Northeast News
November 9, 2016

This civic-minded News-Dog has long been critical of the city’s Water Services Department, with their inefficiency rating almost as high as where their billing statements are headed these days. We’ve all seen them in action, or should we say inaction, usually for our five city-paid workers standing around a hole in the street and one person in the hole doing all the grunt work. Or the small fleet of trucks and earth-moving equipment that show up on a job site, then sit for upwards of two hours with workers sleeping or surfing their phones inside, all on the city’s dime. When work does begin, it’s usually time for that mandatory morning 20 minute coffee break and the cycle starts all over again.
Even as this is being penned, steel plates and piles of asphalt debris dot the streets of Northeast, making the navigation of city streets akin to driving a Joey Chitwood stunt course, complete with bottoming out shock absorbers or bending wheel rims.
Well, the dog is happy to report that a new grassroots group in Kansas City wants to hold the city’s Water Services Department accountable for their mismanagement of taxpayer funds. AuditKC aims to collect enough signatures from citizen ratepayers in Kansas City to force a State  audit of the department to determine what level of mismanagement exists therein. Keep in mind this is the same department that was sued by a group of landlords in 2013 for their bullying tactics and billing practices. (1316-CV07178 Joseph Cangelosi et al v. City of Kansas City, Mo.) State Auditor Tom Schweich also attempted to audit the department in 2013, but was rejected by the Mayor and Council at the time.
Additionally, in 2010 the EPA sued the city and mandated over $5 billion in water infrastructure improvements that don’t seem to be happening on schedule either. It all points to the bigger problem of a city department that has zero transparency and doesn’t think its accountable to the citizens of the city; the ones shouldered with the double-digit rate hikes in order to make the whole thing go.
The News-Hound thinks it’s high time for an independent set of eyes and pencils to take a deep dive into the Water Department, no pun intended, in order to ferret out the waste and mismanagement that has pervaded the department for so long. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the petition effort to see how far up the flagpole this gets before it gets sent packing again by the Mayor and Council.