• Home
  • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
  • Contact

JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Come to your senses, Civic Council, and accept this practical alternative to your proposed half-cent sales tax
Roaring River and the captivating world of fly fishing »

Committee growing; treasurer going on vacation

September 8, 2013 by jimmycsays

I’m headed to Colorado today to visit my old buddy Hubartos vanDrehl, the Prince of Paonia and self-described  “Zen-DaDa libertarian” and “charismatic underachiever.”

Regrettably, Hubartos has a bad case of the blues, and I plan on doing some listening and hope to cheer him up a bit. We’ve known each other since we were introduced as four-year-olds — each of us cowering behind his mother’s skirt — on Ruth Avenue in Louisville, Kentucky.

…But back to business. Before heading west, I wanted to give you an update on the Committee to Stop a Bad Cure. A dozen people have accepted my invitation to join on as committee members. So, it’s no longer a Committee of One.

Patty told me last week:

“If you’re going to have a committee, you’ve got to have people on it…Get cracking!”

I might have misquoted her on the “get cracking” part, but that’s what she meant. As always, her advice was sound. Some of the better stuff that you’ll hear coming out of my mouth, you’ll be able to attribute to her brain. (The stupid stuff will be all mine.)

Let me introduce our new committee members:

Pat Russell, Kansas City
Don Biggs, Kansas City (a former Kansas state senator, by the way)
Donald Hoffmann (former KC Star architecture critic)
Joe Arthur, Lee’s Summit
Richard Arthur, Lee’s Summit
Jim Gottsch, Kansas City
Jim and Sarah Weitzel, Kansas City
Claudia Freiburghouse, Kansas City
Patty Fitzpatrick (well, you know…)
Tom Minges, Kansas City
Kate Beem, Independence (another former Star staffer)

Welcome aboard, folks, I have a feeling it’s going to be a fun and wildly successful ride.

Down with the Civic Council Sales Tax!

***

People ask me what kind of campaign will we have…Quite simply, we’re going to have a low-budget, strategic campaign that will disembowel the other side’s empty-suit proposal.

We plan to have yard signs, door hangers and some other paid media that I don’t want to disclose right now. (Keep your eyes open, though, around early October.)

We will have a spectacular website — StopaBadCure.org — which should go up next week.

A brilliant young man named Jimmy Koppen is working with me on the logo and website…I’ve  known for a long time that Jimmy was brilliant, but he sealed it when he told me to dump the cigar-and-straw-hat-photo for purposes of the campaign.

fitz at fountainOf course, the opposition will probably splash the cigar-smokin’/high-ridin’-dude photo on billboards all over town, saying things like:

“Can you trust a cigar-smoking former reporter to give you the straight story?”

I don’t care, I tell you!!!

I gave up cigars about a month ago, but I’m proud of that photo. (A buddy named Greg Corwin took it in 2010 at the J.C. Nichols Fountain.) In fact, I just enlarged it on the “About Me” page. So, go ahead, Glorioso-Gray-O’Neill-Roe and all you other bought-and-paid-for consultants, play it up big!

And if you want to bring up the only blemish on my journalistic career — a 25-year-old incident recalled by some as Asphaltgate — have at it!

…The gist of it was that Kansas City Public Works crew offered to fill potholes for $30 at some guy’s service station at 59th and Swope Parkway. He told them to come back later. The guy then called The Star and was transferred to me. I went out there and stupidly agreed — as the crew approached the station — to provide the 30 bucks. The asphalt guys ended up getting fired, and then-editor Art Brisbane wrote a column in the paper, admonishing me (without naming me) and apologizing to the public.

It all blew over in a few weeks, but The Star rewrote its Ethics Policy to specifically prohibit paying for news.

The way I look at it, I played a big role in raising the ethics bar at my beloved paper.

Now that I laid that out there, I’m trying to think of what else the opposition might use to try to embarrass me…But I’m drawing a blank.

I did have a long and relatively happy bachelorhood (until I got so lonely I thought I was going to die).

But who could hold it against a guy that he enjoyed himself during The Sexual Revolution?

***

P.S. The committee needs money ($$$$!) to get its message out and defeat the Civic Council Sales Tax on Nov. 5. I have contributed $3,500 of personal funds to the effort. So far, the committee has received just one other contribution — $95 from a CPA who lives in Independence. Thank you!

Please consider contributing. You can send send checks to:

Committee to Stop a Bad Cure
1209 W. 64th Terr
Kansas City, MO 64113

I guarantee you one thing: Your money will be put to good use.

Jim Fitzpatrick, treasurer

See you in a week!

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

One Response

  1. on September 9, 2013 at 9:12 pm chuck

    Have a great trip!



Comments are closed.

  • Pages

    • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
    • Contact
  • Archives

    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 511 other followers

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×
    %d bloggers like this: