KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After Tuesday's primary election, the crowded field for Kansas City mayor is now down to two candidates: Kansas City Council members Jolie Justus and Quinton Lucas.
After a night of celebration, both candidates are now looking to the June election and focusing on the priorities laid out in their campaigns.
“We have to focus on affordable housing, equitable transportation options, educational opportunities,” Justus said one day after her primary victory. “All of those things feed into public safety, which is our No. 1 issue in the city.”
Lucas said that as mayor, he would focus on improving the lives of Kansas City residents.
“You have this new-school approach with what I am trying to do,” Lucas said Wednesday. “Making sure that we are reaching out to every community, that we are bridging divides, that before we talk about big-ticket items, big projects, we are also talking about making quality of life better for every person living in Kansas City.”
In a city survey last year that had nearly 5,000 responses, the No. 1 issue identified by residents was not affordable housing or crime.
Instead, it was roads, street maintenance and potholes.
“(The) pothole crisis of 2019 is not by happenstance. Winter happens to exist in Kansas and in Blue Springs and in Harrisonville, but they don’t have the same issues,” Lucas said. “That is because we have not spent money in the way we promised taxpayers we would.”
Justus agreed that change is needed to make sure that potholes don't become a perennial problem.
“We've got to make sure that when we get hit with winters like we have been hit with, that we have the resiliency to tackle the pothole issue,” she said. “The men and women who have been working around the clock to address it, I could not be more thankful for all they have been doing, but moving forward we need to have resources so we don’t have the problems pop up.”
The second top issue identified in the survey last year was public safety. Lucas said that he plans to consider how police are being utilized in the city.
“I think they are important and we need them out there. I think how they are deployed is the real question,” he said. “Do we make sure that we have police that are broken down by neighborhoods?”
Justus said that she would focus on increasing the police force.
“We need to get more social workers into our patrols. We need to get enough police officers to make sure they are not spending all of their time responding to calls and they are able to go into communities,” Justus said.
The third problem identified in the survey was an issue referred to as “quality of neighborhood services.” Both mayoral candidates say that affordable housing is important.
The general election will be held June 18.
