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[COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE FOR] ORDINANCE NO. 230573
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Sponsor: Councilmember Ryana Parks-Shaw
Directing the City Manager to establish a multidisciplinary special task force comprised of City staff from various City departments to create proactive strategies, identify areas of highest need, recommend budget expenditures in order to prioritize the delivery of city services in high-crime areas utilizing publicly available data provided by the Kansas City Police Department and participating City Departments, review implementation, and deliver regular reports to City Council or a designated committee; designating the Mayor’s Director of Public Safety to oversee the implementation of these services and reconvene said task force as needed; and directing the City Manager to identify a data analyst position utilizing funds from the Violence Prevention and Intervention Fund under the requisitioning authority of the Health Department to support the Task Force.
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WHEREAS, the City provides numerous vital services to promote the safety, health, and wellbeing of its residents and visitors; and
WHEREAS, City services may be regularly occurring, such as trash/recycling collection, snow removal, and scheduled street/sidewalk repair; or complaint-driven, such as trash/weed abatement, demolition, or emergency street/sidewalk repair; and
WHEREAS, due to the scope and scale of Kansas City’s needs, the City has prioritized the provision of complaint-driven services based on the number of complaints received; and
WHEREAS, as part of its Violence Reduction Initiative announced on May 12, 2023, the Kansas City Police Department has implemented crime reduction and prevention initiatives through the application of Risk Terrain Modeling, wherein officers note various risk factors for high-crime areas, such as dangerous and dilapidated buildings, abandoned vehicles, or nonoperational streetlights, which are issues that may be addressed through the City’s complaint-driven services; and
WHEREAS, academic theories such as “Community-Engaged Greening,” “Busy Streets Theory,” and “Theory of Risky Places” also suggest that reducing trash, cleaning vacant lots, and improving public spaces is linked to lower violent crime rates; and
WHEREAS, in recent years, Kansas City has witnessed a historic increase in the number of violent crimes reported; and
WHEREAS, in addition to policing, prosecution, and rehabilitation, the City seeks to promote and prioritize holistic crime prevention methods to best serve residents, which includes mitigating known risk factors; and
WHEREAS, strategically and proactively providing certain City services which have previously been delivered on a complaint-driven basis will improve the quality of life for Kansas City residents and visitors by immediately abating nuisance conditions, but may also serve as an additional tool to address violent crime in Kansas City; and
WHEREAS, utilization of statistical methods to identify patterns, trends, and correlative data promotes informed decision making based on evidence and objective insights; and
WHEREAS, the design and implementation of evaluation frameworks to assess the task force’s work, measure impact, and identify areas of improvement is important to optimize the task force’s effectiveness and use of City funds; and
WHEREAS, on August 7, 2020, Council passed Resolution 200575 requesting that the Kansas City Missouri Police Department to provide relevant information to the City Manager on a recurring basis for the performance management reporting dashboard maintained by DataKC. NOW, THEREFORE,
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF KANSAS CITY:
Section 1. That the City Manager is hereby directed to establish a taskforce comprised of City staff from various departments including, but not limited to, Neighborhood Services, Housing, Parks and Recreation, Kansas City Police Department, Fire, Finance, Health, Public Works, Municipal Court, City Planning and Development, Water, City Economic Development Agencies, the Business Community, Residents and Community Advocates impacted by high crime, and others, as determined by the City Manager.
Section 2. That said task force shall meet as needed to identify areas of highest need, determined by utilizing data provided by the Kansas City Police Department and various City Departments, create proactive strategies for the delivery of City services, provide recommendations to City Council on budget expenditures from the Violence Prevention and Intervention Fund under the requisitioning authority of the Health Department for the 2023-2024 Fiscal Year to implement such strategies in the identified areas. After Fiscal Year 2023-2024, funding pursuant to this task force shall be deducted from the eligible crime prevention portion of the City’s adult use recreational marijuana sales tax revenues.
Section 3. That the City Manager is hereby directed to identify a data analyst position to design evaluation metrics, measure impact, and identify areas of improvement to assess effectiveness.
Section 4. In accordance with Resolution 200575, the Kansas City Police Department will provide data to the City Manager on a recurring basis to include in a public facing performance management dashboard maintained by DataKC.
Section 5. That upon implementation of data-informed City services pursuant to this Ordinance, said task force shall continue to convene on a regular basis to review metrics and evaluate program success, and shall deliver reports to City Council or a designated committee on a quarterly basis, at minimum, or upon Councilmember request.
Section 6. That the Mayor’s Director of Public Safety shall oversee the implementation of these services and reconvene said task force as needed.
Section 7. That the City Manager or his designee shall coordinate the delivery of services with local agencies identified by said task force.
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Approved as to form:
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Abigail Judah
Assistant City Attorney