Back to Basics: Services

Funk’s View

City government exists to provide services that citizens cannot provide for themselves: police protection, streets, sewers, water, snow removal, ambulance, fire service and parks.

The need for such services is the reason citizens create and move into cities in the first place.

Cities that do a good job of providing these services attract new residents.  And where the people are, businesses follow. That’s how new jobs are created.  Sometimes we make things harder than they ought to be.

In our highly mobile society, people can live wherever they choose. Providing basic services efficiently and effectively allows us to better compete with other cities.

Funk on the Job

I developed my City That Works initiative to focus the city’s attention, and therefore its resources, on the most basic services, such as street and sidewalk repair. Through that focus, we’ve been able to maintain the quality of our most basic services – even as we’ve trimmed budgets significantly in each of the last three years.

Funk’s Action Plan

Of all the things we will talk about in this campaign, the issue of basic services is the most important to the citizens of Kansas City.  When given a choice: more police in the neighborhoods verses a shiny new downtown hotel – citizens choose more police protection almost every time.

With a new focus on professionalism in City Hall has come a new focus on city services. The city has become more responsive to citizen concerns and complaints.

I’m not done yet.

My “City that Works” program has focused attention on problem areas in the delivery of city services, and that focus will continue.  I am listening to how you’d prefer to spend your tax dollars, and will continue choosing your needs over special interest groups.

The city in the coming years will spend more than $2 billion to upgrade its sewers and sewage treatment systems. I will work to identify grants and other funding sources for improvements to the city’s streets, parks, police and maintenance services. 

And I will continue to focus the city’s budget on basic services, starting with the areas around Schools First, and working out from there.

Cops and Public Safety

Funk’s View

There is no greater concern to me as your Mayor than making our streets safe.  There is no more direct way to do so than to have a greater police presence in city neighborhoods.  Kansas City residents agree, and tell me so almost every day.

In addition to your right to feel safe in your own home, the perception that Kansas City is not as safe as it could be has put a stranglehold on the city’s economic growth. Crime, or the perception that city neighborhoods aren’t safe, is one of the primary reasons residents give for moving away.  Public safety goes beyond saving lives and property.

Study after study has shown that increasing police presence in neighborhoods is a sure way to generate economic development. Study after study has shown that every dollar spent to put cops on the street leads to a 500 percent return in economic development.

When Kansas City feels safer, more people will move or remain here. And when they do, businesses and jobs will follow. And with more people living here and demanding that our schools are top quality, the quicker our education system will also turn around.  As you can see, this is a symbiotic relationship.  You have to focus on all the moving parts in order to produce a snowball effect of change.

Funk on the Job

Since the day I was sworn in, I have fought for your desire to increase the number of police on city streets.

Last year, I voted against the city’s budget because it included a $15 million cut in our police budget. I was the lone vote fighting for more cops.  This year, I fought for new legislation in Jefferson City to use our Public Safety Sales Tax to hire more officers. We won that right.

Funk’s Action Plan

I’m not done yet. I will continue to support our police department and our police officers, both as Mayor and through my seat on the police board.

Next we need to seek grants and look for other financial opportunities to increase the number of police in city neighborhoods.

I will never give up on something this important to the health and wellbeing of our city.  We will win this battle.

Citizen Satisfaction

Funk’s View

I want to continue to work to restore professionalism and financial stability to city government and build “A City That Works For Regular Folks.”

A city that works is one in which most of the citizens are satisfied with the delivery of basic services, and with conditions in their neighborhoods.  For decades, Kansas City has not been a city that works.

Annual surveys showed that citizen satisfaction was below the metropolitan average for virtually every one of the 44 different services measured. Kansas City was often dead last in the metro.

This is not acceptable, and unless we change we will struggle to keep businesses and people in Kansas City.

Funk on the Job

In 2009, I started a program within City Hall called “A City that Works” that was designed to directly address the issue of citizen satisfaction.  The five areas we chose to concentrate on were the ones that our residents were most dissatisfied with: smoothness of streets, code enforcement, solid waste, communications, and business climate.

Since my election, we have hired a professional city manager, and made changes in other key departments.

Despite significant budget cuts and the reduction of over 500 City Hall jobs to keep the city’s budget balanced, we have improved citizen satisfaction over the last three years in street maintenance and solid waste disposal, two areas from A City that Works.

And satisfaction with our most important services, our police, fire and ambulance services has improved over that time, as well.  We are finally concentrating on the things that matter most to our residents.

Funk’s Action Plan

I’m not done.

I am determined to continue my City that Works program and expand it to other services. Our taxpayers – our most important customers – deserve the best product we can deliver for the tax dollars they invest in their city.

The city’s 311 system has gotten better, and I will push for more improvements. Being unresponsive to the immediate needs of our citizens is not an option.

I also will push for a better online presence for the city, a Web site that will allow our residents to easily complete just about any business they need to do with the city from the comfort of their home or business computer.

And, finally, I will continue my weekly town halls, meeting with residents in all parts of the city to talk with them about how the city is really doing, and to help settle their complaints.

I am determined to continue this effort because it is essential to keeping residents and businesses in Kansas City.

Neighborhoods

Funk’s View

People don’t actually live in cities , they live in neighborhoods. If you ask someone from Kansas City where they’re from, they’ll say “Brookside,” “Briarcliff” or “Ivanhoe” – not “Kansas City.”  Neighborhoods bring a special flavor to each area of our city.

Our neighborhoods used to be the center of the community, the center of attention, the center of commerce, and the center of learning.  We have strayed too far from that ideal.

Residents judge their city government by its delivery of services in their particular neighborhoods. As Mayor, I’ve done town hall meetings in every corner of our city. And I can tell you that every neighborhood feels neglected, like they are the stepchild of Kansas City.

In some ways, they all are right. For almost a generation, Kansas City’s government has forgotten its responsibility to its neighborhoods.

Funk on the Job

As Mayor, my focus has been on pushing to assure that your city government realizes its responsibility – first and foremost – is to its citizens and protecting, and enhancing, the neighborhoods they live in.  I have stuck up for the regular folks who live in our neighborhoods each and every time a government decision was to be made.  After all, it is their government.

I’ve pushed to add more cops to patrol our neighborhoods. I’ve directed the city’s budget toward basic services like snow removal, street and sidewalk repair, particularly around schools.

When Wells Fargo threatened to auction off more than 250 foreclosed houses in inner-city neighborhoods to out-of-town speculators with no interests in our city, I called foul. As a result, more than 70 of those homes have been donated to non-profit groups for rehabilitation or reconstruction, or to the city. The rest are being sold – but this time to buyers with an interest in the community, not to out-of-town speculators who would let them sit empty and become an eyesore to the community.

Neighborhoods need businesses, stores, and retail services just as much as they need residents. I continue to nurture small, homegrown businesses, and help them grow into the Hallmarks of the next generation.

Funk’s Action Plan

I’m not done.

As a city, we need to do more to build strong, stable neighborhoods.

We need more neighborhoods in which families live for generations, people know each other, and residents develop a deep emotional attachment to the neighborhood as a unique and special place. 

                                     

Kansas City has many neighborhoods like that already. But we also have far too many neighborhoods that are all-but-ignored by City Hall, by residents in other parts of the city, and sometimes by residents of those neighborhoods themselves.

I will continue to be a champion for our neighborhoods, first by keeping well-functioning neighborhoods from falling into decay.  And then by helping our decaying neighborhoods by continuing to work for a City Hall structure that will assist neighborhood residents and small urban redevelopment businesses to build and renovate homes in the urban core of the city.  It’s a big job. We need to stand aside and let these people get the job done, while supporting them when we can.

Part of my New Tools economic initiative calls for a community development credit union that will help these potential homeowners and developers to finance these vital urban projects.

At the same time, I plan to push for an office inside City Hall that will be there to help businesses work their way through the permits and other paperwork necessary to do business in the city. This will help spark new small businesses in our neighborhoods.

With this approach, I know our neighborhoods will be stronger and more successful, and so will our city.

Schools and Education

Funks View

Kansas City is blessed with some wonderful schools, inspiring teachers and award-winning programs. The city has nearly 200 schools in 14 different public school districts, as well as faith-based and charter schools.

Unfortunately, concern about schools is one of the “big three” reasons we have trouble attracting middle-class residents to Kansas City, and keeping them here.

Every day, we have middle-class people moving out of the city or relocating into the metro, but in one of the city’s suburbs. They have read, or been told, that their children cannot get a good education in Kansas City.  One of the reasons? There has been a wall of separation between city government and the schools.  It seems that no politician in the past has been willing to risk this political landmine, so they’ve excused their non-involvement by saying that the city has no authority over the school district.

But the city can do a lot to help.  At the very least, we can be a credible partner to all our schools, in fact, we need to be, as having thriving schools is the only way that we can prosper and grow as a city. 

Schools are the anchors for our neighborhoods, and they need to be islands of safety for our children.  We cannot revitalize our neighborhoods without working closely with the schools – and those who want to reform the schools cannot do so without improving the neighborhoods.  Research shows that student performance is strongly impacted by neighborhood conditions.

Funk on the Job

I have supported our schools, and have encouraged neighborhoods and our city government to do the same through my Schools First initiative. Only by partnering with each other will our schools, our neighborhoods and our city succeed.

Schools First is a multi-faceted program designed to improve schools by focusing on and strengthening the neighborhoods that surround them. The plan calls for the city to focus basic services – police, sidewalks, city codes – in the 50-square block area around schools.

As neighborhoods improve, residents will return, sparking renewed interest in schools. They will demand that our schools be top notch.  And, as schools improve, even more new residents will move in.  And since businesses follow the people, new jobs will be created.

In general, Schools First is similar to a plan used in New York City in the 1990s that was credited, at least in part, with a substantial drop in that city’s crime rate.

In 2009, I met with school leaders throughout the city to listen to their concerns. I pushed a proposal through City Council to spend more than $20 million on neighborhood rehabilitation projects. Work on some of those projects started in August.

Funk’s Action Plan

I’m not done yet.

I will continue to work to build relationships with school administrators in Kansas City, and continue to press to focus basic services in the neighborhoods directly around schools.

In addition, I will push for an Office of School Support in City Hall to act as a liaison between the city and its schools, and will continue to press for more police in the neighborhoods around schools.

And this is just the beginning.