• Home
  • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
  • Contact

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

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’…Keep them big bills rollin’…
Civic Council dumps another 100k into the fray as Question 1 loses another endorsement »

Col. Sanders has whipped up a nasty batch of fried chicken

October 25, 2013 by jimmycsays

Funny how the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City works.

As you know, the organization of business and legal bigwigs dropped the proposed “translational research tax” on the County Legislature just weeks before the deadline for putting a measure on the Nov 5 ballot.

Said they had been working for months on details of the proposed $1 billion tax program and couldn’t present it to the Legislature until it was ready.

Well, you know what? They were telling the truth.

But they weren’t “working” on it in any conventional process. No, they were working on it through the campaign contribution process.

Last night I checked the last three years’ worth  of County Executive Mike Sanders‘ campaign disclosure reports.

You won’t believe what I found, and we’ll bring that to you right after this commercial br…

Oh, wait, this isn’t TV, I can tell you right now!

During the last three years, individuals, companies and consultants who are involved in the translational sales-tax campaign have contributed nearly $65,000 to Sanders’ campaign committee.

The committee currently has about $260,000 on hand, and it is no secret that Sanders aspires to statewide office.

Now, you can’t get to one of the big offices in the State Capitol without a lot of financial help, and the folks who want Jackson County residents to approve this tax increase have paid handsome homage to Sanders.

In turn, Sanders gladly accommodated the civic titans when they came to him sometime this year (who knows when?) and asked him to support their plan for a new 20-year sales tax to pay for this extravagant and risky research program.

Also a gleam in the eyes of civic leaders was a proposed new Hospital Hill building that would house a Translational Medicine Institute of Jackson County.

…Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Makes me picture room after room of translators working with people of various nationalities, trying desperately to get to the bottom of those people’s medical complaints.

Anyway, Sanders obliged the bigwigs and pressed the County Legislature to put the sales-tax proposal on the November ballot.

The cowardly legislature then did its part, voting 7-2 on Aug. 26 — the day before the deadline — to put Jackson County Question 1 on the ballot.

**

Now, reports are circulating that infighting has been occurring within the proponents’ campaign committee, the Committee for Research, Treatments and Cures.

That wouldn’t surprise me at all. Five or six different consulting groups are drawing down fantastic fees to try to pull the wool over the public’s eyes, and — except for my Irish buddy Pat O’Neill — some bloated egos are bouncing around at campaign HQ.

colsanders

The Colonel

In short, Col. Sanders has cooked up a particularly greasy batch of fried chicken, and almost all the key people on the proponents’ side — including the civic leaders who have tossed hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaign kitty — are trying to figure out how to get out of the frying pan.

Well, the hot oil is of the Civic Council’s making. Its members, along with Col. Sanders, ambushed the County Legislature, and now they’re trying to take Jackson County taxpayers for a ride. But thanks to a stout organized opposition that has emerged in recent weeks, the public has caught on, and many residents are infuriated.

What Civic Council members had hoped would be an intense but smooth, nine- or 10-week campaign has become a big street fight. The civic set didn’t bargain on that, and they don’t like it. Sure, they’ve got their gladiators, the horde of consultants, but the gladiators are just hired hands; they’re getting paid regardless of the outcome.

As I’ve said before, though, we — the opponents — have passion and extremely strong arguments on our side, and we are relishing the street fight. Not only that, we think we know who’s going to win.

…Now, here’s that list of individuals and companies that have given Sanders money during the last three years and are now involved in the Question 1 campaign in some way. (I could be off a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars because I just finished the review an hour or so ago — before I started writing this — and I’m dead tired.)

Burns & McDonnell engineering company — $20,000
Polsinelli law firm — $12,500
KCP&L — $11,500
Husch Blackwell law firm — $6,000
JE Dunn Construction — $4,500
Steve Dunn (Dunn Construction) — $750
Terrence Dunn (Dunn Construction) — $750
Tom McDonnell, retired from DST — $2,500
Pat O’Neill, consultant — $2,250
Pete Levi, Polsinelli — $1,350
Robert Kipp, retired from Hallmark — $1,000
Steve Glorioso, consultant — $600
Jewel Scott, Civic Council exec. director — $500
Lockton Companies — $500

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

4 Responses

  1. on October 25, 2013 at 10:04 am John Altevogt

    I’m telling you, you’ve done your finest work since leaving The Star. You should go hunt down Karen Dillon and some of the 60 – 80 reporters Dillon claimed were bounced and create a competing newspaper. If you just let your reporters do what you’ve done since you retired I’d buy the damn thing. Start as a weekly and have everyone contribute one good local story until you get on your feet and you should be rocking in no time. Think of it, 50 quality articles liberated of the constraints of kissing the local establishment’s ass, or regurgitating some idiot’s press release. Who wouldn’t want to read that?


    • on October 25, 2013 at 10:18 am jimmycsays

      Thanks, John…Good to hear from you.

      It would be fun and challenging to start and run such an operation, but, you know, I’m 67 and don’t really like working hard every day. Never did, really, but I had to do it, as most of us do, to muddle along.

      After Nov. 5 it’s back to golf and subbing in the Shawnee Mission School District.


  2. on October 25, 2013 at 11:54 am John Altevogt

    If 50 of you did one important story a week it would be outstanding and you could still have other gigs on the side.


  3. on October 27, 2013 at 9:04 pm jimmycsays

    Correction: When I wrote and posted this blog, I said that Mike Sanders “seems to have disappeared” from the campaign trail, choosing instead to send representatives to in favor of the proposal.

    Steve Glorioso, a consultant for the proponents, sent me an email this weekend, saying that Sanders spoke twice last week, at the Raytown Chamber of Commerce and John Knox Village.

    I should have checked with him before writing. I apologize for the careless reporting.



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: