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Overland Park councilmember Paul Lyons will seek 4th term representing Ward 2

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Ward 2 councilmember Paul Lyons will seek a new term in office this fall.

Overland Park Ward 2 City Councilman Paul Lyons announced today that he will seek a fourth term in office this fall.

Lyons, who has represented Ward 2 since 2007, said he believes Overland Park is in a strong position, but there are important decisions ahead if the city is going to be able to accommodate growth while keeping quality of life high.

“I’m very optimistic about our future, and I think we’re in a good spot — our neighborhoods are in good shape, our government is funded so that we can pay for things like street reconstruction,” he said. “But part of what we’ve got to look at is that as the city continues to grow, we need to focus on maintaining our great schools and our high quality of life, keeping crime low.”

Lyons said one of his focuses for a coming term would be “to develop plans to implement the vision defined by ForwardOP and Vision Metcalf.”

During his tenure on the council, he’s served on the council’s Finance, Administration, and Economic Development and Public Works committees and on the Unimproved Residential Street Task Force, the citizens advisory committee for the Matt Ross Community Center, and the Environmental Advisory Council,He was the council president in 2015. He is currently the governing body representative on the Downtown Overland Park Partnership.

Lyons points to the redevelopment of Downtown Overland Park, which is just north of the Ward 2 boundary, as an example of the city’s positive momentum.

“The investment we’ve seen there is going to make downtown a viable place for the next 50 years, and there’s a lot of interest in building new things across the city,” he said. “That’s a great position to be in. Not every city can say that.”

He stressed that the city’s schools in the Shawnee Mission and Blue Valley School District continued to be among Overland Park’s strongest assets.

“Education is obviously very important,” he said. “We’ve got do everything we can to support school system and remain among very best in state and country, because those schools are what attract people here.”

Ward 2 includes parts of the city between Quivira Road and State Line Road east to west and 87th Street to I-435 north to south though most of the ward is between 87th Street and 95th Street. Ward 2’s boundaries shifted slightly earlier this year as part of a redistricting effort to better balance the populations among the city’s six wards.

About the author

Jay Senter
Jay Senter

Jay Senter is the founder and publisher of the Post.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in business at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he worked as a reporter and editor at The Badger Herald.

He went on to receive a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Kansas, where he earned the Calder Pickett Award. While he was in graduate school, he also worked as a reporter for the Lawrence Journal-World.

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