>>Valley Patriot>> |
In six weeks, Lawrence voters will decide in which direction we will be going as a city. There are serious problems that our city must deal with in the immediate future. We have vacant buildings throughout our commercial areas. Our schools are underperforming, measured against state and federal standards. Potholes and broken pavement make many of our streets and sidewalks impassable. But this is just not me saying this. Recently, I sent out to all voters a survey and asked them to tell me how they feel about our city. I received over 1500 responses and hundreds of phone calls from them and their neighbors. They told me that they have concerns about every aspect of our city – from schools and jobs, to the budget and taxes, to clean streets and quiet neighborhoods. I have heard much the same while I have been going door-to-door in every neighborhood in our city. I asked voters to grade certain city services. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 equaling “very poor” and 5 being “excellent”, the average score for certain city services based on the survey results was the following: Roads-Sidewalks-Plowing, 1.2; Schools, 1.5; Police, 1.6; Garbage collection, 2.1; Parks, 2.5; Libraries, 3.2; and Fire, 4.1. The average of all these comes out to 2.31 – an “F” at our schools. The results of the survey told me that Lawrencians deserve more for their tax dollars than failing grades. When asked which two services needed the most attention in the city, respondents selected the following: Streets and sidewalk repairs, 63 percent; Economic development, 29 percent; Traffic enforcement, 27 percent; Budget spending, 23 percent; Quicker police response, 19 percent; Improved services for our elderly and youths, 17 percent; Stronger code enforcement, 12 percent; More affordable housing, 4 percent; and Other, 6 percent. As we progress through this fiscal year with its $10 million budget deficit and tax increases coming soon, these basic city services will suffer further erosion as our budget writers begin to cut spending, personnel, and services. Instead of correcting these problems, the mayor has allowed them to deteriorate. When the bill becomes due, the scene will not be pretty and residents will fully understand how they are being taken for a ride. The mayor talks about the clean-up of City Hall, the refurbishment of Veterans Memorial Stadium, the construction of a water treatment plant that the state ordered us to build and he wanted to privatize - thereby eliminating jobs for Lawrencians - and a new state transportation center that he has no role in constructing. New gold gild on the City Hall eagle certainly looks nice, but I do not know how it improves the overall quality of life to those whose streets are broken and dirty and whose children are not receiving the appropriate education in our schools. As the mayor takes credit for all the cosmetic work on the city for which he had nothing to do with, our basic services that tax dollars are funding go further neglected. The time is now for real leadership in City Hall. We need to change the image of the city and the mindset people have about our city, even amongst our own residents. This all starts at the top in the mayor’s office. I have offered a plan to make progress in our city. The mayor, by his own admission, has no plan nor does he see the need to produce one. For example, the mayor has no plan for providing our city departments such as Public Works all the necessary resources and personnel they need to properly do their jobs around the city. We need to create sustainable, economic development and jobs so that our tax base and fiscal condition will be improved and stabilized. We need to return our focus on educating our children and creating a new generation of scholars that will have the proper tools to compete in our society. And we need to improve basic city services that affect the quality of life of all Lawrencians every day – clean and pave the streets, fix the sidewalks and parks, improve building code and traffic enforcement. Right now, the taxpayers of this city are not getting the bang for their buck. I pledge to fix that. We can only do all this by working together. I want to create a public-private-nonprofit partnership, utilizing the forces of the city government, the small and large private investors, and our active community service entities to work as a unified team to improve the condition of our city. We cannot continue to go off in different directions with no cohesive force binding us all together. For our plan to work, we need each leg to succeed; should one leg not work, the plan will tumble. Only working together for One City - One Vision can we take the first step in rebuilding the city we love. *Send your questions
comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com |
I first want to thank all those
Lawrencians who gave me their votes in the preliminary
election that made me the finalist to take on Michael
Sullivan in the mayor’s fight. I appreciate
greatly the confidence you have in me. I will now
have the opportunity to focus solely in a head-to-head
matchup on debating the mayor and putting forth my plan
and ideas for moving our city forward.