Kansas City’s Mayor will make an appearance in St. Joseph next week to talk about KC projects relevant to the future of the St. Joseph community.

Mayor Sly James will speak Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Missouri Theater located at 717 Edmond St. in downtown St. Joseph.

“The (St. Joseph) city planner has put together a series of programs.  We’re getting ready to take a look at how we view properties and different zonings,” said St. Joseph Mayor Bill Falkner. “Mayor James is going to touch on some of the downtown renovations there in Kansas City and how they orchestrated some of those things.”

Mayor Falkner said the goal of Tuesday’s meeting with Mayor James is to hear what Kansas City is doing and get ideas for moving forward in St. Joseph.

“They’ve got the same problems that we do.  They’re fighting the same sewer issues that we are and everything else.  They just have a few more zeros on theirs,” Mayor Falkner said.

He said they are trying to get a handle on some significant issues going on in St. Joseph.

“We may try to look at gaining control over some areas, to initiate bringing back some neighborhoods.  We’ve got to address some of the abandoned buildings that are owned by people outside of this community. There are several things that we are going to be looking at,” Falkner said. “In the not so distant future we’re going to have to look at expanding the boundaries of St. Joseph to bring in more business or have the land available to do so.”

The meeting is open to the public.  Mayor Falkner said anyone interested in attending just needs to show up at the event.

“There will be some question and answers during this time. Anyone who’s interested in moving the community forward on different things, I think it would be very interesting to come listen to,” Mayor Falkner said.