Working Hard to Be the Very Last
 By Joe Medley The Kansas City Post Two weeks ago, I attended my first city council committee meeting, the Finance and Audit Committee. Acting City Auditor Gary White introduced a Performance Audit on City Cleanliness. According to the audit, only 30 percent of survey respondents reported that they are "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the cleanliness of Kansas City's streets and public areas. It should be no surprise to anyone that this puts Kansas City near the bottom among both comparable cities nationwide and nearby suburbs. Percent of Respondents Rating Cleanliness of Streets and Public Areas as “Satisfied” or “Very Satisfied” Comparable Cities Minneapolis, 64% Denver, 52% Dallas, 34% St. Louis, 39% Kansas City, 30% Metro Cities Overland Park, 81% Olathe, 75% Lee's Summit, 71% Independence, 51% Kansas City, 30% The low point of the meeting was when Chuck Eddy, 6th district, said, "We've got to get up to 50 percent." Mr. Eddy, I respectfully disagree. 50 percent still leaves us in last place metro wide. It also leaves us 25 points behind Olathe and 31 points behind Overland Park. Over the last few decades the population has generally been sliding slowly and steadily downward. If we want to reverse that trend, cleanliness is one of the areas in which we need to be competitive. The report was short on solutions, but not for lack of effort. The City Auditor's Office looked at other cities and tried to find a correlation between specific public works programs and city cleanliness. Unfortunately, none could be found. The reasonable conclusion was to recommend that the city manager set goals and report on progress. To me, that is no solution at all. Goals are pointless if we have no idea how to pursue them. I wonder if it occurred to any of them that cleanliness might correlate to something that is not part of public works? Perhaps instead of looking outward to compare ourselves with other communities and then looking inward for solutions the best thing to do would be to find out what those municipalities are doing right, and emulate their success. |
posted by Mark at 7:37 AM
Comments on "Working Hard to Be the Very Last"
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Brent said ... (9:55 AM) :
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Michelled said ... (4:28 PM) :
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adrianne said ... (12:15 PM) :
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Joe Medley said ... (11:25 PM) :
post a commentJoe,
You bring up two great points.
1) Our Kansas City officials spend WAY too much time trying to recreate ordinances instead of looking to cities that actually have policies that work and emulating those
2) Too many officials set very low expectations. I've sat through a lot of dog ordinance hearings and heard Head Animal Control Officers say their goal is to get 20-25% compliance with new dog licensing policies. Why set a goal that is too low? Why would anyone's goal to be below average? It's sad.
Welcome to the world of City Council meetings. Some are fun, some are like watching paint dry (only more painful).
AC also answers 20% of its calls.
I can see the headline now: "AC improves its call response by 100%". And it will still be way below half...
KC actually has an "up to $1000 fine" for littering. Who enforces this? Is this a police matter? Charlie Williard has about 20 mini junk yards in our hood - codes can't get the job done in prosecuting him.
I guess part of the solution would be to have trash cans (aesthetically pleasing, of course) on the corners of most blocks in the metro. I know as I'm walking about I have a hard time finding a place to put my trash. I hold onto the trash until I find a place to put it, but I witness a lot of people tossing it to the street or sidewalk. Would recycling bins next to the trash cans be feasible, since the city does participate in a recycling program?
"I guess part of the solution would be to have trash cans (aesthetically pleasing, of course) on the corners of most blocks"
I'd pick up trash every morning on my way to catch the bus.