Welcome to Funk's Front Porch29 June 2007
Dear Folks,
Our very own Joe Miller is receiving yet another award for his book, Cross-X – this time the 2006 Harry Chapin Media Award, which honors journalists for outstanding coverage that positively impacts hunger, poverty and self-reliance. In case you haven’t heard, Joe’s book is about the debate team at an inner city school in Kansas City, Central High. It chronicles the members of the team who overcome the challenges of their troubled neighborhoods and sometimes-traumatic home lives to succeed on the national debate scene. The book has also been optioned by Lifetime to be made into a movie in the near future. Is the Mayor’s office fortunate or what for having such a genius on our staff?
Funk was in Nashville this week to give the keynote address to eighteen hundred auditors from around the country. Funk is in high demand for speaking engagements with audit groups these days, as it is highly unusual to go from being Auditor to Mayor. This group was extra special though, because Nashville is where he got his start in auditing and the session where he gave the keynote speech honored his old boss, Comptroller General Snodgrass, who must be 95 years old by now. It was very moving for Funk to be back in his old stomping grounds and to be amongst people who are so proud of his accomplishments, not only personally, but on a professional level as well.
We are moving slowly towards beginning our bi-weekly, call-in television talk show. The show will augment the Town Hall meetings, giving citizens a chance to attend a Town Hall-like meeting without leaving the comfort of their home. At the Town Hall meetings, Funk usually speaks for 15 minutes, and follows up with 45 minutes of questions and answers. The call-in talk show will follow a somewhat similar format. We are all very excited to begin this next phase of communication on a much larger scale with the people of our city.
Funk is working hard toward meeting the ten priorities that he set for himself for his term as Mayor. He even has them listed on the back of his business cards. They are as follows:
1. Establishing a good working relationship with the Council
2. Getting the City’s finances in order
3. Making downtown work
4. Tending to our neighborhoods
5. Implementing the Housing Policy task force recommendations
6. Improving the perception and the reality of public education in Kansas City
7. Reducing Crime
8. Repairing our sewer systems
9. Establishing an excellent regional transit system, which includes light rail
10. Improving citizen satisfaction with City services
Funk feels that excelling in these areas is the real means by which you can judge his performance. I will be posting these priorities at the end of each newsletter so that we can all keep our eye on the task at hand.
We bid you a beautiful summer week.
All the best,
Gloria & Mark
You can respond to this newsletter either at funksfrontporch@gmail.com or at mayor@kcmo.org.
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