner.
Lawrence voters — including a typically low number of University students — shuffled seats on the city commission Tuesday as newcomers Mike Dever and Rob Chestnut took the top two spots in the commission election, according to unofficial election results.
Dever, Chestnut and incumbent commissioner Dennis “Boog” Highberger earned commission seats as the top three vote-getters. Incumbent David Schauner and challengers James Bush and Carey Maynard-Moody failed to win seats.
Dever received 21 percent of the vote, Chestnut had 19 and Highberger received 17 percent.
Dever said Lawrence voters had signaled a desire for change.
“I think they were ready for some new ideas and new blood,” he said.
Dever, owner of a local environmental consulting firm, and Chestnut, chief financial officer for a local publisher, will get four-year commission terms. Highberger, an attorney for the state of Kansas, will serve a two-year term.
According to city commission rules, the top two vote getters receive a four-year term, the third place candidate serves a two-year term.
Jamie Shew, Douglas County clerk, said voting in precincts near campus was low as usual. He said that five to seven percent of registered voters actually voted in those precincts. County wide, voter participation was about 19 percent. Some precincts in west Lawrence registered up to 40 percent participation.
Shew said only 12 voters — less than one percent — showed up at the Burge Union, the voting site for Precinct 10. Nearly 80 percent of the precinct’s 1,928 registered voters are 18 to 24 years old — by far the highest percentage in the county.
In each of the county’s precincts with the top seven percentages of 18- to 24-year-old voters, Highberger, Schauner and Maynard-Moody attracted the most votes.
Dever said he was excited about the results.
pullquote
I’m really looking forward to stopping talking and starting working.
-newcomer Mike Dever
“I’m really looking forward to stopping talking and starting working,” he said.
He said he would like to attract more jobs to Lawrence, give students who live far from campus an opportunity to ride a bus to campus and increase wireless Internet accessibility around the city.
Chestnut said he wanted the city to continue to study the possibility of expanding its rental registration program, requiring all rental properties to submit to periodic city inspections for safety. He also said improving Lawrence’s economy could help lower property taxes, meaning lower rent for students.
“When I was a student here in the late ’70s and early ’80s, it was cheaper to live here,” Chestnut said.
Highberger said he wanted to move forward with the expanded rental registration program, and he said he’d talked with some students about the possibility of installing emergency phones in neighborhoods near campus.
Kansan staff writer Matt Erickson can be contacted at merickson@kansan.com.
— Edited by Ryan Schneider
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