Citizen Satisfaction

What The Mayor Thinks:

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.

What The Mayor Has Done:

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.

What The Mayor Plans to Do:

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.