Hot Topics Podcast

Submit your question for the podcasters to sydbann@ku.edu!

Join us for a dynamic exploration of the burning issues facing your community during the KCCM hot topics podcast! Delve into the pressing concerns that keep you up at night as we bring together leading voices from academia, public service consulting, and seasoned city management. 

Our esteemed panelists will dissect the challenges and share invaluable insights to drive positive change in your community. Don't miss this engaging discussion that promises to illuminate the path forward.

Podcasters:

Heather Getha-Taylor - Professor, KU School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA)

Marilu Goodyear - Interim Director of the Public Management Center (PMC)

Beccy Yocham - City Manager, Lenexa

Panelists:

Misty Bosch-Hastings - Homeless Programs Coordinator, City of Lawrence

Megan Foreman - Housing Coordinator, Johnson County - County Government

Cole Schneiders - Continuum of Care Planning Manager for the Coalition to End Homelessness in Wichita/Sedgwick County, United Way of the Plains

Moderated by:

Jill deVries Jolicoeur - Assistant County Administrator, Douglas County 

KACM Membership Luncheon ($35.00)

OR - Lunch on Your Own

Concurrent Sessions: Choose One!

Option 1: A Place for Everyone

Option 2: A Bold Vision Forgotten: Local Government in Kansas in the 1920s—And Why it Matters Today

Option 1: Convening solutions to homelessness, leveraging collaborative partnerships and community co-production. How the City of Lawrence and Douglas County gained community alignment in developing a strategic plan to end chronic homelessness.

Option 2: A century ago, Kansas was a national leader in embracing the city manager model. Kansas cities were policy innovators that delivered an extraordinary range of services as public utilities. The organizations now known at the ICMA and the National League of Cities had strong ties to KU. Kansas officials of the time wished for local governments to provide as a public service almost everything necessary to a healthy, meaningful life—and did not hesitate to trample upon individual rights and freedoms to do so. This session tells the story of local government in Kansas a century ago, describing an ambitious vision of public service that may be both an inspiration and warning to us today.

Option 1: Brandon McGuire, Assistant City Manager, Lawrence

Jill deVries Jolicoeur - Assistant County Administrator, Douglas County 

Option 2: Ben Merriman, Associate Professor, KU School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA)

Concurrent Sessions: Choose One!

Option 1: Land Use and Development Assistance for Local Governments

Option 2: From NIMBY to Not Impossible, Maybe, Better Yet

Option 1: Katherine Carttar, Executive Director of ULI Kansas City, and Leslie Herring, City Administrator of Westwood, KS, discuss the Urban Land Institute’s Technical Assistance Program (TAP), including how the City of Westwood has utilized the program. The TAP provides objective, expert, multidisciplinary advice to local governments, public agencies, and nonprofit organizations in the greater Kansas City metro to help communities solve complex land use, development, and redevelopment challenges. 

Option 2: Not in My Back Yard” are often rooted in fear. Fear of loss of quality of life, property values, environmental degradation, health effects, or distrust in technology, government, and management. Other triggers can be ideology or impacts on symbolic places. NIMBY-ism is not simply a U.S. phenomenon, it happens everywhere. Research from around the world reveals useful techniques for anticipating NIMBY arguments, improving systems to avoid triggers, and recognition of the importance of local political cultures where “we are in this together” versus “everyone for themselves.

Option 1: Katherine Carttar, Executive Director, Urban Land Institute

Leslie Herring, City Administrator, Westwood

Option 2: Bonnie Johnson, Professor and Urban Planning Program Director, KU School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA)

Spencer Duncan - Government Affairs Director, League of Kansas Municipalities

Nathan Eberline - Executive Director, League of Kansas Municipalities

Conference Concludes