Star’s listening project expands: Tell us what local issues are most important to you
I won’t bury the lead. We are expanding The Star’s community listening project to include our entire coverage area — that means you Northland and South Jackson County residents.
Over the past several weeks I’ve had the pleasure of spending much of my time meeting with neighbors in Kansas City, Wyandotte and Johnson counties as part of the listening project. Thank you to everyone who has shared their thoughts with us so far — we are sincerely grateful.
As we expand this effort, I wanted to share a few excerpts of what we’ve heard from residents so far:
Residents of the West Paseo neighborhood wanted us to know that they are excited but also anxious about the changes in their neighborhood. The neighborhood sits just to the east of downtown Kansas City and is seeing growing interest from city leaders and developers. Residents said they are worried about being priced out. They are deeply invested in seeing the area be a destination to live, work and shop for all Kansas Citians.
In another conversation at Kinship Coffee in Strawberry Hill, a resident told me that after growing up in Johnson County and traveling the world she chose to move to Kansas City, Kansas, because of the strong sense of community and support neighbors show each other. She said her neighbors, not local officials, are keeping the community informed and connected as the city grows.
That reliance on a trusted community network was echoed by Black-owned business owners who spoke to us at Kansas City G.I.F.T. Friends, family and neighbors are who they said they turn to first for information. Too often when these business owners have a problem they’ve tried to reach out to council members or government agencies for help only to be given the run around and not get the assistance they need.
It is abundantly clear from these listening sessions and the written responses we’ve received from more than 200 residents that you care deeply about your neighborhoods and making them better. You want to be heard and you want community leaders to act upon what you’re telling them is important.
That’s why The Star’s community listening project is important. Your feedback is informing how we are shifting our approach to how we share stories and information about how local government affects our lives. Bottom line: We want our reporters to start with what residents think is most important, not what politicians say or do.
What you’re telling us is important:
This is not an exhaustive list of what we’ve heard by any means, but these are some of the topics and themes that are coming up repeatedly through the listening project:
Accountability: You’re looking for The Star to continue to hold local governments accountable for how they choose to spend your tax dollars and the incentives they provide to businesses. Several of you specifically asked to know if big projects are living up to politicians’ promises.
Race & Equity: You want The Star to continue to report on how racism still affects our community.
Police reform: You’re deeply concerned about the actions of the KCPD and KCKPD. You want The Star to continue to shine a light on the departments and hold leaders accountable to residents’ concerns.
Education: You’re concerned about the quality of our schools. Many of you are concerned about inequality between school facilities across the region. You want to know how young people are being prepared to build a brighter future.
Environmental issues: You want to be informed about environmental issues and climate change on a local level. You want to see meaningful, solutions-oriented coverage of what residents and businesses are doing to protect our local ecosystem.
Housing: The lack of affordable housing in the metro area has come up in nearly every conversation that we’ve had with residents. That includes concerns about short-term rentals in Kansas City and the lack of multi-family housing options in Johnson County.
Good news: There’s a lot of difficult and negative news out there. You want The Star to help elevate the positive stories happening in neighborhoods across our region.
How to help: You want to know what you can do to make the metro area stronger.
Here’s how things will work as the project expands:
We are reading every email and form submission that we receive. We’re continuing to hold focus groups and conduct interviews with residents in Kansas City, Johnson and Wyandotte counties. Now we’ll expand those efforts to include residents living in Clay, Platte, Cass and South Jackson counties.
We want to hear from as many Kansas City area residents as possible — it is important that the diversity of our community be reflected in the residents involved in this community listening project.
We will focus our efforts on reaching out to and listening to area residents who have needs that are not being served by the governments, institutions and organizations in our region. We will pay special attention to individual residents, business owners, and the organizations trying to fill in the gaps left by city officials and government agencies.
How you can get involved:
We’ve included a short form at the bottom of this article with some questions. Please indicate on the form if you’d be open to participating in an interview or a focus group for this listening project there. Please include your contact information so we can follow up with you.
If you have questions about this project, please reach out to me by email at hwise@kcstar.com.
