by PJ Rooks
Landmark reporter
Kansas City mayor Mark Funkhouser, who is planning a city-wide town hall meeting next week to promote his Schools First initiative, hosted a round-table news conference with a few weekly publications in his office on Monday morning.
Funkhouser said that he hopes to gain support of parents, teachers, administrators, neighbors and even students at his upcoming town-hall meeting (slated for Monday, May 17, 6:30 p.m. at the Sprint Center, see advertisement page B-1) to begin a program of urban renewal by focusing city funds and improvement strategies on the areas closest to schools.
"Schools First is our comprehensive strategy to revitalize neighborhoods by using schools as neighborhood anchors and focusing city services--infrastructure, public safety and that sort of thing--around schools to make the 50-block area around every school an island of cleanliness and safety," said Funkhouser. "We think if we do that we'll have vibrant neighborhoods, we'll attract more residents, we'll have more businesses, we'll have more jobs, and so on.”
According to Funkhouser's Schools First white paper, "A City Where Kids Can Walk to School," Kansas City is home to about 75,000 school-aged children and over 270 public and private schools. The KC metro area, however, was recently ranked as the most dangerous place for pedestrians in all of Kansas and Missouri in a study by the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership and Transportation for America.
The white paper reads, "It is a sign of a mentally-healthy and safe community when children can walk to and from school by themselves... Besides distance to school, safety has been one of the primary reasons that parents do not want their kids to walk to and from school. They worry about their children walking in streets where there are no sidewalks or crossing a busy street with no crossing guard or traffic signs. They also worry about the dangers of abandoned houses, vacant lots, excessive weeds, illegal dumping and graffiti.”
Funkhouser said that 18 of 45 school principals in a recent city-wide meeting had listed sidewalks as one of their school's top needs.
“You look at schools like Central High School. If you went down there this morning, you'd see kids walking up Holmes Road between the road and the ditch--and it's a busy road,” said Funkhouser. “When we asked those principals, '(If) you would be willing to bring ten parents and teachers to a city-wide event at the Sprint Center to talk about this, put up your hand,' and every hand in the room went up.”
Funkhouser said that administrators have expressed some skepticism of his efforts, however.
“I've had people who were high administrators in the Kansas City, Missouri school district say, 'We reached out to city hall for help in the past and we were rebuffed,” he said. “I've been told by principals, 'The city has a credibility problem,' and I say 'Yes, I understand, but we're going to change that.'”
Funkhouser said he believed that if they had received city assistance with their requests ten or 15 years ago, Kansas City schools would not be closing today.
“We have been pursuing a losing strategy and it has been a losing strategy in good times and in bad,” said Funkhouser, indicating a chart from the Kansas City Economic Development Corporation that shows that had Kansas City kept pace with national averages, there would have been a net gain of about 70,000 jobs between 1995 and 2009. The chart shows instead, however, that employment opportunities in the metro area shrank by 15%.
“When you know you're on the wrong path, the time to change paths is now,” Funkhouser said.
“We reached out to neighborhoods and schools because we wanted to get some success stories and I think we got over 700,” said Funkhouser.
“We'll talk about how a lot of these successes happened below the radar or without the city's involvement. We need to link them together. We need to support the neighborhoods and the schools in a much more cohesive and strategic way. We could do a whole lot better.”
The goals of the Schools First program are to make the community a safe place for walking, not just for enjoyment but for the health benefits as well, and to offer a sustainable, long-term plan to increase Kansas City's economic vitality.
According to the white paper, “This initiative will return the activities and laughter of school children to our streetscape. It will also allow joggers to jog and bikers to bike in safe, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. It will reduce traffic deaths and injuries, increase residents' physical activities and reduce transportation expenses. It will also increase the mobility of our children, the elderly, people with disabilities and people without cars. It will improve community well-being and protect our environment.”
Given the support and approval of the city council, Mayor Funkhouser intends to put two questions on the ballot for an August vote. Stringently pointing out that his Schools First initiative will not involve an increase in taxes, Funkhouser plans to ask voters to authorize the city to issue up to $25 million in bonds each year for four years. He would also like voters to renew the public safety sales tax to support additional police officers.
If voters approve the bonds, infrastructure improvements near schools will be passed through the public improvements advisory council (PIAC). PIAC, with citizen members appointed by the mayor and members of the city council, currently handles $65 million in capital improvements funds each year for various needs within the city.
“They take hundreds and hundreds of requests from the neighborhoods for infrastructure improvements that need to be made,” said Funkhouser, “so what we would do is, in addition to the PIAC money, we would have them also make recommendations on the allocation of the Schools First money.”
Funkhouser said that schools and their PTAs would be given open presentations about the initiative and then would be eligible to apply for the funding.
“I'm interested in working with all the school districts, but in addition to that, I'm interested in the Catholic schools, the faith-based schools, the private schools and the charter schools. I'm confident that voters will understand that,” said Funkhouser. “This is very common sense. It's very basic. Should the city invest in neighborhoods--yes or no? Should the city spend money to improve conditions in 50-block areas around schools that are the city's responsibility--yes or no? Well, yeah. Remember, I got this idea basically from superintendents, school folks, neighborhood folks and moms.”
