A non-exhaustive list of achievements, successes, and initiatives that have progressed under the tenure of City Manager Brian Platt since December 2020. 

Infrastructure and transportation improvements include:

• Opened a new $1.5 billion single terminal airport one week early and under budget

• Record high street resurfacing: 519 lane miles in the 2023-24 fiscal year, 3.7x the historical average, and over 1,100 miles completed over the last three fiscal years.

• New street excavation standards that have greatly reduced the number of excavations of newly resurfaced city streets through better communication and coordination with utilities and requirement for full lane resurfacing over excavations on streets resurfaced within the last 5 years
• Hired City’s first Transportation Director
• Vision Zero launched with 100+ intersection improvements and 30+ miles of personal mobility lanes completed in the first 18 months
• A $750 million water and sewer bond was approved to make much-needed repairs and improvements citywide
• A $125 million bond approved by voters to upgrade our parks, pools, and public spaces
• Northland Sports Complex opened
• New IRIS rideshare transit program launched:
• Technology-based rideshare program that is significantly lower cost compared to Uber/Lyft
• Provides mass transit access to all areas of the city, including those not served by existing bus or streetcar service
• Transporting over 550 passengers a day on average in October 2023
• Advancing construction of a $200 million park over Highway 670
• $20 million in RebuildKC community improvement grants

We are in our strongest fiscal position ever:

• Record high fund balance in the most recent fiscal year
• Stable credit ratings
• New spending protections and oversight from the City Council
• Reducing spending in many ways:
• LED streetlight conversion that will save us $5 million a year on reduced energy
• 4400 Blue Parkway lease that cost us $800k each year that we eliminated by moving staff into space we own at city hall
• Retirement incentive saved an estimated $32 million over 5 years after 200+ employees took the retirement incentive
• Electric vehicle policy saves $13k over the useful life of each new EV within KCFD alone
• Eliminated costly HMO healthcare plans from our policies and restructured policy to save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and cap spending

Within housing and homelessness:

• Launched ZeroKC plan to end homelessness
• New coordination plan to decommission homeless camps and resolve homelessness
• Clean Up KC program, providing meaningful employment to homeless individuals living in shelters
• Created a new Housing Department with a lot of “firsts”:
• First-ever homelessness prevention coordinator and team
• First-ever office of the tenant advocate
• One of the first right-to-counsel programs in the United States that has helped over 1,000 families and individuals avoid evictions already (84%; compared to more than 90% eviction rate for those without counsel)
• Converted a hotel into transitional supportive housing (Lotus Hotel)
• Opened one of the most significant warming centers in the Midwest at the Convention Center in 2021
• $50 million affordable housing bond approved by voters
• Affordable housing set aside an ordinance to require rent-restricted units in multifamily developments
• Pursuing additional shelter beds through an RFP process
• Created a heart cart program to help homeless individuals store personal belongings in safe, secure, clean, dry locations at no cost
• Created an affordable housing locator tool

We are better supporting our employees and diverse communities:

• Hired the City’s first-ever Chief Equity Officer
• Restructured Human relations into the new CREO department
• more transparent and streamlined goal setting, with annual citywide goals
• compliance and oversight improvements, with outside compliance contractors hired
• Hired the City’s most diverse leadership team ever
• The largest and most diverse fire recruiting class in the academy in 2023
• LGBTQ community support includes:
• Created a new LGBTQ commission
• 100% score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index 2 years in a row
• Gender-neutral single-occupancy restrooms in all city facilities
• Inclusion of gender-affirming treatments and procedures in the City’s healthcare plan for employees
• Flying the Pride flag and painting rainbow crosswalks in critical locations
• Better pay for labor-class employees:
• 12.6% average salary increases
• Raised minimum wage to $17.34/hour
• Built-in annual salary increases
• Average employee salary increases of 24% over the last 3 years, and every single employee is getting paid more since December 2020
• Increased paid parental leave from 6 weeks to 12 weeks
• Changed pension vesting from 10 years to 5 years
• Held the first-ever employee appreciation week with exceptional participation and feedback
• Reinstated and expanded the employee tuition reimbursement program
• Updated the EEO policy to protect employees better
• Launched performance review-based salary increases and 360-degree reviews for management employees
• Building more inclusive parks and public spaces in collaboration with Variety KC
• Launching Fountain Card program to provide municipal IDs
• Created first-ever neighborhood community empowerment grants to support the work of local neighborhood groups

Diversity efforts specific to the KCFD issues:

• Created and hired a Diversity Officer (Division Chief) and Diversity Captain position in contracts with Locals 3803 and 42 of IAFF.
• Eliminated shift trading outside the seniority bid process.
• Procured new vendors to provide both entry-level and promotional exams.
• Eliminated union requirement for union members to be present for all interactions with HR (approved via ordinance and side letter).
• Hired an outside law firm to investigate EEO and discrimination claims and complaints.
• Centralized EEO investigations through HR (citywide policy).
• Hired the City's first Chief Equity Officer, who reports directly to the City Manager to oversee the implementation and compliance of new policies and procedures and to ensure fair representation, support, and advancement of all employees across the organization, as well as other diversity and inclusion efforts outside KCFD.
• Proceeding with renovations to all firehouses (prioritizing bathroom and shower facilities) to ensure privacy, improve living conditions, and enhance safety
• Implement quarterly training and professional development for all managers, including training for implementing more detailed and consistent employee performance reviews.
• Hiring additional staff within the Department of Human Resources to ensure thorough investigations, compliance with all policies, and further training and professional development as described above.
• Replacement hired for the open risk manager position.
• Anonymous EEO complaint reporting established.
• Revision of the City’s zero-tolerance policy to specifically include racism, and gender/LGBTQ discrimination, require more aggressive use of placing accused employees in an off-duty status without pay and temporarily reassigning the employee(s) to another work location or work shift pending completion of the investigation
• Include zero-tolerance policy language and references in all union contracts.
• Strengthened and reiterated "duty to report" language and policy.
• Contracted an inclusion consultant to observe and work with multiple DEI working groups and members of the department from various ranks and levels
• Completed a leadership retreat working with an inclusion consultant.
• Fire Administration and union leadership have completed Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) asses to assess intercultural competence.
• Participated in a wide variety of community events, including the Juneteenth KC Parade, Pride Parade, and Camp Fury; most of these events took place in areas that are home to diverse populations
• Produced five open house events to generate interest in possible future candidates; participation in these events included approximately 225 individuals.
• Involved E.F.F.E.C.T in the open house, recruitment, and community outreach events; their mission is to provide training, mentorship, and education to the underrepresented firefighters.
• Successfully produced Camp Fury, a recruitment event catering to high school-aged Girl Scouts, involving approximately 40 participants.
• Developed a Mentoring Program to provide fair and impartial mentorship opportunities for all members seeking to participate and grow within KCFD.
• Developed a partnership with Herndon Career Center of Raytown Quality School District to provide clearer pathways for high school students to become members of KCFD to recruit a more diverse workforce (See Table 1 below).
• Partnered with UMKC and North Kansas City Schools to develop EMT and Paramedic programs to attract and recruit minority members in the KCFD ranks.
• Reached out to the Administrative Staff department-wide to ensure they had the opportunity to participate in the DEI working groups.
• Contracted for an internal climate survey with KCFD members, which included fifteen groups of various ranks, ethnicities, sexes, and job classes.

COVID response:

• Weathered the COVID economic downturn with no layoffs, furloughs, or reductions in core city services and operations
• The Health Department administered 50,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines
• Mobilized significant resources and made substantial changes to operations and physical structures of city offices to protect employees and visitors
• Developed COVID safety regulations for all employees and visitors

Development application process improvements:

• Assigning a dedicated reviewer/staff member to each application from beginning to end (where feasible) to ensure consistency of feedback
• Investing in the City’s “Development Concierge” team to provide customer support and answer all process questions both before applications are submitted and at any point during the review process
• Automating Zoning Compliance Letter approvals, resulting in less staff time needed and less wait time for customers
• Additional education and support for applications that have a high number of errors and resubmissions to ensure applications are ready for full review
• Finalizing a public dashboard to show data related to review times that will include application review times and volumes, inspections timing and volumes, and goals for review times
• Coordination of inspections across different departments to be done concurrently rather than consecutively
• Review time highlights from November 2021 to May 2022:
• 50% decrease in average residential permit review turnaround time (3.4 days to 1.7 days)
• 67% decrease in average commercial permit review turnaround time (5.4 days to 1.75 days)
• 38% increase in the total number of permit applications month-to-month

Operations and service delivery improvements:

• Much improved snow removal plan that:
• Adds 50 trucks and 100 drivers
• 24-hour operations, even on neighborhood streets
• Curb to curb snow removal instead of “one pass”
• Aggressive pre-treating of roads and use of new products such as ice ban
• New technology to better utilize resources and track progress
• Better coordination
• Restructured City Communications Office
• Hired the City’s first Creative Director and Press Secretary
• Created a standalone Housing and Community Development Department
• Restructured CREO Department
• Consolidated HR functions from individual departments, all under Human Resources, to improve efficiency and oversight
• Consolidated procurement and IT functions from individual departments, all under General Services, to improve efficiency and oversight
• New MyKCMO 3-1-1 app to handle requests and issues
• New Office of Citizen Engagement
• Contractor and contracting processing improvements, including reduction of needed documentation, use of digital forms, consolidating process under procurement, and eliminating bureaucracy
• Northland satellite city services facility at NNI includes more functions and services
• Appointed new Department Directors for:
• Aviation
• CREO
• Housing
• Neighborhoods
• Public Works
• Water Services
• General Services
• Law
• HR
• Health
• Conventions
• Issued or revised, or in the process of, 21 administrative regulations (ARs) to improve operations efficiency and accountability

Transparency and oversight:

• Modifications to the sunshine request-response process, which include:
• Hiring a Public Records Commissioner
• Establishing better communication protocols
• Developing a public archive of old requests
• Better leveraging technology to manage requests
• Creating a city dashboard (in progress):
• Developing goals and target metrics for all departments
• Easy to read and understand data updated regularly
• Improving transparency and oversight of city operations

Public Safety:

• A $30 million violence prevention fund was created and issued a variety of RFPs for violence prevention services and initiatives
• Record large KCFD recruiting class
• Ordered and deployed “eye in the sky” mobile security camera trailers in critical areas

Our city is cleaner:

• New recycling carts delivered to 140,000+ households
• new trash carts on the way
• Expanding dumpster days
• More litter and trash cleanup crews
• Three Great KC Cleanup community volunteer cleanup events that have engaged thousands of residents and removed 400,000 tons of garbage from our streets
• Expanding street sweeping, including mini sweepers for reach places
• Better and expanded cleaning of MoDOT highways

Our city is more sustainable:

• New building construction energy codes to make homes more energy-efficient
• Climate action plan adopted
• LED streetlight conversion is over 50% complete, which will
• save $5 million annually in reduced energy and maintenance costs
• reduce carbon emissions by 29,000 tons of CO2 per year, the same as removing 6,000 cars from the roads each day
• improve visibility on roads and for pedestrians, enhancing safety
• Proceeding with building one of the largest solar arrays in the United States that could power up to 1/3 of the homes in Kansas City
• New zero-emissions municipal fleet policy to require all new city vehicles to be zero emissions and battery electric
• 46 new electric cars replace older gas-powered SUVs within KCFD
• Zero emissions buses at the airport
• New inspector vehicles in several departments are zero emissions
• Fully electric street sweeper on order
• Plan to plant 10,000 trees in 3 years underway
• Launched Kansas City’s first-ever municipal composting program with free drop-off sites and supplies for backyard composting

Big things are happening here:

• Hosted the NFL draft
• Hosted National League of Cities
• Hosted NCAA men’s basketball tournament
• Hosting City Managers from the largest U.S. cities in 2024
• Successful Super Bowl Parade in 2023
• One of 11 U.S. cities to be hosting the World Cup in 2026
• A ton of new developments on the way, including:
• 16+ redevelopment projects at 18th and Vine
• 63rd and Prospect
• West Bottoms
• Several high-rise towers downtown

Recent awards and accolades:

• Ranked top 100 local government leaders in the United States in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020
• Co-Author of the International City Manager Association (ICMA) guide to “Effective Supervisory Practices” (6th Edition) in local government management (going to print shortly)
• Recognized as government innovator of the week by Bloomberg Cities
• 2023 CityLab Innovation Studio instructor/session leader
• Kansas City voted top 3 Places to Work in Local Government
• Kansas City designated an All-America City
• Kansas City is listed as one of the ten must-visit cities by Lonely Planet
• GOFA award for excellence in fiscal management
• Won diversity award from Jackson County Bar Association
• Won national inclusion award from Variety KC (personal to City Manager)

Important initiatives moving Kansas City forward:

Zero carbon energy sources or reuse of existing sources:

• Building one of the largest solar arrays in the United States that could power up to 1/3 of the homes in Kansas City
• Grant-supported rooftop solar program for households in disadvantaged communities (approximately 2700 homes)
• Exploring nuclear microreactors to address significant power demand from data centers (very early phase)
• Exploring the feasibility of hydropower in both surface waters and water/wastewater infrastructure
• Exploring the feasibility of solar on city-owned closed landfills
• Wastewater methane capture for sale as renewable natural gas
• Biosolids plant to convert water waste to energy

Reducing energy usage of city operations:

• Zero emissions city fleet policy for all new vehicles to be 100% zero-emissions battery electric where available (including electric street sweepers and trash trucks; 46 EVs purchased for fire department save on average $13k per year)
• Public EV charging infrastructure (leveraging $2M DOT Grant)
• LED streetlight conversion saving $5m per year, equivalent to taking 6,000 cars off the road
• Pursuing LEED v5 Certification for City Hall
• KCI Airport constructed and certified to LEED Gold Standard
• USGBC certified the City of Kansas City as LEED For Gold City
• Expanding Energy Benchmarking program by leveraging a $9M DOE grant for Building Performance Standards

Trash and waste:

• Municipal composting program with drop-off sites and eventually curbside collection
• Trash to Roads program to repurpose rubber and plastic waste into new asphalt
• New recycling and trash carts to get more waste into trash trucks; allows for more recycling

Transit:

• Zero fare bus and streetcar/light rail transit (streetcar is fully electric, bus fleet is converting to electric and natural gas)
• Free bike share membership for employees
• Fully e-bike bike share

Environment:

• Planting 10,000 trees over 3 years (leveraging a $12M USDA grant to expand canopy, maintenance, education, and outreach)
• 250-acre restoration of Blue River Corridor
• Leveraging a $1M EPA grant to decrease lead in soils on 20 lots in the Ivanhoe Neighborhood

Next up, Platt’s vision for improving the delivery of city services includes:

• Developing new sustainability initiatives to reduce waste, energy usage, and dependence on fossil fuels.
• Creating additional programs to produce more affordable housing and to address homelessness.
• Finding new ways to leverage technology to improve city services.