Douglas County Appraisal Analyst August Dettbarn recently received a Fellows award from the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO).  The IAAO Board created the Fellows program to recognize individuals who have dedicated their career to the development of the assessment profession and made exceptional contributions to the IAAO and the assessment industry.  The program recognizes the best of the best within the assessment profession.

The Kansas Supreme Court has renewed the appointment of The Honorable James R. McCabria as Chief Judge of the Seventh Judicial District. The two-year term runs from Jan. 1, 2024, to Dec. 31, 2025. It will be the third two-year term for McCabria to serve as Chief Judge.

The Douglas County Food Policy Council is reviewing the permitting processes, fees and requirements for mobile food vendors in Douglas County.

The Food Policy Council’s goal is to facilitate conversations to help create equitable and fair regulations, provide sufficient resources and offer efficient systems and processes for food truck owners to operate in the community.

A construction project at the historic Douglas County Courthouse in downtown Lawrence is scheduled to begin Tuesday, Sept. 19. The project will waterproof the existing foundation of the building located at 1100 Massachusetts Street.

The Douglas County website – douglascountyks.org – received an upgrade on Sept. 7 with a refreshed design that includes more photos and new navigation tools.

Our focus is to make it easier for you to find information on the site quickly and efficiently. We will continue to add functionality to the website. We hope you like it as much as we do!

You can provide feedback by completing our website feedback form.

The City of Lawrence, Douglas County, and Lawrence Community Shelter are committed to addressing the growing homelessness crisis in our community. The City and County’s recent affordable housing and homelessness strategic plan, A Place for Everyone, identifies the need for increased capacity and improved outcomes in emergency sheltering.

The Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab (GPL) has selected Douglas County and the City of Lawrence as one of 14 jurisdictions nationwide to participate in their 2023-2024 Alternative 911 Emergency Response Implementation Cohort.  It’s an initiative designed to support city and county leaders in developing, improving and expanding unarmed alternative responses to 911 calls.

For the first time, Douglas County Public Works recently used goats to control weeds and woody vegetation on a steep slope at Wells Overlook Park where native grass had been planted and was struggling to get sunlight.

Since the slope is too steep for mowing and unsafe for hand cutting by employees, Public Works hired a company called “Goats On The Go” for the 0.9-acre site. The goat wrangler installed a temporary fence, dropped off approximately 50 goats, provided a water trough and checked on the goats daily. It took them 10 days to complete their task.

Douglas County District Court has received a grant from the National Center for State Courts’ (NCSC) Eviction Diversion Initiative to strengthen eviction diversion efforts and improve housing stability across Douglas County. It is one of 10 state and local courts selected through a competitive application process and review by an advisory council composed of state court chief justices and court administrators. 

The Kansas Department of Revenue is scheduled to begin replacing a router at noon Thursday, August 17. It is anticipated to last 30 minutes, but could take up to two hours. No motor vehicle transactions can be processed during this time at the Douglas County Treasurer’s main and satellite offices.

Tax payments for real estate and personal property can still be accepted during the outage. If you have questions for the Treasurer’s Office, please call 785-832-5273. We apologize for the inconvenience!

Douglas County is seeking residents’ input about how open spaces could be preserved and used in ways that benefit the community into the future. Their input will be used to help establish a Douglas County Open Space Plan. The plan will be a broad policy guide toward prioritizing a range of ecosystems and land uses such as prairie, floodplain, agriculture, historic sites, trails and more.

The community can provide information by:

The Douglas County Clerk’s Office will be sending 45,990 notices to property owners on Friday, Aug. 11. It is not a bill.

The notification is for information purposes only. It includes estimated property taxes for 2023 and a list of public hearings that affect the owner’s taxes. A list of all public hearings can be found on the Douglas County website.