Chad Lawhorn, reporter for the Lawrence Journal-World, writes about everything from city commission meetings to new businesses in town to Lawrence history visited Lawrence Central to give an impromptu in person “Town Talk”, his popular online column on LJWorld.com.
Lawhorn has a long history in local journalism and told Lawrence Central Rotarians that journalism is not a dying art. “People are still interested in information–more than they have ever been,” he said. “It’s just that there are so many ways to get it now. And newspapers have created a problem for themselves by offering it free online. They should have figured out some way to charge for it.”
His coverage of the city commission prompted one Rotarian to ask him how he sits through a commission meeting without wanting to “set himself on fire.”
“City Hall is an acquired taste,” he said. “ It takes a certain type of person to cover it. I usually have a sense of how things will go before I get there.”
He said there are four major issues in Lawrence right now:
- A new city commission, chosen in 2015, may change registration for rentals.
- A second issue is buying land to build a new police headquarters to consolidate all police work in one place. The question will be if the city decide to pay for it with new sales tax.
- A third issue is commercial development near the South Lawrence Trafficway–what will the city approve to be built there.
- The last issue is a building a large conference center for Lawrence. He said it could be downtown or close to campus.
“I’m keeping an eye on all these things,” he said. “It’s an exciting time for Lawrence.”
