Jan Marcason Keeps Her Focus, Delivers Good Work on Sewers
One of the things I admire about Jan Marcason is her seriousness of purpose. She understands that she was elected to perform public service, and she sets out to accomplish her tasks, even when they're not particularly glamorous or even pleasant.
Mayor Funkhouser could not have chosen more wisely when he picked her to lead the task force studying our long-festering sewer problems.
Sure enough, she has delivered a plan to address the city's needs with increased fees and seeking state and federal support. Nobody wants to see their sewer and water bills increase significantly, but Marcason's plan helps right the balance after generations of underpayment for those services, and the resulting underfunding of infrastructure maintenance and improvements. The plan covers all the details I would hope for or expect, including incentives for environmentalism, assistance for the poor and plans to make new developments cover their own costs.
Back when we were differing strongly over the "Volunteer" Ordinance, Marcason stressed to me in a conversation that all the hullabaloo was, for her at least, in addition to the normal workload. The time she spent on that ordinance, she assured me, was not taking away from the time she should be spending on areas we agreed were legitimate and necessary areas for Council involvement.
It borders on humorous that somebody with Marcason's clean image and generally sunny disposition would tackle the grimy, dirty topic of sewers. But she has done it, with the level of detail and attentiveness to city needs I would expect.
It's great to see that both 4th District Council Representatives are paying attention to real city council business and city needs.
Labels: city council, Jan Marcason, kansas city, Mayor Funkhouser
posted by Dan at 11/20/2008 06:15:00 AM
7 Comments:
Agreed that Jan gets it done. Beth should take lessons.
Beth should run for Mayor in 2011!
was not taking away from the time
Critical point, I wish everyone realized this.
Marcason sure has a lot of work in front of her, but I'm confident that if it's possible she can do it.
So, even if it the volunteer ordinance was not, supposedly, distracting her from her tasks at hand, we should praise her even though that same ordinance has, and continues to be a major distraction at city hall and cost taxpayer money to defend because of the lawsuit by the mayor? Is undermining everyone else at city hall to be praised now?
Dude. Who's paying you?
Glad Funkhouser's left her alone - so far anyway. I guess he recognizes the federally-mandated sewer issue is too important for his usual political gamesmanship. Or will he exact his vengeance (yet again) and remove a committee chair who's doing a good job? (See Cindy Circo and Ed Ford.)
It's been a long time since you've rubbed your nose in this much brown. You probably got a big hug at Grand Street tonight.
What is so great about the sewer plan? That it exists? I guess that's a start.
I'm not against Jan or "her" plan. I'm just skeptical of your desire to promote this plan based on Jan's personality traits rather than the merits of the plan itself.
Worried - I don't know what you mean by your Grand Street reference, but I wasn't invited if there was a gathering there. So much for my insider credentials, huh?
I have no reason to suck up to Marcason - I just think that I ought to give credit where credit is due. I certainly have been loud in my disapproval of her work on the anti-volunteer ordinance, so why not be nice once in a while?
If you want to know more about the plan, I would highly recommend reading the linked article, and then going ahead and contacting Marcason for whatever additional information you want. Don't rely on this or any other blog for 100% of your information.
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