2010 will be the year when I begin the long, difficult process of atoning for my sins.

I, former top lackey and campaign mastermind for Mayor Mark Funkhouser, hereby resolve to do everything in my power to make sure the Funk doesn’t get elected again.

I do this not out of revenge but for the sake of the dream: a city that works for regular folks.

Because right now it ain’t.

Kansas City is a weak-mayor form of government. The Mayor doesn’t actually run the city. When you get right down to it, he’s little more than a vote on a council of 13.

But, ironically, that just makes the job of mayor even more important – and difficult.

Even though the Mayor has few powers that his fellow council members don’t have, he’s seen by virtually everyone as the leader of the city. Even people who know how the system works look to the Mayor’s Office for direction.

And that perception of power is as potent as real power.

When used correctly, it’s highly effective. When mishandled, it’s deadly – not just to the person mishandling it, but to the entire city.

The only way for all of us to heal is for them to lose BIG in the primary.

You wouldn’t be unwise if you were to believe that this probably is going to happen; on paper it looks as though they’re headed for a big defeat.

But you’d be wiser to remember that anything can happen in politics. More than a few smart people have admitted to me that they’re scared Funkhouser could win again.

That’s why I’m making a commitment, right here, right now, to stick my neck out once again and offer my services – absolutely free of charge – to the democratic process here in Kansas City.

I’ll write ad copy, TV and radio commercials, donor letters, speeches, you name it. I’ll design a website. Lay out brochures. Pick a campaign color. Make a YouTube video with an adorable dog. You name it. I’ll do anything.

And I’m calling on others to join in. More specifically, we’re going to need some people a lot richer than me to open their checkbooks so we can buy some “anyone but Funk” advertising.

I’ve got ideas for these ads.

It doesn’t have to be a nasty campaign. We won’t have to dredge up old memories of prostate exams and mammies (though the $550,000 legal settlement will deserve a mention).

We just have to focus on what he’s said, and what he’s done.

Or, more accurately, what he hasn’t done.

The ads will practically write themselves.

One could focus on his relations with the City Council. Early in his term, Funk said again and again that his top priority was to build good relationships with Council members. He opened every town hall meeting with this spiel, and most of those are on video, so we can start the commercial with a clip of him saying it, and then cut to a montage of Council meetings where his colleagues are all standing up and yelling at him, and he’s there frowning back at them.

Tagline: “Is this a city that works?”

Another could take some of the promises he made in his first State of the City speech and then reveal how each one died within a year’s time. Most notable: the alliances with mayors from Missouri’s biggest cities and with mayors from cities across the metro area. I’m not sure if the latter is still going, but I know for a fact that the former – the one with the most potential for power, the alliance with St. Louis and Springfield  – is dead.

It died because Gloria canceled a meeting we had scheduled with the other mayors. Or she made me cancel it.

Again, same tagline: “Is this a city that works?”

Or what about Funk’s press conference on September 30, 2008, where he laid out four top priorities: crime, education, economic development and transportation. You can watch the video where he makes some very bold promises. All we have to do is take a couple of those sound bites and juxtapose them with the facts: crime stats, no light rail, no education summit, no results from his economic development initiatives (like, what ever happened to that Black Heritage District?). Nothing.

Then, you guessed it: “Is this a city that works?”

Or what about his very own office?

Unlike other members of the City Council, the Mayor has an annual budget of over $1 million. That pays for a sizable staff. Yet often when (regular) folks call the Mayor’s Office, they get no answer. We should record the office’s answering machine message and ask, “Is this a city that works?”

Funk said on the campaign trail that transparency is key to good government. In an op-ed that ran in the Star on April 29, 2007, he said (actually, I wrote it): “Citizens deserve to know what is going on with their government. Kansas Citians have a right to information that is readily available and easy to understand and use. Residents need to be a part of the decision-making process.”

Let’s do an ad with that line and then show his last “Priorities in Progress” newsletter  – dated September 2008. Or show his official website with blank pages and grossly outdated descriptions of staffers. Or show his fellow Council members griping at him about secretly deciding to axe the City Manager, or change the city’s emergency response system. And what about the Q&A TV show he was going to do every couple of weeks? Looks to me like he’s only done four.

Is this a city that works?

And finally, the coup de grace: citizen satisfaction.

The whole concept of “a city that works for regular folks” hinges on the notion that citizens’ responses to annual surveys of satisfaction with city services will show improvement.

And, true to form, Funk promised that they would if he were elected.

In fact, he said in his inaugural speech, “If those scores don't improve significantly, you won't see me making this speech in 2011.”

Also, when asked by a couple of reporters if the satisfaction scores will improve during his four years in office, he replied in a March 29, 2007 article: “Oh, if they're not different, please don't let me run again. Stop me. They need to be different and I think they will be.”

Then show the real scores, which are still lousy.

Then run this tagline:

“That’s what we intend to do, Mr. Funkhouser. Stop you.”