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EFFICIENT. EFFECTIVE.
FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE. Economic Development Growing our business community in Shawnee is essential to keeping taxes low and diversifying our tax base, ensuring that the tax burden does not fall heavily and disproportionately on seniors. I support programs and tax incentives that attract quality businesses to Shawnee, resulting in new jobs, wage growth, and new residents. The redevelopments of Shawnee Parkway Plaza and 10 Quivira Plaza have brought new dining and retail options to our city and enabled us to grow our commercial base. The addition of major technology firms PeopleAdmin & RiskIQ have provided hundreds of new jobs and grown the IT presence in Shawnee. We need to be more creative and dynamic in attracting new employers to our community. My "Startup Workforce Relocation & Expansion" program - consisting of property tax reimbursement and leasing assistance payments - passed the council unanimously and allows us to target startups directly to encourage them to move into vacant office space in our community. We're the only community in greater Kansas City with this cutting-edge program. Neighborhood Revitalization We cannot become a "tale of two Shawnees." Western Shawnee is growing rapidly, but we must also maintain, improve, and redevelop mature areas in eastern Shawnee. Revitalizing our downtown area and improving the Nieman Road corridor is essential to maintaining and growing eastern Shawnee. Road maintenance and sidewalk additions for east neighborhoods needs to prioritized as well. Transparency & Open Government Your city government must always be transparent, open, and ultimately accountable to YOU - the taxpayer. Recent investments in technology upgrades at City Hall provide improved opportunities for citizens to see and hear what is happening, as well as tracking our votes on a variety of issues. I hope to eventually see the city make a commitment to providing live video streams of council proceedings online for greater citizen engagement. I will continue to seek and identify more opportunities for City Hall to be more transparent to Shawnee citizens. We have committed and dedicated city staff who have transformed operations and have a passion for serving our citizens, and by collaborating with them, I hope to provide more transparency and breakdown of our annual budget into simple and easier-to-understand pieces. Also, my commitment to you includes a regular city council email update, in which I detail all major votes we take, vote breakdowns, discussion summaries, and why I voted as I did. If you have not signed up for my city updates, please subscribe here. |
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