THESE OPINIONS ARE MINE ONLY AND ARE BASED ON MY KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING.
I care about ALL our children and believe everyone of them is deserving of having their most basic fundamental needs met. The most basic is the need to feel safe – to feel safe they need housing, food, clothing and adults who care. Too many children in Kansas City do not have these basic needs, the infrastructure in neighborhoods has been neglected for decades, blighted areas, food deserts and don’t forget the car eating potholes. And yes potholes have an impact on children!
CHANGE ADVOCACY
I started supporting Rank Choice Voting because when I started advocating for changes to meet children's needs, I discovered we had a lot of elected officials that did not listen or care what the constituents had to say. This was at the state level, I still thought it was different at the city level.
Gathering Signatures
I started volunteering with Better Ballot KC (BBKC) over a year ago when they were collecting signatures for an initiative petition. The city council had encouraged the initiative petition to show them voters wanted rank choice voting. BBKC contacted the city law department when researching how many signatures would it take since the city charter only specifies ordinance change petitions not charter changes. The person in the law department stated that charter changes and ordinance changes were the same, needed to collect 5% of the voters from last mayoral election.
On April 21, 2022 – this is the news shared with all of us who had spent time collecting signatures:
"Good news: the City Clerk told us our verified signatures are 3,623. We did it! We comfortably surpassed the 3,480 we were told we needed. Bad news: What we were told and relied upon turned out to be unreliable. The same city attorney that gave Rachel the figure of 5% of the voters in the last mayoral race decided that actually, Missouri law says it does need to be 10% after all - of all registered voters. Around 40,000, plus buffer. Had this been the information given last July, then of course we would have decided on a different strategy to begin with."
PERSERVERANCE
We were shocked and disappointed but still determined. BBKC members told the city council and mayor about the mix up, showed them we had succeeded in collecting the signatures showing voter support and asked them to sponsor putting it on the ballot.
Responses from council members reported to the team were:
- “startled at the new development, and re-iterated her support.”
- “affirmed he had reservations about RCV but wanted to have a meeting, and he would see to it that his aide got us one”
- “he would let his aide know that we needed a meeting.”
We started a campaign to get voters to call their city council person and re-iterate support of RCV while members of BBKC continued to have conversations with council members. At one point a couple of them actually committed to sponsoring it, but it never happened.
Mayor Quentin Lucas told BBKC and city council members that he wanted RCV to be taken up in the Charter Review Commission that happens every 10 years.
Charter Review Commission -2023
Even though several members of the team were keeping an eye out for announcements about the KC Charter Review Commission we found out the day before the first meeting that it was happening and who had been appointed to the commission. Someone had reported that the commission wasn’t happening so a BBKC called city hall to find out what was going on and found out the meeting was the following day.
Two of our members went to the first meeting, took the commissioners packets of information and testified in person. We found out then that the mayor has proposed multiple changes to the election process but did not propose RCV.
So here we are now with the Charter Review Commission that has only discussed RCV because BBKC volunteers went to the commission’s first meeting.
Since that first meeting things have taken a downward turn due partly at least to information provided in the briefings by the city employees’ that misrepresents BBKC efforts.
Listening to the last meeting it was very obvious that there is a lot of push from city hall to not even consider recommending rank choice voting.
I feel betrayed by the elected officials in our city government and by those they employ. I am questioning how much the lack of communication and or miscommunication from the mayor, city council members and the city law department has been deliberate at this point. Honestly even, if it is not deliberate to sabotage getting RCV on the ballot, it is definitely showing that our elected officials do not listen to the citizens/voters they are supposed to represent.
ELECTED OFFICIALS WHO DO NOT LISTEN TO VOTERS ARE THE BEST ARGUMENT FOR WHY WE NEED CHANGE AND WHY WE NEED RCV.
I am an UNPAID volunteer with Better Ballot KC. I am a life long citizen of Kansas City, I am not part of or being paid by any outside organization.
BE FOR KIDS 