By Leslie Collins
Northeast News
March 18
Kansas City mayoral candidates Mike Burke and Sly James want to be clear: Neither of their wives will be involved at City Hall.

The two joked about the issue during the NEIA Luncheon March 15 at the MCC Business and Technology Campus and also stressed another point.

“When you hear about how similar we are, just remember I’m the one that looks like Denzel,” James said.

Burke leaned toward the microphone.

“And remember, I’m the one who doesn’t,” Burke said.

Although they threw in some lighthearted comments, the two took a serious tone when answering attendees’ questions.

Asked about the eco center proposal near Front Street to process the region’s municipal solid waste and recyclables, Burke said he would like to conduct a thorough review of the proposal.

He voiced concerns about the impact on traffic and the Northeast industrial district, and whether or not a private enterprise could run the center more efficiently than the city.

Burke also said that using a private enterprise to run the facility would keep services competitive and keep the city “in check.”

James said he needs to know whether or not the city has made a complete and thorough analysis of the proposed project.

“I understand the goal behind it,” James said.

However, he doesn’t know if the goal can be accomplished with the current proposal, he said.

Privatizing municipal services
Should Kansas City privatize it’s municipal services?

James said he’s not in favor of privatization and said that a number of cities have “regretted” it after the fact.

Privatization can lead to issues in the workforce, he said.

A private company’s top interest is in making a profit, he said. As a result, it doesn’t shy away from reducing expenses by cutting employees, he said.

“We should never say never and we should never say always,” Burke said. “The bottom line is being in a judiciary capacity, you have to look at things when they come to you, but you have to look at the long range and what the consequences will be.”

One area he’d like to privatize is the city’s information technology network inside City Hall to streamline the process of tax receipts and other items.

“We need to first and foremost clean up our own house,” James said. “Nobody wants to partner with someone they think is a bozo.

“When we know what we are doing, we will be better able to identify areas where those partnerships will be the most successful.”

In general, Burke said, he doesn’t want to privatize the city’s municipal services.

However, the water department would benefit from privatization, he said.

“We have had six water department directors in four years,” Burke said. “We have a problem with our water department.”

That department receives the most citizen complaints, he said.

Private consultants could train the city and run the department’s customer service and oversee billing, he said.

Other departments, like the sewer plant and water treatment system, should be judged on an individual basis, he said.

In addition, the city should look at areas like gasoline, supplies and equipment, in which it can coop with other city governments, he said.

“We need to break down some of those barriers and start looking at efficiencies because these are going to be tight times this next decade,” Burke said.

KCMSD and city levies
One attendee asked how the candidates would provide a leadership role to regionally improve both the Kansas City Missouri School District and the city’s levies.

“For the first time in 30 years, I can say I have some optimism regarding the school district,” Burke said. “They have made some very difficult decisions. They’re decisions that should have been made over a decade ago.”

One change in KCMSD, Burke said, is its change in governance. The KCMSD Board of Education understands it’s not about awarding contracts to friends or putting a relative on the payroll, it’s about students, he said.

“Here’s what I can do as mayor,” Burke said. “For 30 years, the mayor has said, ‘The school district’s over here and I’m here. We shouldn’t interfere.’ We can’t let that happen because they’re (students) our future leaders, our future employees.”

The 37 closed school buildings need to be repurposed quickly or torn down, he said. Otherwise, those empty buildings will will create problems for neighborhoods, he said.

In addition, he asked KCMSD Superintendent Dr. John Covington what the schools needed most and the answer was after school programs.

Burke said he wants to work with organizations like United Way and open city facilities, recreation centers and parks to after school programs in the summer. Those programs should be educational, cultural and recreational, he said.

“It’s going to be slow, but I think progress is possible,” he said.

Switching to the topic of levies, he said he the city needs to utilize federal monies and ensure the city has enough in its public improvements fund for matching funds.

“A lot of what Mike says is true,” James said in reference to KCMSD.

Education has been a “special plank” in his agenda, James said.

Those who plan construction of new prisons base the need for more facilities off of the third grade classes’ performance. Those statistics dictate how many prisons and cells will be needed in 15 years, he said.

Ninety percent of a child’s intellectual capacity is formed by the time they turn five, he added.

Not talking about education until a child is five or six years old, leads to missed opportunities, he said.

“We need to be proactive and thinking about things and how we can impact things as they go forward as opposed to waiting for a disaster to occur and overspending to correct the disaster,” James said. “Given the choice between incarceration and education, I would rather pay for education, because the return is so much better. There’s no return on incarceration.

“The way to attack is to get serious about education. Regionally is great, but before we get regional we have to be city-wide. We can’t go to others and ask them to join us before we have ourselves together.”

James said he also agreed with Burke on the issue of the city’s levies.

The city deferred maintenance too long instead of fixing issues along the way, he said.

“We have to start working in the community not to compete with Overland Park, but with Chicago, Minneapolis, Miami… We have to form and execute a plan.”