JimmyCsays

Hats off to The Star for a fine Sunday paper. The front page consisted of three “enterprise” stories, that is, not breaking news but stories reported and written over a period of days or weeks and focus on a person or development that has been in the news.

Two sports-age stories –  one on new Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive coordinator Brian Daboll and the other on Royals’ outfielder Alex Gordon — contributed to an overall excellent print edition.

A closer look at the front-page stories…

:: The Sunday “centerpiece,” by Rick Montgomery, was about the so-called Neo Luddites, those who eschew cellphones, iPads, computers and the like. Montgomery built the story around a man named Jeffrey Ruckman, a Kansas City composer who writes his scores by hand.

The only caveat on this story is that it trailed off at the end because it failed to return to Ruckman, whose personality Montgomery did a good job of developing in print, at the very end.

:: Another story, by Tony Rizzo, told the tale of Kansas Citian Odessa Brown, who got away with a murder in Muskogee, OK, but later confessed to it while serving time for a second murder. Her conscience got to her, and she seemingly has turned her life around in prison.

The only problem I had with this story is that it failed, as far as I can tell, to say how old Brown is. Because she graduated from high school in 1983, I figure she is about 47…But, as a wise editor once warned me, never make the reader do the math.

:: In the third story, Karen Dillon put the microscope on the dysfunctions of the Gardner, KS, city government. It involves the city’s loss of a huge intermodal freight hub (Edgerton stepped in and annexed the property), a mayor and interim city administrator who are openly defying the Kansas Open Meetings Law and a councilman whose goal is to drive the mayor crazy.

Dillon

Dillon is The Star’s environmental reporter, but she combines her knowledge of that field with a great talent for investigative reporting. It was good to see her on something besides asbestos and polluted water.

***

Finally, JimmyCsays sends out heartfelt congratulations to The Star’s Mike DeArmond, who retired Saturday after a 40-year career at the paper, almost all of it on the Sports Desk. He has covered University of Missouri athletics the last 20 years.

Mike DeArmond (right) and son Gabe, who also is a sports reporter

An opinionated and tenacious person, DeArmond once challenged former Royals’ outfielder Amos Otis to a fight after Otis got lippy with him for no good reason. After DeArmond made it clear he wasn’t going to let Otis mess with him, the two got along just fine.

DeArmond has certainly earned his sheet cake and pizza party. Good luck, Mike!

Perhaps those of you who are interested in politics would like to know how the top candidates for the Republican nomination for President fared Tuesday in Kansas City and Jackson, Clay and Platte counties.

As far as I can tell — and I’ve looked and looked — The Star didn’t run the local results of Tuesday’s presidential primary election, either in print or online.

I hope I’m wrong. If not, it’s very disappointing.

I worked the election yesterday as a “deputy commissioner’ ‘in Kansas City, making the rounds of seven polling places in the Northeast part of Kansas City. (I’ve done that for several years now, and it’s always interesting and informative.)

When I got home at about 8:45 last night, I was interested, of course, in the statewide outcome. CNN was already projecting Rick Santorum as the winner, which was a bit surprising to me, but I knew he had been the only candidate to visit the state before the nonbinding, preferential primary.

I wanted to see local results, too, but thought I’d wait until this morning.

Instead of getting the local results in today’s Star, however, I had to go to the website of three jurisdictions (KC, Jackson and Clay) and call one (Platte) to get the results.

Here they are, then:

Kansas City, Mo.

Santorum — 2,502
Romney — 1,709
Paul — 824

Jackson County (not including Kansas City)

Santorum — 7,372
Romney — 4,695
Paul — 1,922

Clay County (including the Kansas City part of the county)

Santorum — 3,567
Romney — 1,538
Paul — 770

Platte County (including the Kansas City part of the county)

Santorum — 1,551
Romney — 832
Paul — 292

The main thing that surprised me about those results — although it probably shouldn’t have — was the large Republican vote in Jackson County, where, again, the vote totals do not include Kansas City.

That shows dramatically the extent to which Republicans have cut into what traditionally has been a Democratic county (when you include Kansas City).

The political C.O.G. (center of gravity) seems to have swung to the GOP in Jackson County.

Jackson

President Andrew Jackson is probably sitting up in his grave today, preparing to mount a campaign in his namesake county.

It was his followers, after all, who created the modern Democratic Party in the 1830s, after “Old Hickory” was elected President.

Wikipedia says that Jackson “fought politically against what he denounced as a closed, undemocratic aristocracy.”

And isn’t that just about a perfect description of today’s Republican Party?

Slowly, federal and city governments are taking steps to mop up the criminal and environmental detritus of a long-term, aborted attempt to develop the northwest corner of 63rd and Prospect.

On Thursday, as reported by The Star’s Mark Morris, developer William M. Threatt, 71, pleaded guilty to failing to properly remove and dispose of asbestos while overseeing the planned Citadel Plaza retail project in the early and mid 2000s.

Threatt and a co-defendant who pleaded guilty last October, Anthony Crompton, face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. A sentencing date has not been set.

The damage that those two inflicted — along with the previous City Council, which stupidly voted in 2008 to provide $20.5 million to jump start the project — is clearly and pathetically visible.

A concentration of trash

The acreage essentially is a big, brown field, littered with tires, plastic bags, trash, discarded carpet, concrete chunks and asbestos-tainted building materials.

What was supposed to be there was an $80 million shopping center, including a grocery, retail stores, restaurants and homes.

The difference between success and failure in this instance has left the city with perhaps the biggest East Side abomination in city history.

Most, or perhaps all, of the money that the council approved in 2008, was not appropriated after it became clear that Crompton, Threatt and their Community Development Corp. of Kansas City could not deliver on the plans they laid out on paper.

Looking south, across 63rd Street, toward Research Medical Center

Looking south, toward a Valero station on 63rd Street

The firm had no experience with a major development, and the council gave it the green light primarily because it was under pressure from East Side leaders and community members to deliver a major project to a neighborhood that was ripe for development and that would give the 63rd and Prospect area a big boost.

The council, in short, voted on hope rather than track record. After the city pulled the plug on the Citadel project, however, Threatt and Crompton sued the city for failure to deliver on the $20.5 million. Two weeks ago, a $15 million court settlement was finalized.

Yes, that is $15 million in taxpayer funds.

Looking east, from the Citadel site, toward a BP station on the northeast corner of 63rd and Prospect

Looking north on Park, a block west of Prospect

As Morris reported in his story: “For its $15 million, the city received most of the real estate and the rights to take another crack at redeveloping it.”

He quoted city officials as saying none of the money would go to Threatt. Same goes for Crompton, I trust.

The whole mess reminds me of the proposed Sailors project east of the Plaza many years ago, when the council approved a multi-story office building that had Plaza area residents up in arms. Like Community Development Corp., the R.H. Sailors Co. had no experience with a development on the scale that it was proposing.

In that case, fortunately, citizens who were opposed to the project mounted a successful petition drive, and voters defeated it at the polls in 1986.

In this case, the city is giving up a lot of money, and it looks like it’s going to be a while before the brown, trashy field on the northwest corner of 63rd and Prospect will be converted into something respectable.

On a positive note, however,when I was out photographing the site yesterday, along came an official with the City Planning & Development Department. The official, Andy Bracker, was taking photos and familiarizing himself with the site, in preparation for a major clean-up. He said he would be tracking the progress closely.

An hour or so later, I sent him an e-mail, asking when the clean-up might begin and how much it might cost.

He wrote back, saying that the plan was “to clean up the site as soon as practicable,” and that he didn’t have any facts and figures on the job just yet.

Let’s all wish Andy the best of luck and hope that the current City Council makes some wise and careful decisions about what should happen next on the northwest corner of 63rd and Prospect.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Threatt, Mr. Crompton and 2008 City Council members

To me, one of the best benefits of having a subscription to the printed edition of The Star is turning to the Letters to the Editor page, going over them leisurely and checking out the headlines for ones you might be interested in.

I would venture to say that very few people who go to kansascity.com bother to go to the letters page — too much clicking and the layout isn’t appealing.

So, for those of you who haven’t been keeping up with the letters, I’ve earmarked a few from recent days that I’d like to single out and comment on…Maybe you’d like to comment, too.

:: Wednesday, Jan. 25, “KC Fire Department budget cuts necessary.”

Jean Kaiser of Liberty posed the question of why Local 42 of the International Association of Fire Fighters has such a “stranglehold” on city policymakers. She goes on to say:

“Mike Cambiano, new president of the firefighters union comments,  ‘I can’t imagine the city manager — who never consulted the fire chief about a reduction in force — would endanger public safety of the safety of our firefighters.’  That is inviting hysteria.

“It is common knowledge that the schedule and workload of firefighters, while providing needed emergency service, also provides time to sleep, exercise and barbecue — all while on the clock.”

Troy Schulte

I agree with Cambiano that City Manager Troy Schulte should have given Chief Smokey Dyer the courtesy of a call to advise him that he was going to recommend cutting 105 positions from the force. But Kaiser hit home on the point about all the down time that firefighters have.

The union, of course, would prefer to keep everyone’s attention on how the firefighters are constantly putting their lives on the line. Of course, they go into very dangerous situations sometimes, but at many fire stations there’s a lot more time spent shopping for groceries, preparing meals, eating and watching TV than going out on calls. I once had a KCK firefighter tell me, “It’s an easy job.”

:: Wednesday, Jan. 25, “Former House speaker.”

Fran Baker of Lee’s Summit wrote a short and bittersweet letter: “Did Steve Kraske need a transfusion after bleeding his heart out all over the Jan. 21 front page about former Missouri House Speaker Bob Griffin?”

Bull’s eye. I can’t stand stories that glamorize crooks, especially crooks who maintain their innocence, even after admitting wrongdoing.

I read Kraske’s story as far as the 11th paragraph, which went like this…

“Griffin’s message is this: He was innocent. He didn’t do what prosecutors said he did. He didn’t steer work to his longtime friend in exchange for cash. Even though he eventually pleaded guilty to a single charge of bribery, he didn’t do it, and he wishes now that he had stood up for himself and fought even harder.”

For the record, in 1997, Griffin was convicted of bribery and sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to a charge of trying to steer a $16 million casino-related contract to a consulting business owned by one of his allies, Cathryn Simmons. Griffin admitted in court that his deal with Simmons was that he would get a cut.

A few years before Griffin took his fall, a former state rep sat on my deck and said of Griffin: “He’s crooked.”

:: Thursday, Jan. 26, “Presidential coverage.”

This one is singular only because it should never have seen the light of print.

Here’s the letter of Frank Berry, Kansas City, in its entirety:

“CBS News is shooting itself in the leg. It matters not whether one agrees with candidate Ron Paul. Fair and impartial coverage is the issue.

“I, for one, will no longer view CBS News. And I’m sure there will be many others who are of like mind.”

What is the reader to make of this? Obviously, CBS aired something about Ron Paul that ticked off Berry. But what did it air and when, and exactly what did Berry find unfair? All of that should have been included to put the complaint in some sort of context.

Perhaps Berry did put it in, and Lewis Diuguid, the letters editor, edited it out. That’s unlikely, however. I think Diuguid simply was on autopilot and included a letter that made no sense — letter that should have gotten the “delete” treatment.

:: Tuesday, Jan. 24, “Loosen up slots in KC.”

This is one of the daffiest letters I’ve ever seen.

Citing news about the upcoming opening of a new casino in KCK, Larry Wilhite of Bonner Springs had some advice for casino managers everywhere.

“As a casual attendee at the casinos, I recommend that the slot machines allow a player to play longer on the money they feed into that machines.

“It seems now that a $20 bill fed into a quarter machine takes about five minutes to lose. I don’t mind losing $20 in the slot machines, but it is annoying to me that I can’t at least have minimum of 15 minutes of play for that amount. You hardly have time to sit down and relax and your twenty bucks is gone.

“Loosen up the machines and allow people’s money to last longer, even if the person ends up losing it in the long run.

“I think this is the biggest gripe among slot players — not being able to play as long as their $20 should allow.”

Kind of makes you want to hit your head a couple of times, doesn’t it, to see if it’s your brain that’s not functioning properly? But, then, after a second you realize it’s definitely Wilhite’s brain that malfunctioned.

When Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved “riverboat gaming” about 20 years ago, nobody thought about how fast they might lose their money; they just wanted an opportunity to lose their money…It was, “Get the boats in here as soon as possible!”

Larry, I’ve got news for you: The casino managers’ philosophy is the same as that of the late, great W.C. Fields (pictured above): “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.” 

The red-light-camera controversy, which ignited on Tuesday when The Star published a front-page story under the headline “Red-light cameras don’t add to safety,” is very weird.

Almost inexplicably weird.

Almost, I said, and that’s why I suggest you read on.

Darryl Forte

It appears to me, based largely on Wednesday’s follow-up article, which exposed some glaring mistakes in the study, that Police Chief Darryl Forte has taken his first belly flop into the mud since taking office last year.

I also believe that the Police Department came out with this badly flawed study because it was eager to make the traffic-camera program — which City Hall, not the Police Department, initiated two years ago — look like a big money grab by the city.

The real damage, unfortunately, was done by The Star’s first story, the one on Tuesday, which blared the tainted results of the Police Department study. That story was not only on the front page, it was the A1 “centerpiece,” accompanied by an image of a big traffic signal, with statistics printed inside the red, yellow and green lights.

The corrections — “additional data,” as the police called it — came out in a Star story on Wednesday. The problem is that the follow-up article was “buried” on page A4, where it probably was seen by a third or less of  the number of people who saw Tuesday’s front-page story.

In my opinion, KC Star editors should have put the follow-up story on the front page, too. It wouldn’t have had to be a centerpiece story, exactly matching the proportions of the first story, but the errors and omissions in the first article were so significant that the “fix” should at least have made the front page.

But the biggest transgressor here is not The Star; I don’t think the editors understood the significance of the screw-ups and what was behind the curious release of a police study bashing the traffic-camera program.

No, the biggest crook here is the Police Department, which conducted and released the study.

That’s where Forte comes into the picture. He wasn’t quoted or mentioned in either article, but certainly he reviewed the study and signed off on it before it was released.

Let’s take a step back now and look at two of the biggest problems with the study:

First: The initial version did not include the fact that “wrecks caused by red-light runners at the 17 intersections (where cameras are located) dropped from 52 wrecks before the cameras’ arrival to 24 wrecks in the second year after their arrival.”

That’s from the second-day story.

The gist of the first-day story was that the total number of wrecks at the 17 intersections increased after the cameras were installed. But that seemingly damning statistic took into account all wrecks — not just those resulting from red-light running. Many wrecks were rear-end jobs and or from right turns on red. Those types of wrecks result in far fewer serious injuries than the T-bone crashes caused by red-light runners.

The big problem at the camera-monitored intersections — and the main safety reason for installing the cameras — was to reduce red-light running and, consequently, the incidence of wrecks resulting from red-light running.

Holy crap! If the number of wrecks caused by red-light runners went down by more than half (which it apparently did), that alone justifies the installation of the cameras, in my opinion. Red-light runners are some of the most dangerous sons-of-bitches on the road, except for the criminals trying to elude police — and they’re running red lights, of course.

Second: The police study reported that officers had written about 200,000 camera-related tickets since January 2009. “At $100 a ticket,” The Star’s first story said, “these fines could bring in $20 million.” But officials with a private company that has a contract with the city to run the program, told the Board of Police Commissioners on Tuesday that police had issued about 150,000 tickets, which, at an average fine of $100, would have generated about$15 million.

Indeed, the program has proved to be a cash cow for the city, but apparently 25 percent less so than the police department portrayed it.

…And that brings us to this: Why would the Police Department want to trumpet the fact that the program is a cash cow for the city? And why would the department be so careless with numbers that portray the windfall as much bigger than it actually is?

My theory is that it stems from the ongoing bitterness between City Hall — which pays for the Police Department but has little say in its operations — and the Police Department, which thumbs its nose at the city and is run by a board of commissioners appointed by the governor.

For decades , the city has wanted to wrest control of the department from the state (a situation that goes back to the Pendergast days) so that it can hold the department’s feet to the fire on expenditures, priorities and policies.

Currently, City Hall and the Police Department are tangling over the issue of whether the PD should join the city’s health insurance plan, which would save the city, i.e., taxpayers, big bucks.

In an opinion piece last week, The Star’s Yael T. Abouhalkah wrote: “This has been discussed for years at City Hall, yet the goal of saving money for taxpayers has never gained traction with police officers who consider themselves special and want to keep their own insurance plan.”

The police, of course, want to keep things just as they are — less interference from that nettlesome city, don’t you know — and the chances of the Missouri General Assembly relinquishing state control of such a large and important function are probably about zero. I can’t foresee any circumstances under which the state would hand over the reins to KCMO.

So, here’s the scenario that is running through my head…

The traffic commander, whoever he is, brings the study to Chief Forte, and says, “Lookie here, chief, this traffic camera enforcement turns not to be all it was cracked up to be…wrecks everywhere and the money is pouring into City Hall.”

(Remember, as noted above, the private company that runs the program has a contract with the city, not the Police Department.)

And Forte replies, “Well, well, well, let’s put this report out as soon as possible; we’ll show Kansas Citians that our friends across the street are motivated only by the money they take in.”

Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know. Maybe the chief just didn’t ask enough questions of the traffic commander and wanted to go along with division leaders who had put a lot of time and effort into the study.

All I know is that it does make sense if mutual mistrust and teeth gnashing is at the root of it. The two things that the cops look for in trying to solve murders are what? Motive and opportunity.

They had both in “The Case of the Flawed Study.”

Get Sherlock Holmes in here.