Friday, January 26, 2007

Well, I guess it's official: I'm now an Internet star. The enormously popular blog Tony's Kansas City has featured me in a YouTube video:



It was great to finally meet Tony (I guess it says something about me if I'm "important' enough to lure him out of his mom's basement). But it's more exciting to be a part of the amazing things that are happening with the Internet.

I've said over and over that my number-one priority is to increase citizen satisfaction with City government. Well, one area where we're not satisfied is in the way City leaders communicate with regular folks (or, more accurately, the way they don't).

Consider this:

  • 72.7 percent of Kansas Citians are not satisfied with how City leaders are keeping them informed about what's going on.

  • 83.2 percent of Kansas Citians are not satisfied with how City leaders have engaged the public in decision making.

  • 79 percent of Kansas Citians are not satisfied with the leadership of the Mayor and City Council.

One way we can change this is by communicating with folks in the ways we're already communicating with each other. And this means not only that City leaders need to get in there and start blogging too, but that we need to help bloggers to get more and better information so that they can be more effective in spreading their message.

(BTW, Tony, LOVE George Clinton track!)

3 comments:

--Blue Girl said...

I'm no Tony's Kansas City, but I've been in your corner for a while myself, as evidenced by this post of November 12 at my original site...

That's where I let the Redhead out - I also have am the administrator and chief contributor to a serious, Washington Monthly sanctioned blog dedicated to keeping an eye on our congresspeople and senators.

I'll be in touch in a couple of weeks, after I move and get settled, and see what I can do to help that campaign of yours.

Mark Funkhouser said...

Hi Blue Girl! Thanks for stopping by. I caught your post earlier. I looked around for an e-mail address to send a thanks, but couldn't find it. So, thank you!

--Blue Girl said...

I am reachable at proctoring.congress@gmail.com

I have this fetish for accountability, and am delighting at the fact we have some grownups in charge.

I want a grown-up in charge of the city, too.

Now, what do we need to do to make light rail a reality?