My Focus
"Kansas City is facing significant challenges. As I have conversations with people around the city, I can put their concerns into three categories: Safety, Livability, and Fairness."
Safety
Everyone wants to be safe regardless of race, economic status or zip code. We want to be safe in our homes, in our schools, walking down the street, in our cars, our businesses, the gas station, and the shopping malls.
What can we do?
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More police officers patrolling our neighborhoods
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Ongoing interactions to build trust and respect between police officers and community members
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Stop demonizing and demoralizing one another
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Let officers do their jobs; enforce the laws so that those getting away with petty theft crimes today don’t become tomorrow’s violent criminals.
Livability
Kansas City has been a great place to live, but living conditions are being eroded by crime and underperforming basic services that our tax dollars fund.
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Infrastructure such as roads (fill the potholes, clear the snow), deteriorating sidewalks, and maintaining water mains.
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Small Business and entrepeneurs are the foundational for having a thriving local community, and our city ordinanced need to encourage rather than hinder these businesses.
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Affordable housing: Stop driving out good local landlords and replacing them with out-of-state overlords who raise the rent and force tenants out of their homes.
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Reduce and mitigate the bad effects caused by homelessness and drug addection. We need to maximize the volunteer organizations and non-profits for the homeless, including rehabilitation services.
Fairness
How do we determine if a policy or plan is right for Kansas City? This is what I’m hearing:
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Listen to the People
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Be transparent and accountable
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Reduce the size, spending and reach of local government
Safety—Livability—Fairness
These are local issues. These are common sense principles. We need less government interference and more neighbors working alongside neighbors.