By Dr. Isabel Warner
From November 20-21, the MOST Policy Initiative team traveled to Kansas City to meet with legislators, researchers, and partners in the region.
On the first day, Fellows met with leaders from BioNexus KC to learn more about scientific enterprise and workforce and infrastructure development in the region. Fellows were treated to a visit of historic Union Station, fully decked out for the holiday season.
Afterward, the team met with representatives from the Missouri Association of Councils of Government (MACOG) who discussed the importance and revival of regional planning commissions (RPCs) across the state. Fellows learned about the coordinating role RPCs play in funding, management, and response to local challenges, and how they work together to share and extend resources. In particular, the team talked about disaster response and infrastructure development and maintenance, especially as it relates to transportation and access to services in the state. Dr. Lakhanpal remarked how “regional planning commissions provide both valuable data and institutional knowledge to local governments, and it was really cool to learn how they provide support to cities and towns.”
On the 21st, Fellows attended a networking event with Kansas City Chamber of Commerce at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. There they met with local leaders and business owners, and discussed topics from reading support systems to the business of professional sports in the region. Following the event, the team took a tour of the Federal Reserve, checking out the vault and currency sorting and exploring the museum. They made sure to get a picture with $40 million and had some fun with the interactive nature of the museum. Dr. Jennifer Bean “learned that I would need to use my lower body to lift a gold brick - forearm and bicep are not enough!”
Following the museum, Fellows met with the team from Mid America Regional Council (MARC, the RPC for the Kansas City region) to discuss their work in the bi-state area. MARC collects troves of useful information and data on the region, which MOST can utilize to answer legislative questions, and MOST’s policy briefs can be useful for MARC’s work in educating local policymakers and leaders on a given topic.
Finally, the team hosted an interactive workshop for legislators and partners, featuring presentations from Amanda Graor from MARC and Hannah Conner from the University of Kansas City. Amanda Graor introduced participants to the broad scope of work that MARC does, and the tools they’ve created to parse their regional data. Hannah Conner covered her work in drawing the connections between public health and transportation access and discussed solutions to alleviate issues caused by car-dependent infrastructure. She highlighted, as Dr. Lakhanpal recalls, that “human-made problems have human-made solutions!” The participants engaged in a fruitful and robust discussion on the topics presented and legislative priorities in the upcoming session.