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Wyandotte County mayor unveils "We Do Connect" pilot to streamline resident services
Summary
Mayor Crystal Watson presented "We Do Connect," a resident-centered pilot that would use AI-assisted tools to improve multilingual communication, constituent routing, issue tracking and cross-department coordination across 44 county departments, aiming to reduce administrative burden; no formal vote was recorded.
Crystal Watson, mayor and CEO of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County in Kansas City, Kansas, presented a pilot program called "We Do Connect" that she said aims to make it easier for residents to find and use county services.
"We believe emerging technology can help local governments better serve residents without replacing the human relationships that are essential to public trust," Watson said, framing the effort as a technology-assisted approach rather than a substitute for staff.
Watson told attendees the county currently operates with 44 largely independent departments that rely on disconnected workflows such as spreadsheets, emails and paper forms. She said those silos force residents to repeat information and can produce delays when issues need cross-department coordination. "Our goal is simple: reduce administrative burden so staff can spend more time helping people," she said.
The pilot would test AI-assisted tools for multilingual communication, constituent routing, issue tracking and cross-department coordination to improve operational responsiveness, Watson said. She described the effort as a resident-centered service modernization pilot intended to generate scalable lessons for other combined or mixed governments attempting similar modernization while preserving transparency, accountability and human oversight.
Watson also outlined the limited capacity of the mayor's office as part of the rationale: she said the office currently has two full‑time employees, one part‑time employee and one part‑time contractor handling countywide engagement and constituent coordination.
The transcript does not record any formal vote, funding decision or next procedural step for launching the pilot. Watson concluded by thanking the audience and expressing willingness to continue advancing resident-centered innovation in public service delivery.
The presentation raised operational and equity goals and identified specific technical aims, but the record does not include details on pilot funding, data governance, privacy safeguards, procurement timeline, or measurable performance targets; those items were not specified in the transcript.
