• Home
  • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
  • Contact

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

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« A car chase with no end and a medical story missing a key source
Another Star sports reporter packs her pencil bag and moves on »

Dan, Dan the cigar man

September 3, 2018 by jimmycsays

The Star’s City Hall reporter, Bill Turque, reports this morning that the members of the Kansas City Council have spent more than $155,000 in taxpayer funds on travel between January 2016 through March of this year.

Council members have gone to Germany to promote the city’s jazz heritage; they’ve gone to sun-splashed places like Las Vegas, Hawaii and Palm Beach; and they’ve gone to big cities like Montreal, Charlotte and Dallas.

The headline on the front-page story asks this pivotal question about all that travel: “(W)as it worth it?”

Turque doesn’t answer the question himself, but high up in the story he quotes Councilman Scott Taylor, a minimalist when it comes to city-funded travel as saying…

“We have plenty of meetings to go to every night here in Kansas City that don’t cost a dime to go to and represent our constituents.”

I like Taylor’s reasoning, and that’s one reason I’ve contributed to his 2019 mayoral campaign.

Earlier this summer, Taylor introduced an ordinance that would have curtailed council travel, but his proposal got the wave-off. And so it died.

I’m hoping, though, that if Taylor is elected mayor and is able to resurrect that ordinance, he will make an exception on travel restrictions for a particular council member who has zeroed in on a particular country.

Counciman Dan Fowler

That’s Dan Fowler, 2nd District councilman, who has traveled to Cuba twice since 2016. Fowler’s goal, in Turque’s words, is to “make valuable ministry contacts to help connect Cuban and Kansas City markets.”

The first trip, Turque said, cost taxpayers $4,900 and was “the priciest trip by a single council member.”

Now, everybody knows the U.S. has had a trade embargo on Cuba for nearly 60 years, and, beyond that, President Trump imposed even tighter restrictions on trade and travel before Fowler’s most recent trip, last fall.

So, some people might wonder exactly what Fowler hopes to accomplish by spending thousands of dollars to make “valuable ministry contacts.”

…But, I’ll tell you, I think there’s more here than meets the eye.

I don’t have anything to back me up on this, but I suspect Fowler has a secret, beautiful agenda:

I think he’s trying to establish a back-channel conduit to get Cuban cigars from Havana to KC.

Not just a few cigars but lots and lots of cigars. Tens of thousands of cigars so that not only area residents but people who come to town to party in the Power & Light District or come to see Chiefs and Royals’ games, the Liberty Memorial and Union Station, and our many other attractions can also enjoy the finest cigars in the world.

(Attesting to the singular quality of Cuban cigars, before President John F. Kennedy imposed the trade embargo on Cuba in 1962, he had someone in his administration buy as many as many H. Upmann Cuban cigars as possible. The emissary returned with 1,200.)

Fowler has taken on a considerable challenge, of course, because even if he is able to firm up contacts in Cuba, he’ll have to figure out the logistics of getting a steady supply of Cubans (cigars, I mean) from there to here.

I imagine he’ll have to engage the owners of yachts, fishing vessels and maybe even rubber rafts to get the cigars from Havana to Florida. And from there it’ll take a mighty “underground railroad” consisting of planes, trains and automobiles to transport the goods from Florida to the Heartland.

A lot of “mules” are going to have to be hired, and they’ll have to be well paid to ensure their silence.

Not only that, but in setting up his retail network in Kansas City, Fowler will have to buy the silence of cigar sellers and have the retailers beg the buyers to stay mum about where they got their Cuban “sticks.”

Luckily for Kansas City, though, Fowler looks like a shoo-in for re-election next year, and he’ll have four more years to make numerous trips to Cuba to work out the kinks.

And think of the benefit to Kansas City. Why, we’d be the “Cuban Cigar Capital of the Country”!

Of course, we could only talk about that among ourselves because the whole dang enterprise would have to be on the down low.

But I’m pulling for Dan and his mission, and I’m hoping Mayor Scott Taylor will give him a wide berth on travel between 2019 and 2023 so he can get this operation up and running.

One request: Dan, if you’re taking orders yet, make mine Partagas.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

9 Responses

  1. on September 3, 2018 at 2:28 pm Bob Mayer

    Fitz,
    What the hell you smoking?
    And I don’t mean Cubans!
    Your supposition on Fowler is off the
    mark. Your just dreaming of a outcome
    you would like- more Cuban cigars.
    Not sure why Fowler explored Cuba via
    2 trips. Maybe he is fascinated by the culture?


  2. on September 3, 2018 at 3:23 pm gayle

    I KNEW you had a horse in this race …. a method to your madness.

    But has your wife approved adding the humidor to the back of the house?


    • on September 3, 2018 at 3:33 pm jimmycsays

      I don’t smoke ’em much any more, Gayle, unless I can find a Partagas from Havana. Last ones I found were in Athens in March. No humidor in the works.


  3. on September 3, 2018 at 5:40 pm Peg Nichols

    I’m no smoker, but when I went with a group to Cuba in 2004, it was made abundantly clear that as tourists we could take home Cuban cigars. I bought a whole box — sorry I cannot remember the name, maybe they were Partagas — at just under $100.00. (They were later auctioned off at a regional SPJ meeting.) Not a true jazz fan, I did attend a jazz event. Waiting in line at the entrance, a guy from Canada overheard in my conversation with friends a mention of Kansas City. He immediately jumped right in and began asking questions about the Kansas City Jazz Museum. Highlight of the trip for me was a stop at a famed coffee house, sometimes frequented by Hemingway, where I joined with a roomful of strangers in a spontaneous karaoke version of Mama Inez.


    • on September 3, 2018 at 5:49 pm jimmycsays

      Cuba’s a wonderful place…to visit. Dan Fowler should pay his own way, like you and I did, Peg.


  4. on September 3, 2018 at 6:30 pm Thomas Shrout Jr.

    Jim, I don’t have an informed opinion of the trips taken by the KC Council members. I would, though, offer this observation: I was involved in civic life in Missouri for over 50 years, mostly in the not-for-profit world. Travel dollars were precious and worthwhile. I would go to a couple of conferences a year, often arriving mid-morning of the opening day of the conference, after having taken the first flight in the morning to avoid a day in a hotel. Same idea for the return trip, taking the last flight out to St. Louis and skipping the last half day of the conference.

    Too often Missourians think the sun rises in St. Louis and sets in KC. A lot is happening elsewhere, and Missourians need to learn from what others are doing and risk slipping further behind. I seldom saw St. Louis officials at the conference I attended that were directly related to making cities better even when I hosted the conference once in St. Louis. I can directly track ideas I learned at conferences to funding for my organization that was enough to fund it for multiple years.

    Continuing education is important. Junkets are a waste. The trick is to know the difference.

    P.S. I loved Cuba and learned a lot. I don’t know how it might apply to KC.


    • on September 3, 2018 at 7:49 pm jimmycsays

      I hope some City Council members read your comment and take note, Tom.

      Councilman Jermaine Reed, a candidate for mayor, took 26 taxpayer-funded trips totaling more than $31,000 in expenses — about $9,000 more than the mayor.

      Twenty-six trips in a little over two years. That’s about one a month. That’s what you call “junketing.”


      • on September 4, 2018 at 7:30 am gayle

        A little under $1,200 per trip doesn’t make for a very long or extravagant trip. OTOH (there’s another pesky acronym for you), those little short jaunts can be refreshing and rejuvenating.


  5. on September 4, 2018 at 12:00 am Edward E Scott

    Emulation of Col. Fox, or Perry White @ Jimmycsays? Stop the presses, get me Kent, on the double!



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: