A recently-formed Douglas County Drug Court Alumni Group is about to get a boost thanks to a $2,500 donation from the Social Service League, the oldest nonprofit organization in Douglas County. Meg Davis, vice president of the Social Service League, is scheduled to present a check to the alumni group on June 7 during a Drug Court graduation ceremony. The alumni group will use the funding for recovery activities and community events.

Felix Kirkland, first-place winner of this year’s Douglas County Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge (YEC), was selected as a finalist in the state competition this spring.

Felix was among 81 students who participated in the Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge in April in Manhattan. They were judged on their business executive summaries and mock boardroom presentations. Thirty-one students received a cash prize, including Felix who received $1,700. The competition is open to students in grades 6-12. 

Common Ground, the community gardening and urban agriculture program, will offer free workshops about composting in June. Composting is the natural process of recycling organic matter such as leaves and food scraps into valuable fertilizer that can enrich the soil for gardening and farming.

The instructor for the workshops will be Stan Ring, former Douglas County Extension Horticulture Program Assistant and a Douglas County Master Gardener. The workshops will be held at four different Common Ground sites:

Penn Street Community Garden got a colorful makeover in May thanks to Kansas City-based artist Jude Croft. The garden is one of the oldest Common Ground sites, established in 2012. 

A letter dated Jan. 20, 1937, was recently discovered during renovation work in the County Commission chamber. The letter and a document resembling an English assignment in the same handwriting were found between boards in the storage area that is located behind the old jury box. The letter was signed by Dwight Dale.

Douglas County has received a Spring 2024 Preservation in Progress Award from the Lawrence Preservation Alliance for its preservation work on the historic County Courthouse in downtown Lawrence. The award recognizes two projects that are underway: waterproofing of the foundation and renovation of the Commission chamber.

The Douglas County Sustainability Office has published the final draft of the “Adapt Douglas County: A Climate Action and Adaptation Plan” that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help the community adapt to the risks of climate change.

The Douglas County Heritage Conservation Council announces the recipients of the 2024 Natural & Cultural Heritage grant program after receiving approval from the Board of County Commissioners in April. A total of $220,000 was awarded to 11 projects.  

An additional $200,000 was awarded to four projects focused on Open Space themes. These Open Space grants were made possible through a one-time allocation of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds awarded for the planning and implementation of Open Space initiatives in Douglas County.

Douglas County’s IT Department will begin migrating services to a new dgcoks.gov domain in May.

Why move to .GOV? It is easier to identify governments on the Internet and using a .GOV domain shows the website is an official government entity. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) sponsors .GOV and makes it available solely to U.S.-based government organizations and publicly controlled entities.

Additionally, using .GOV increases security:

Douglas County is celebrating National County Government Month by hosting its first Douglas County Government Day event on Tuesday, April 23. The event will be from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, 21st and Harper Streets, in the Open Pavilion. The event is free and open to the community.

“We are excited to host a fun event to share our important services with the community,” County Administrator Sarah Plinsky said. “From maintaining roads and providing public safety to supporting human services and conducting elections, we are proud to serve Douglas County.”

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, District Court and mental health providers are set to begin a local process for evaluating mental competency of defendants and offering outpatient treatment for restoration.

The process is believed to be the first to begin at the county level in Kansas and would help address the statewide backlog that has delayed numerous criminal cases in recent years due to the shortage of bed space at Larned and Osawatomie state hospitals.

On Feb. 14, 2024, the Douglas County Appraiser’s Office mailed letters to owners of properties identified as short-term rentals to notify them that their assessment classification was going to change from residential to commercial, which would likely result in an increase in property taxes. Information gathered for that determination was obtained during the last half of 2023.