Kansas City Council Business Session - July 24, 2025: Parade of Hearts Update and Citywide Business Plan Review
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Kansas City Council Business Session - July 24, 2025
The Kansas City, Missouri City Council held a Business Session on July 24, 2025, at 1:00 PM in the Council Chamber. The meeting included approval of minutes, a presentation on the Parade of Hearts initiative, and a mid-term review of the Citywide Business Plan with a focus on priority-based budgeting. Council members discussed equity, scoring metrics, and community engagement.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of Minutes: The council approved the minutes of the Business Session from June 26, 2025. (Note: The agenda listed July 17, 2025, but the transcript stated June 26, 2025.) The motion passed unanimously.
Discussion Items
Parade of Hearts Update
- Jen Nusbek, Executive Director of Parade of Hearts, presented an update on the initiative. Since its founding in 2020, the program has placed 301 hearts, raised $4.5 million, generated nearly 2.5 million mobile check-ins, and achieved half a billion social media impressions. The initiative is currently on hiatus and will return in 2026 with 150 hearts placed across 50 cities, 7 counties, and 2 states. A new web-based app is being developed to support regional tourism and will be gifted to the region after the program concludes.
- Council members expressed strong support: Councilman O'Neil noted the hearts are a great marketing tool; Councilwoman French highlighted the arts and tourism benefits; Mayor Pro Tem Parkshaw commended the regional spirit. Councilwoman French also asked about branding integration in the app. Nusbek confirmed that each entity would control its own brand DNA.
Citywide Business Plan Mid-Term Review
- Tammy Queen, Director of Finance, and new Deputy Director Brenton Siverley presented the mid-term review. The plan includes five goal areas: Finance and Governance, Housing and Healthy Communities, Inclusive Growth and Development, Public Safety, and Infrastructure and Accessibility. The presentation focused on priority-based budgeting (PBB), which scores programs based on alignment with the citywide business plan and program attributes. An example of solid waste management was given, scoring 67 out of 80.
- Council members raised several concerns:
- Councilwoman Robinson questioned how equity and inclusivity are incorporated into scoring. Staff responded that the citywide business plan carries the highest weight, so equity objectives can be included there.
- Councilwoman Patterson had difficulty connecting goals to funding decisions and requested more training and examples of low-scoring programs.
- Councilwoman French asked about community stakeholder feedback beyond the resident survey; staff noted the survey is the primary source but council input is also incorporated.
- Mayor Pro Tem Parkshaw requested that public comments from budget hearings be included and suggested a work session for deeper understanding. He also asked for the scoring metric to be presented for council approval.
- Councilman Bunch (Mayor Lucas) noted the importance of fund balance and structural imbalance, and suggested codifying PBB through an ordinance. He also encouraged collecting data on actual service usage across districts.
- Councilwoman Booth acknowledged the need for more time and discussion, and noted that the presentation is a starting point for revisions.
Key Outcomes
- The council will meet with staff over the coming month to review and propose revisions to the citywide business plan goals and objectives. Revisions are due to the budget office by September 8, 2025.
- A follow-up business session presentation on revisions and the five-year forecast will occur in September, with a Finance Committee presentation in October. The five-year forecast must be approved by November 1, 2025 per charter.
- Councilwoman Booth expressed interest in codifying a priority-based budgeting policy, which could include scoring guidelines.
- The meeting adjourned without further discussion of ordinances or resolutions.
Meeting Transcript
Welcome to business session. Our first item of business business session is approval of minutes. From business session of June 26, 2025. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Moved and seconded that the minutes be approved. All in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion passes. Parade of hearts update. We're excited to see you. Oh no. Thank you, Mayor Lucas. Mayor Pro Ten Parkshaw. A special shout out to my uh fellow family member, Councilman O'Neill, members of the council, City Manager Vasquez, and the staff. Thank you so very much for having us. I am Jen Nusbek. I am the executive director for Parade of Hearts. I'm going to guess you guys, this is the first time you're hearing about the Hearts. And so I wanted to take a moment and highlight what we've done in three short years. Parade of Hearts really was founded on a napkin in June of 2020. And we wanted to unify outdoors and raise critical funding. So in 2022, we thought we were going to be one and done. And that did not happen, obviously, and I'm so proud to be here four years later. Put out 301 hearts, raised four and a half million dollars. And I'm very excited to talk about what's ahead for 2026. This is a great time to pause and say, you may know we are on hiatus right now. One, we never thought we'd do it past the first year, and then we were going to do it every other year. And then Kathy Nelson called and said, How can you not do it in 23? We have a new airport, the NFL drafts coming. So we did do three consecutive years, and um thankfully we are on hiatus that uh this allowed us to do um a new design and talk about what our regional footprint looks like. So I just thought I would share with you some really amazing milestones. It's a staggering number that we had nearly two and a half million mobile check-ins just in three years, and with nearly a half a billion impressions on social media. That was not just local or regional. We did hit several national circuits. This is a sculpture that was submitted through a call for artists through Casey Global Design. It is a foot taller, a foot wider, but we want to leave the liberty of design and art to the artist, but we wanted to make sure it was heart-centric. So I if you know me, you've heard me say this before. This is an opportunity to share some photos. Uh, we unveiled this in March. Uh, with a keyhole heart. Um, we are asking artists to preserve 25 percent of the heart, whether that is central to the sculpture, or if they keep a perimeter, but leaving 25 percent open. Um, so this is only for 2026. So I just wanted to share that. Um we are very proud that um Dr. D'Angelo Burns Wallace has really led the charge in supporting us vocally and financially, and proud to have you and Marion Kaufman among others, including the city of Kansas City, Missouri, and we are extremely grateful for that. I have a couple of highlights that I want to share.
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