Staff Report
photo by: Nick Krug
Michael Davidson, the director of Explore Lawrence, is pictured outside the Lawrence Public Library on Thursday, June 9, 2016.
The director of the city’s visitors bureau has announced his upcoming retirement.
Explore Lawrence Director Michael Davidson will retire in the spring, according to a news release. Davidson ends his career after thirty plus years in leadership roles in the tourism industry, including leading tourism bureaus in Long Island, N.Y. and Walla Walla, Wash. He has led the Lawrence visitors bureau since April 2016.
During his tenure, the visitors bureau’s operating budget increased by about 30%, the organization opened a visitors center on Massachusetts Street in downtown Lawrence, and most recently Davidson helped administer a grants program for hospitality businesses negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St., is pictured Thursday, July 7, 2016.
City leaders will soon consider creating a new temporary winter shelter program that will house homeless people in hotel rooms for the next few months.
As part of its meeting Tuesday, the Lawrence City Commission will consider authorizing the city to make agreements with the local homeless shelter and a hotel to provide the program. The initial $250,000 in funding for the program will come from federal coronavirus aid, distributed via the Emergency Solutions Grants Program, and will pay for 51 hotel rooms for a period of 90 days, according to a city staff memo to the commission.
The Douglas County Courthouse and downtown Lawrence are pictured in an aerial photo Saturday, July 13, 2019.
The Douglas County Commission has reallocated another $290,000 of unspent CARES Act funding to help make sure all of its $24.9 million are spent by the end of the year.
The commissioners also gave county staff the authority to make further changes to the funding plan when needed this month to help reach that goal.
During their meeting on Wednesday, the commissioners authorized reallocating $264,000 from various organizations that reported spending shortfalls to three hospitality organizations. Two of those organizations are the Lawrence Restaurant Association and Lawrence Live, both of which received an additional funding allocation about $415,000 total a week ago.