Caelin Bragg
Advertising & Distribution Manager
The Andover City Council overrode Mayor Ben Lawrence’s veto of Butler’s special use permit (SUP) to allow the college to relocate its space in the 6000 building to the area directly west of its 5000 building at their last meeting. The overruling came shortly after Butler’s Board of Trustees requested the SUP be taken out of the deliberations.
Butler has been in a contentious back-and-forth with Lawrence since he vetoed the initial SUP on Tuesday, Sep. 18. Since then, the Andover Planning Commission and City Council deliberated further and approved a new SUP that was vetoed again by the mayor on Tuesday, Nov. 6.
“We were concerned to begin with of getting into a cycle where there was review, and approval and then a veto, and review, and approval and then a veto and just felt like we were caught in a cyclical pattern,” Butler President Kim Krull said. “And the Board just decided that they didn’t want to be caught in that cycle anymore.”
Butler decided to forgo using the SUP and sent a private letter to the City Council and mayor on Friday, Nov. 9, prior to the override, asking that it be removed from the agenda for their Tuesday, Nov. 13 meeting.
Butler will instead proceed with one of its backup plans to build on the current plat, where the 5000 building is located, and leave the new land to the west approved by the SUP unused for either future projects or sell it off to other businesses in the area to use.
Because of this reshuffling of plans, Butler will have to remain in their 6000 building at the Andover High School until its lease ends in 2021 instead of leaving in 2019 like it planned for to finish the college’s Andover project, potentially interfering with the construction of the new high school, which was planned to be finished by the fall of 2020.
The City Council overrode Lawrence’s veto by a 6-0 vote at their meeting. They felt Butler still had time to go ahead with their original plan, and that Butler still had an obligation to fulfill the conditions of platting and infrastructure improvements as part of the SUP.
“I think they erred in overruling my veto because they did not address the underlying zoning implications, which I expounded upon in my written veto,” Lawrence, who was out of town during the City Council meeting, said. “Their approval is flawed in reasoning and has a serious legal complication to it due to contract zoning.”
Lawrence said that issue regarding zoning has been finished with the City Council’s override, but he also feels that the issue regarding the college’s mill levy and disproportionate enrollment numbers is still one of great concern. He said that the out-of-county cost to students should be higher than it is now, citing what it would cost a Kansas student to attend an out-of-state college, something Butler has said could harm its competitiveness with other low-cost colleges in the area.
Kansas’ 77th District Representative Kristey Williams has pushed the issue regarding the college’s mill levy with her “fair funding initiative” to try and lower the tax burden on Butler County citizens. Williams said that Butler “did not respond to the specific concerns” the mayor brought up. “To me, that is troubling.”
Williams is also troubled by an apparent lack of regard for her initiative from Butler and their Board and said she will address the concerns they have ignored in legislation she is drafting.
Something that Lawrence agreed with Butler on though was that a solution to the college’s funding is at the state level, with more funding coming from Kansas being a way to alleviate the burdens on local taxpayers.
