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News & Events Event Reports

North America Regional Hub: Preventing Threats to Social Cohesion and Community Safety around Johnson County

Publication Date:
03/12/2024
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community safetyJohnson CountySocial Cohesion

— 8 minutes reading time

This report provides a summary of discussions during the event and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Strong Cities Network Management Unit, Strong Cities members, event sponsors or participants.

Description: A regional workshop bringing together local government officials from across Johnson County (Kansas) and the Kansas City metropolitan area to discuss both threats to social cohesion and community safety facing local communities and local government workers and agencies, as well as to share innovative county, city and community practices for preventing and responding to these challenges and building resilience.  

Where and When: Overland Park, Kansas (United States), 3 December 2024

Cities Represented:

Partners Represented:

Summary

Since October 2023, the City of Overland Park (Kansas, United States) has been working with Strong Cities on a U.S. Department of Homeland Security-funded initiative to prevent and respond to hate and targeted violence in Johnson County (Kansas). In December 2024, Strong Cities and the City of Overland Park convened a workshop of local stakeholders to discuss findings from a local needs and vulnerability assessment and begin discussions on the strategic direction for the production of a local framework for the prevention of hate and targeted violence. As a complement to that workshop, Strong Cities and the City of Overland Park brought together city and county officials from across Johnson County and the Kansas City metropolitan area to discuss threats to social cohesion and community safety facing local communities and local government workers and agencies as well as to share innovative county, city and community practices for preventing and responding to these challenges and building resilience.

Lori Luther, City Manager of Overland Park, highlighted how she and Overland Park Mayor Kurt Skoog’s participation in the Strong Cities’ Transatlantic Dialogue Initiative workshop in Strasbourg (France) in May 2024 allowed them to understand how to better address issues of hate and polarisation in Overland Park, especially local impacts of the ongoing Israel-Gaza crisis. As a result of that convening and her other engagements with city officials from across Strong Cities, she has recognised that the challenges Overland Park is currently facing are not unique and that other cities and city leaders are facing similar ones. She also noted that the Strong Cities Resource Hub has been an invaluable resource for city and county officials to understand approaches to address hate and targeted violence as well as guidance for strategic communications and good practices utilised in other cities.

Caroline Wade, Digital Research Analyst for the Strong Cities North America Regional Hub, briefed the group on the threat landscape across the county, focusing on online and offline anti-government and other hateful narratives, as well as the rising polarisation that poses threats to community cohesion – and how these trends are impacting communities like those in Johnson County. Following the briefing, participants shared that certain communities are feeling particularly vulnerable. For example, in Leawood (Kansas), both Jewish and Muslim communities feel overwhelmed and are experiencing generational trauma due to the ongoing Israel-Gaza crisis, even if they don’t feel directly threatened by violence. Elsewhere in Johnson County, a church hosting an LGBTQ+ event faced a significant amount of hate against the institution and the pastor, which threatened both the local faith community and the LGBTQ+ community and led them to feel isolated and unsupported among their neighbours.

The most acute threats shared by participants were those aimed at public officials – senior city leaders, their staff members and even members of law enforcement. Beginning during COVID and continuing in the ensuing years, city officials would receive direct threats and menacing phone calls. Officials were wary of being doxed but were reluctant to request police protection lest they feed a narrative that city officials are receiving special treatment. Moreover, given the fact that much of the vitriol was aimed at the city office and not specific individuals, much of the rhetoric – however menacing – did not meet the legal definition of a prosecutable threat; similarly, officials are unable to request restraining orders against such individuals. Nevertheless, participants highlighted how the hate aimed at officials from these ‘keyboard warriors’ has a tremendously demoralising impact on public employees.

City officials shared that, above all, they have an obligation as employers to make sure that their employees feel safe. As one said, “we are not paying our staff to take this level of harassment”. In Overland Park, officials gave staff permission to hang up the phone or even not answer at all. In Grandview, Missouri leaders made it clear to staff that while their goal is to help the public, they are not public servants or punching bags and that they do not have to tolerate that abuse. In the Johnson County government, officials established a working group for public employees to serve as an outlet for staff members to share their perspectives on public service and how their personal experiences impact their government work. This grew out of a series of optional listening and discussions sessions across all county departments in the wake of the death of George Floyd in summer 2020 and continues to be a powerful outlet and useful resource for county employees.

Participants also shared some examples of how they are responding to the anti-government hostility. In Mission (Kansas), officials invited hostile residents to join city commissions. In many cases, participating in these commissions enabled residents to understand that their views were not representative of the community and they subsequently softened their position. In Grandview, the City’s communications team makes a deliberate attempt to reach out to individuals responsible for making disruptive calls to government offices and engage them in conversation to understand their perspective and encourage them to discontinue their disruptive activities. Grandview also runs a Citizens Academy to better inform residents how local government actually works. It has found that academy ‘graduates’ can help clear up misunderstandings surrounding, and antipathy to, government operations. Other officials suggested that even recruiting individuals to join short-term ad hoc committees, which would not require city staffing resources, can help turn residents into advocates for civic engagement.

Lastly, attendees reminded the group that city leaders needed to remember that there is a silent majority of residents – too busy with their own lives to attend public meetings – that are generally supportive of local government and that the loudest voices are not necessarily the most representative of the wider community. Often, this silent majority relies on their trusted community brokers – faith leaders, community advocates and others – to make public statements and reach out to city leaders on behalf of their respective community to make their feelings known.

Key Findings

  1. Certain communities feel vulnerable now more than ever, due to both the local impacts of global crises as well as the polarising national political discourse.
  2. Local government employees – both senior city officials as well as their staff members – feel particularly threatened, which is having a significant effect on individual wellbeing and civic morale.
  3. City officials’ first obligation, as employers, is to ensure that staff feel safe and are protected. Discussion forums and listening sessions are also helpful mechanisms to provide a voice for public employees to share their personal experiences and concerns.
  4. Direct outreach to hostile constituents – including inviting them to join city commissions – has been effective in reducing abusive behaviour to government officials and allowing residents to recognise when their positions are unrepresentative of the community. Hosting Citizens Academies is also a useful mechanism to spread accurate information about how local government works and correct misunderstandings.
  5. Above all, it is important to remember that the silent majority of residents are generally supportive of local officials but are often too busy with their daily lives to communicate that support and instead rely on trusted community brokers to express their feelings. Generally, the loudest voices are not representative of the community as a whole.

Next Steps

Over the coming months, Strong Cities and the City of Overland Park, together with local community stakeholders, will produce a draft local prevention framework, which will outline the city’s prevention-related goals, key objectives and an action plan. Overland Park officials are committed to sharing lessons learned from this initiative with counterparts across Johnson County and assist them in their prevention efforts. As part of the prevention framework, the City intends to increase its situational awareness of the threats to social cohesion and community safety, including through briefings and analysis from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (which hosts Strong Cities) – and plans to share this usable, timely and relevant information with civic leaders across the county.

Additional Resources

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For more information on this event and the Strong Cities North America Regional Hub, please contact [email protected].

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Copyright © Institute for Strategic Dialogue (2024). The Strong Cities Network is hosted by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a company limited by guarantee, registered office address PO Box 75769, London, SW1P 9ER. ISD is registered in England with company registration number 06581421 and registered charity number 1141069. All Rights Reserved