Still room to improve KC's services
Kansas Citians offered some long-sought positive answers this year in filling out the annual citizen satisfaction survey.
Sly James is a popular mayor who works well with the City Council, a notable improvement from the former combative mayor and council. The dissatisfaction rate for quality of leadership by elected officials has plummeted from 58 percent two years ago to a respectable 26 percent.
Some of the responses weren’t so upbeat, however.
While maintenance of streets and public buildings remains a top priority for residents, it once again had the lowest satisfaction rate of major categories of city services. Indeed, Kansas City’s score was the second lowest for this issue among 14 peer cities (only St. Louis was worse). Now, James and other officials must try to ensure that the city’s new initiative to pave more roads — backed up by extra money voters approved earlier this month — boosts those scores in the future.
The survey’s most encouraging section noted that citizens gave higher satisfaction marks than in previous years to several dozen services, while handing out lower scores to only a few.
As expected, the city’s water department made the latter list, giving the City Council another compelling reason to make improving that agency a top priority in the coming year.
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