Heartland Visioning - Government

To continue our series of entries on the Hearland Visioning draft plan, here is my brief descripiton and take on the Government section.

First of all, I was very surprised to find that this section is only one short page. Maybe that is good thing, because the key to this Vision becoming a reality is the people in the community and private investment, not relying on the government to make it happen.  We do however need their support and some items in the Vision do & will fall in the public realm of government responsibilities.

The Vision for Governement is: Shawnee County will have streamlined, efficient governments that work with state and federal governments to create a better quality of life for all Shawnee County. I think the important words to note in this are efficient and streamlined. I don’t know if there are many people that would describe our local government with quite those words currently, but to move forward & grow, we do a an efficient & streamlined government. Read the rest of this entry »

Heartland Visioning::Infrastructure

First, I’d like to apologize for being remiss about getting this up sooner.  Now, for the review:

The vision listed under infrastructure is as follows:  Shawnee County will build a community that promotes learning, health, safety and growth for all residents through long-term planning and best practices. I think this is probably a pretty fair assessment of just about all people everywhere :)  Who doesn’t want this?  But it is among the top 10 issues that were deemed the most important in our county.  In fact, this section addresses 3 of the top ten issues.  Here’s a copy of it so you to follow along.

The strategies are broken into 10 areas of infrastructure… almost like a wish list.   We’ve all mentioned this before, but this is an ala carte type of thing.

Read the rest of this entry »

  • denise
  • October 21st, 2008
  • No Comments    
  • City Government, Getting Involved, Improvements, Topeka News, Vision

Transparceny in Government = Trust in Government

It floored me today when I heard that Councilman Jeff Preisner was proposing to discontinue televising city council meetings as a money saving measure.  I think most Topekans would agree that we have a major trust issue with the leadership in the community and things like this only add to it.  We need more transparency not less. We need transparency in all areas, city council, city budget, city departments, etc.  These are our elected officials and tax dollars and we deserve to know how descisions are made and how our money is spent.  With so much distrust, it is particularly important that the city government be as transparent as possible moving forward if they want to regain trust.  Not televising cit council meetings is definitely moving in the wrong direction from where our city government needs to go.

City and County Taxes

Recently the city council approved a .1 mill levy increase for those living in the city of Topeka. In my opinion they should have made a decrease in the mill levy. What I see hurting the population growth in Topeka is that the tax burden is very high in the city. Please respond if you agree or disagree and give me your reasons. Topeka needs to lower the mill levy if Topeka expects to be able to compete with nearby cities and counties that may possibly be lower in taxes. New construction in Topeka comes with “special taxes” attached to the property for streets and water services. Which means you are paying your monthly water bill plus an additional tax included in your property tax burden for water service. Also an additional tax for the road in front of your house along with the standard tax that takes care of the rest of the cities roads. These “special taxes” can last around 20 years or so. I recently moved back here from Leavenworth County where my wife and I owned a new home that was appraised at a higher value than the new one we purchased in Topeka last year. The house in Topeka is constructed better but is cheaper per square foot. We paid 1/3 less in property taxes in Leavenworth County than we do in Shawnee County even though the house in Leavenworth County is worth more. There were also no “special taxes” in Leavenworth County like there are in Shawnee County, which hurts new home construction, which hurts growth of the city. This is an example of why it is hard to attract new residents to Shawnee County and Topeka. Topeka needs to broaden its tax base, and by broaden I don’t mean raise taxes on current residents, but lower the taxes and attract new residents. Please let me know how you feel about our current tax rates and let me know in your opinion what would help attract new residents to Topeka.

  • Aaron
  • August 21st, 2008
  • 7 Comments    
  • City Government, Topeka News

City Government discussion

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about what form of government Topeka should have. Reported on Wednesday in the Capital Journal, the city council members weighed in on a proposed change that was reported earlier in the week.

In 2005, Topeka voted to change from a strong mayor/city council form of government to a city manager/city council form, which is what the city currently has. There is a group who would like to see the strong mayoral form of government return as well as a change in how the city council is set up. I know there are many who see things this way. According the Capital Journal, none of the city council members are supporting the idea.

I have no problem with exploring the idea; however, I have to give the following remark some credence:

Councilman Bill Haynes said he hadn’t formed an opinion, but his initial reaction was that the current city council-manager form of government hasn’t been in place long enough to start thinking about abandoning it.

I know that there are other large cities hold a similar form of government, so it begs the question… is the real problem with the system or are the wrong people in place in the system? It’s not been in place long enough, or had enough different individuals in it, to form a clear decision.

I don’t know the answer. But I think that it needs to be considered. If you’ll allow the parallel, it’s a little like saying that marriage doesn’t work based on the wrong people being married.

This is just my opinion… So, what do you think?

  • denise
  • July 24th, 2008
  • 2 Comments    
  • Articles, City Government, Topeka News