Saturday, January 8, 2011

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.

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