Governance & Transparency

Trust begins with openness—clear information, visible progress, and easy ways to participate.

Residents shouldn’t have to dig to find answers. Jesse’s plan launches Open Kearns to put budgets, projects, service dashboards, and meeting notes in one place—written in plain language with real timelines and measurable goals.

Goals

  • Launch Open Kearns: a simple portal for budgets, projects, and service dashboards.
  • Publish plain-language reports and meeting notes with action items & timelines.
  • Set & share response standards for resident requests and records inquiries.
  • Broaden input with advisory councils that reflect Kearns’ neighborhoods.

Key Commitments

Open Kearns Portal

  • Budget in Brief (one-pager) + full detail workbook.
  • Project Tracker with phases, dates, and photos.
  • Service Dashboards (lights, roads, parks, requests).

Plain-Language Government

  • Meeting notes with action items and next steps posted within 72 hours.
  • Simple “How-to” pages for permits, events, and common requests.
  • Quarterly progress updates residents can actually read.

Standards & Response Times

  • Resident requests: 2-business-day acknowledgment; published SLA by category.
  • Records requests: clear intake & status updates; easy download when complete.
  • Service outages: public status board for streetlights, paving, and signage.

Advisory Councils

  • Neighborhood Ambassadors + Youth & Senior advisory groups.
  • Quarterly town halls; topic roundtables (safety, small biz, parks).
  • Published rosters, meeting notes, and recommendations.

Programs & Initiatives

Open Kearns (Beta)

Start simple, iterate fast: launch a clean, searchable page with three tiles—Budget, Projects, Services.

  • Public roadmap showing what’s live and what’s next.
  • Downloadable CSVs for power users; summaries for everyone else.
Suggest a data set

Budget in Brief + Explorer

One-page overview plus an interactive breakdown by department, project, and fund.

  • Explain changes year-over-year in plain language.
  • Flag grants and one-time funds separately.

Project Tracker

Each project page lists status, timeline, budget, contacts, and recent photos.

  • Color-coded phases with estimated completion windows.
  • Public subscribe option for major updates.

Communication Standards

Publish service SLAs, email/phone etiquette, and response-time goals—then report against them.

  • 2-business-day acknowledgment on resident requests.
  • Quarterly “You Asked, We Answered” summaries.

Metrics & Reporting

Tie transparency to results people can see. Post these on Open Kearns with quarterly updates.

Access & Clarity

  • Top pages load in < 2 seconds; mobile readability score.
  • “Budget in Brief” downloads and time-on-page.
  • Search success rate (found it vs. needed help).

Responsiveness

  • Acknowledgment within 2 business days (% on target).
  • Median resolution time by request category.
  • Records request on-time completion rate.

* Final targets set with staff and posted alongside the dashboards.

FAQs

Where will all this information live?

On the Open Kearns portal—one link from the homepage with tiles for Budget, Projects, and Services.

How will residents know what changed?

We’ll post quarterly updates and a simple “What’s New” digest. Major changes get an email + social post.

Help build an open, responsive City Hall

How to Vote Donate