The mayors of Kansas City’s three largest cities will address some of their most important economic issues in an open forum at Kansas City Kansas Community College Tuesday, April 17.
Kansas City, Mo.
Mayor Sly James, Overland Park Mayor Carl Gerlach and Joe Reardon, Mayor of the Unified Government of KCK/Wyandotte County, will discuss various issues from 9:30-11 a.m. in the Jewell Student Center on the KCKCC campus at 7250 State Avenue.
Sponsored by the Economics Club and Intercultural Center at KCKCC, the open forum is believed to be the first of its kind featuring all three mayors.
Dr. Mehdi Shariati, Economics Club advisor, said contemporary urban area issues that may be discussed include current challenges and the corresponding perspectives, local resource mapping, localism and regionalism and specific and general areas of cooperation rather than competition.
“Each of these politico-economic entities is the product of a unique set of circumstances and each has its own set of challenges,” said Dr. Shariati. “Historically, these three economies have competed for private sector investments and federal government aid and project funding.
“As the amount of investment decreases, the resources are dwindling and partly due to competition from abroad and other urban areas and partly due to the cost of maintaining the aging infrastructure, the degree of competition has increased substantially. Given this predicament, the question of what is to be done is an increasingly an urgent one.”
