Linda Treat

City Council members Linda Treat and Donald Poteat were also there.

Two dozen members arrived with fears about the project, but most left with fewer concerns, said Linda Treat, a city council member and president of the association.

Wearing a warm-up suit with his soccer club's emblem on one shoulder, Coach Kapsalis had come from coaching the youth club on the park's soccer fields.

City council member Linda Treat, a Democrat, said she has had questions about some claims approved by the board of works recently and wants to better watch city spending.

"It is the responsibility of the council to maintain control over the city's money," she said.

Linda Treat (D)

Lawrence City Council, Dist. 3

City council member Linda Treat, a Democrat, said that consolidation would be a mistake, and that the city can afford additional staffing in the department.

Members of the city council, which is controlled by Republicans, are willing to shift money to the department but will require the budget be balanced, Treat said.

Reducing administrative positions in the mayor's office and eliminating the need for outside consultants to the administration and the council would free up money that could be used for public safety, Treat said.

"The funds are available with the right budgeting to hire more firefighters.We just have to keep cutting the fat," she said.

"It would just be a breath of fresh air in the community," said Linda Treat, a Lawrence City Council member.

The Wells' daughter, Linda Treat, 56, said her father, a retired heating and air-conditioning repairman, always had a soft spot for Christmas.She remembers one year growing up in the small town of Milan, Ind., when the family "didn't have squat" and her mother wanted to wrap each kids' two presents with newspaper comics to save money.

"Dad wouldn't have it," Treat said."He said there was no way his kids would unwrap presents in newspaper comics.He went out and bought fancy paper, and said nobody was so bad off that they couldn't make one day perfect."

Treat, a Lawrence city council member, said Wells hopes his Christmas lights display will also cheer up other people, especially kids.

Linda Treat - Lawrence City Council