Yael Abouhalkah had a very interesting column in yesterday’s Star, in which he touched on some of the biggest challenges facing Kansas City Mayor Sly James at the halfway point of his first term.
First off, Abouhalkah said James is in great position to get re-elected in 2015 because “no current City Council member comes close to matching the wattage of James’ personality or his ability to influence policies and programs at City Hall.”
In the past (with the notable exception of James in 2011), the strongest candidates for mayor generally have come from the council’s ranks, and none of this council’s other members seems to be establishing a high profile for himself or herself.
Some of the major challenges that Abouhalkah listed were:
— Construction of a new, single terminal at KCI
— Proposed local control of the KCPD
— City Hall pension reform
In brief, here’s what Yael had to say about each of those issues…and my observations (not as brief).
Single terminal
Yael: “If it (the single-terminal concept) remains as unpopular as it seems with a large contingent of Kansas Citians, James could face a possible defeat on a major issue.”
Me: Organized opposition to a single-terminal is growing, with the formation of a Save KCI! (savekci.com) group, and letters to the editor continue to tilt heavily to the status quo. Yesterday, the City Council voted 9-3 to move ahead with further planning for construction of a new, single terminal. The mayor voted with the majority, but it appears that he has begun equivocating on his previous strong stance in favor of a single terminal.
In a report on the meeting, KSHB-TV, Channel 41, said that James “admitted he is not completely sold on the current proposal, but said since Kansas City is not obligated to anything at this point, the process needs to continue.”
I don’t think James’ position on this issue will be a major factor in whether he gets re-elected. If he is going to establish himself as a strong leader on difficult issues, however, and if he wants to be remembered as a bold and farsighted mayor, he needs to stay out front for a single terminal and resist the impulse to assuage those who are steadfastly parochial and nostalgic about KCI.
If you’ve traveled to just a few other major airports in the U.S., you know that KCI sucks by comparison in just about every aspect except the distance between parking and gate. Now, that is an important consideration, but the facts…that KCI is way too expensive from a security standpoint and that it’s a HOLLOW, DARK, BORING, ANTIQUATED PIECE OF SHIT... far outstrip the convenience factor.
The correct call on KCI is as clear as it was on Sprint Center and the Power & Light District. If Mayor Kay Barnes hadn’t led courageously and pushed hard for those two massive attractions, Downtown would be a fuckin’ wasteland, and we would be well below Omaha (not to mention St. Louis, Denver and Louisville) in the category of downtown venues that attract tourists and area residents.
It seems abundantly clear that if we don’t get a modern airport within the next several years, usage of KCI will continue to drop dramatically and the airlines will shift many flights to other cities.
Don’t let us down on this, Sly. This isn’t a re-election issue; it’s a legacy issue. Do you want to be remembered as a big, energetic guy with a big personality — another H. Roe Bartle — or as a mayor who catapulted us into the ranks of big cities with great airports?
Local control of KCPD
Yael: “The mayor appears ready to embrace local control of the Police Department…But if the panel (a commission he has appointed) balks at local control — or the (Missouri) legislature gives James the cold shoulder next year — the mayor could lose out on a key issue of how taxpayers finance public safety.”
Me: Again, I don’t think this is a big deal either way as far as the mayor’s chances of getting re-elected. (Can we just acknowledge that he’s going to serve six more years?)
But, just as with the single terminal at KCI, local control is an issue whose time has come. In fact, it came about 15 years ago, but the police bureaucracy has such a stranglehold on operations and on the Board of Police Commissioners that it’s been difficult for the advocates of progress to get any traction. James has wedged a foot in the door with the appointment of the panel to review the idea, but my guess is that the police hierarchy (along with just about every brain-washed, puffed-up police board member who has served during the last 30 years) will stamp their feet and holler so long and loud that the change agents will back off for another decade.
Sly James just might end up leading the local-control retreat, too…If he does, it will be another missed opportunity to be remembered as a gutsy, decisive mayor whose first interest was the taxpayers, not police commanders or the fat-cat commissioners appointed by Missouri governors.
Pension reform
Yael: “He (James) is still working to reform the unsustainable pensions for firefighters, police officers and other city employees — almost 18 months after a citizens commission delivered a how-to report on the issue in late 2011. The cost to taxpayers for retirement benefits has reached $60 million annually, up from $54 million two years ago.”
Me: Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Turn on the laugh tracks…Pension reform involving the firefighters? After James rode high and tall in a fire truck at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade a week before the 2011 election? And after he donned a bright red KCFD jacket after the JJ’s tragedy and said, famously, “Fire (department) doesn’t do gas.” ????
Mayor Sly James and Fire Chief Paul Berardi after the JJ’s explosion
The chances of meaningful pension reform involving the fire department during the next six years are slim and none.
The next mayor, though? The unfortunate, winning candidate who succeeds James?
Well, the pension situation will be at crisis point by then; the new mayor and City Council will have to do some incredible belt-tightening and make some mighty unpopular moves; and they’ll all serve one term and be thrown out of office.
Thanks in advance, Sly.
***
Editor’s note: You’ll recall that I wrote about the steps taken by the North Kansas City Mayor and City Council to put in motion a possible sale of North Kansas City Hospital. Well, last night KCPT ran a nine-minute piece, reported by special correspondent Sam Zeff. It featured, among other things, an interview with me, as well as video of Patty’s clothing manufacturing business on Swift Avenue. Here’s the link. If you watch it, I think you’ll find it interesting.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
This is way outta my pay grade, but as I understand it, the P&L cost the city around 12 to 15 million a year. The cost of the new KCI for the local tax base is yet to be determined (Once again, this is just what I am reading here and there.) The mayor’s new Toy Train, as TKC (tonyskansascity.com) calls it, looks like an absolute disaster. I would direct those folks to last week’s RUCKUS, where the eminent Crosby Kemper III destroyed the argument for that same Toy Train in 5 minutes. Really, it was pretty impressive.
The pension crisis notwithstanding, I would think that the mayor and City Council should focus their attention on sewers, streets et. al. and leave vanity projects to the next mayor fortunate enough to be elected during better economic conditions.
Increasing tax burdens on an ever-decreasing middle class and tax base in KC seems counterproductive overall, pernicious in the long term and designed to add a patina of accomplishment over a city structure that is literally and metaphorically failing.
Bringing in local control for the KCPD would seem at first blush, to add another union like the firefighter union, whose control over local politics and politicians provides us all the opportunity to pine for the good ol’ days when Tom Pendergast and then the Mafia had a voice in local politics.
The Sprint Center seems to be the crown jewel in the city’s efforts and renewal recently, but the other day Smartman put me in my place and explained how even that effort is marginal and the cost to the citizens is too much.
I am reminded every time now, when these initiatives come up, of the CATO Institute’s study on Pro Sports and the payoff for local cities.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/09/24/is-the-age-of-the-publicly-funded-sports
Speaking of the CATO Institute, we would all, in my opinion, be much better stewards of public monies if our politicians spent more time studying the efficacy of huge investments on any public project by UNINTERESTED and UNBIASED outsiders before investing. The CATO boys killed the KCMSD with this report, and it is noteworthy to me, because it illuminates the lack of success ANY initiative will have, if MONEY is the perceived panacea.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-298.html
Thanks for cleaning up my comment today Fitz.
Just had an opportunity to watch the video concerning North Kansas City Hospital. Powerful statement to the politicians to come to heel in the face of a constituent revolt, or else.
Hope the good guys win on that one and your cameo was impressive, informational and convincing.
I am curious about the 180 degree difference of opinion concerning the state of the city’s finances. I am also enjoying the word “Structural” in an economic context, with respect to a city’s finances. The locals in office are all stealing each other’s talking points, never a good sign.
Sorry we dissagree on so many other initiatives, I am old and think it is time to get our city’s finances back into the black.
:)
Looks like the comment field is wide open for you and me, Chuck. I’m despondent and disappointed because I thought this one would generate a lot of comments; I hope apathy isn’t setting in among the JimmyC readership, and I hope I’m not getting boring.
Besides commenting, thanks for watching the KCPT piece. Patty congratulated me, too, but she was a little irritated because she said it appeared that I was running the company (WomenSpirit)! My only regular job up there is taking the cardboard to the recycling center every few weeks and offering some encouraging words to the staff whenever I pop in after getting donuts at Judi’s on North Burlington.
…I am interested in seeing what happens on those three issues. One thing about the new terminal…The Aviation Department is one of two “enterprise” departments (along with Water and Sewer Services) that pay their own way with funds generated by departmental services. The Aviation Department gets most of its income from fees charged to the airlines that use the airport. So, I don’t think there would be much, if any, direct cost to the taxpayers for the new terminal, hard as that is to believe. The fees that the airlines pay are huge.
These big ticket items that seem to have so much momentum in the beginning, based on economic forecasts which in the end prove to be unjustified and, in fact make you feel like an idiot for not seeing the promotion of the initiative itself as logical fallacies and disingenuous legerdemain designed to obfuscate the issue (Pro Sports Stadiums, Toy Trains etc.) until the vote is in.
I love the Chiefs and the Royals, but in retrospect, looking at the payoff based on the research done by the Cato Institute and others, it looks like a very marginal pay off, if at all there even IS a payoff for local folks in the city where the stadiums are built.
Choosing the Toy Train, or KCI, or Sports Stadiums for the city, which make such enormous use of tax payer funds, should be a decision citizens make based on unbiased information. I would vote for the stadiums because I like sports, even if the payoff was marginal, but the info given to the general public is rife with exagerations and expectations based on performance which are not true now, nor were they true then.
This general voter malaise you speak of with regard to KCI is earned by way of dissapointment and non performance from our local and national politicians concerning the heretofore mentioned initiaives, which in turn lighten our pocketbooks and diminish our respect for the process.
Just my opinion.
Sly James is an IDIOT! Council Members need an IQ boost to ascend to the level of idiot. I’m open to debating any of them in any public forum on any topic. With my superior Socratic debating skills I will allow them the honor of showing the interested public how stupid they really are. My only request is that Fitz and Chuck moderate.
P&L and Sprint Center? Horsesh_t? The revitalization plan for downtown was nothing more than lipstick on a pig. With each passing year the failure is easier to see. Something needed to be done but the plan that was implemented was the wrong one. Downtown Omaha is far superior to the stink hole we’ve been given with Kay’s Barn and the P&L, actually it should be called the No P and Lots of L district.
Off topic somewhat but even billionaire Phil Anschutz woke up and smelled the free trade organic coffee and whacked Tim Lie-Weekly, who in consort, perhaps even physical, allegedly, with Ribbon Cuttin’ Kay gave us all the 100 million dollar rim job we call the revitalized downtown.
We have an infrastructure problem that needs immediate attention.
Short term plan for KCI is easy. Shut down Terminal A. KCI can be operated out of two improved terminals for at least the next 15-20 years.
Public schools are an absolute joke.
Downtown train is a bigger joke. I have yet to see any pro forma business plan or economic impact study that justifies its’ construction.
Easy way to solve the pension problem is to begin a phase out plan that makes all public employees ultimately responsible for their own retirement…….just like the rest of us. The BS of retiring after 20-25 years of service has got to go. No reason you can’t continue to work past 50, 60 or 70. My random observation of most PD, FD and City Hall employees is that they are not the healthiest bunch to begin with so why not take one for the taxpayer and die on the job instead of sucking off the Cowtown teats you useless public serpents.
We have a serious cultural problem with black youth and the black community in this city.
A real leader with some real balls would take the bull by the horns on these issues and not play patty-cake with them. As a group the mayor and council lack the courage, intellect and business acumen to effectively run and manage a city. They bring to life the cliche, those that can do, those that can’t teach, those that can’t teach go into politics. From what I can see none of them have accomplished much in their lives other than getting elected. This bunch makes former disgraced council member Michael Hernandez look like Anthony Villaraigosa.
No CEO material among them. Cindy Circo was giving mani-pedis until her now ex husband got the weight of local 42 behind her. These idiots don’t even have the courage of their convictions to tell us what happened to the $15K given to Ossco Bolton and POSSE? They know. They want to avoid some institutional and cultural embarrassment. And what about the fax machine and the JJ’s permit? Who in the hell faxes anything anymore? Seems like everything stopped being up to date in Kansas City in 1970.
The best possible thing that could happen at this point is that the nuke Kim Jong Un has targeted for Austin goes off course and hits city hall during a full council session. It’s unfortunate to call for such a tragedy but as Ron White says, you can’t fix stupid.
Some news–
http://www.pitch.com/FastPitch/archives/2013/04/17/north-kansas-city-election-seen-as-referendum-on-hospital-sale-discussion
Good eye, Chuck…I don’t recall The Star covering that election with an eye toward the hospital issue. It’s very telling that all the incumbents who were up for re-election were voted out. The result could make the sale issue effectively moot, regardless of how the Clay County lawsuit gets resolved.