By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
After forming a strategic plan based off the results of a city-wide survey, St. Joseph officials are beginning to put plans into action.
While work is still being done on the top concern of code enforcement, the city has put a tremendous focus on communicating more with residents.
City Manager Mike Schumacher says if you look at the city’s social media pages there always seems to be some sort of news, which is how it should be.
“We need to be communicating with our customers on exactly what’s going on, and what we’re doing, and what we’re working on,” Schumacher says on the KFEQmunnity show. “And anything that’s out there that could impact our customers we want to make sure they know about.”
But even with that effort, Schumacher believes there is still more the city could do, using filling a pothole as an example
“We received your concern, and we’re going to be on it our average turnaround time is 48 hours, how do we communicate that and how do we track it?” Schumacher explains. “And then once that works done how do we get feedback from our customers on hey the pothole was filled, it was filled correctly it’s great, or you know hey you filled it but you made it worse, it’s an even worse drive than it was with the pothole.”
Schumacher says how to improve these metrics are conversations that are well underway, and the city looks forward to continuing to improve its communication with residents.
St. Joseph Police have made enhanced efforts to protect businesses and homes, and there has been more communication from the city on projects happening.
Schumacher says this shows residents they are listening to the results, even when it comes to the top concern of code enforcement
“Nuisance abatement, weeds, trash, how we’re addressing those issues all ties back to the survey,” Schumacher says. “We can’t do everything, so that survey gives us a little focus on what our customers want to see us work on first, and hey we’re not perfect, I’ll be the first one to admit we’re not perfect and we have a long ways to go, but if you don’t start you won’t finish, so we most certainly have started.”
Schumacher says the city is currently working to upgrade the city website as well to keep people more informed on what’s going on in the city, as well as provide more ways for contact online.
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.
