By Leslie Collins
Northeast News
December 21, 2011

Kansas City officials cut through the red tape Dec. 8 to commemorate the progress on promoting business growth in Kansas City.

“You have encouraged us to do things a little bit differently and we have,” Special Committee on Small Business Chairman Scott Taylor told Kansas City Mayor Sly James.

Instead of hosting their meetings at City Hall during normal business hours, the small business committee conducted evening meetings across Kansas City at locally owned businesses. Businesses ranged from Slyvia’s Deli to Alpha Energy & Electric to Cascone’s Restaurant, among others. Committee members called it “taking it to the streets.” Their goal was to garner input from small business owners and the community on how to simplify the process of conducting business in Kansas City and how to nurture small businesses. More than 100 small business owners provided feedback, along with city departments, government agencies and other business support organizations.

“This has really been a collaborative effort, not only by small businesses that have participated, but the city staff has been outstanding,” Taylor said. “If you’re a visitor to Kansas City, people walk away and say this is one of the friendliest cities in the country. We should really be the friendliest city to do business with in the country.”

City staff filed the community’s feedback into a report, which includes 67 specific suggestions. Suggestions include mandatory customer service training for all city employees and implementing “nationally recognized programs that create a culture of customer service and problem solving mentality”; helping small start-up businesses secure capital; expanding the services offered by KC BizCare, including allowing business owners to secure city permits and licenses online; and streamlining other city services. Each suggestion in the report also lists what city entity would be in charge of addressing the issue and an update on the implementation process. Some of the suggestions have already been implemented.

“We have built in some accountability in this report,” Taylor stressed. “We’ll get a status report and push these things through until everything is checked (off).”

Part of the accountability process involves meeting quarterly with department heads to get status updates on each suggestion, he said.

“I think all of this will help Kansas City be a more user friendly city rather than getting caught up in red tape all the time,” City Council member Melba Curls said.

James also commended the committee on its dedication to addressing Kansas City’s relationship with businesses.

“You worked extremely well to bring this to fruition,” James said. “As great of a job as you’ve done, it’s only half the job. Now, you have the tough part – implementation. The good news is because of the immense amount of time, effort, energy and intensity you’ve devoted, I have no doubt you’ll lead the charge on following through.”