By The Kansas City Star Editorial Board

Following a (barely) failed recall, Mayor Mark Funkhouser now must meet the challenge of providing more focused, more effective leadership for Kansas City.

But there are more troubles at City Hall than just a bumbling mayor.

City Council members haven’t exactly inspired confidence in their own abilities to work cooperatively with Funkhouser for the good of the city. At least one councilman let it be known he had signed the recall petition.

And some of the personal sniping at the mayor has exacerbated the conflict, diverting attention from the merits of the council’s disputes with Funkhouser over budgetary problems.

Meanwhile, City Manager Wayne Cauthen’s uninspiring leadership of the city staff continues to exasperate Funkhouser as well as some council members.

Cauthen has taken far too long to hire key members of his staff, such as a new finance director, and to carry out some council directives. His failure to adequately deal with the city’s budget mess in 2007 tightened the fiscal screws on city programs and the city workforce in 2008.

Add it up, and there’s plenty of room for improvement at 12th and Oak in the coming months. Among the challenges that must be met:

Funkhouser should try harder to address the Top 10 priorities he promotes in his weekly newsletter. Most are actually pretty good.

Appropriately, the No. 1 goal is “Establishing a good working relationship with the Council.” Nothing could accomplish that more quickly than the mayor agreeing to abide by the council’s volunteer ordinance, which is aimed at keeping Funkhouser’s wife from helping to run his office. In addition, the mayor needs to communicate better when he sits down with council members. That means actually listening to their ideas, not telling them his agenda and haughtily moving on.

Other solid goals include “tending to our neighborhoods,” “reducing crime” and “improving citizen satisfaction with city services.” Funkhouser must carry through on his pledges to work with Cauthen and the city staff to make sure that, even in tight fiscal times, the city works efficiently to provide basic services to residents. Cutting weeds on vacant lots and fixing sidewalks are small but essential duties of the city.

City Council members must do a better job on behalf of Kansas City taxpayers.

They should work harder to identify areas of agreement with the mayor. Those could include better funding for neighborhood improvement programs, ways to move forward on new housing initiatives and the most efficient spending of limited public funds for economic development.

Cauthen must show he’s capable of shaping up the administration.

The city manager’s shortcomings have been somewhat obscured by all the other shenanigans at City Hall.

But he needs to follow through on his promises to the council, especially in getting long-delayed affordable housing programs back on track. Cauthen must press his staff to carry through with council-approved budget cuts, and not continue with financial trickery. In one recent incident, the staff made a stealth attempt to transfer money from a parks and recreation account to Cauthen’s office, a move that eventually fell by the wayside.

Fixing a dysfunctional City Hall is essential to improving the quality of life for Kansas Citians. They deserve more mature behavior — and less petty politics — from their elected officials and city manager.