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

New Year’s Eve is probably my favorite day of the year.

Sure, I love Christmas and Christmas Eve, and July 4 and my birthday and Kentucky Derby Day. But to make it to the doorstep of a new year has always been most exciting for me.

If you’re fortunate enough to be in good health and of sound mind, the new year sprawls out like a long carpet. You don’t know where it will lead; all you know is that carpet is not going to be nearly as straight as it looks on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. There will be a lot of digressions and diversions, bumps and rolls. But it’s exciting to peer ahead, nevertheless.

One of my favorite parts of New Year’s Eve is the Times Square Ball Drop. Patty and I don’t always get to see it because we like to go out and be out for the turn of the calendar. (I expect that to be the case tonight. We’re meeting friends for a late dinner in Parkville and on the way back might drop by KC Live! in the Power & Light District and then Union Station.)

On Dec. 30, 2003, workers tested a 1,070-pound, six-foot diameter Waterford Crystal ball. The ball is suspended from a 77-foot flagpole atop the One Times Square building, about 400 feet above Times Square.

For me, the Times Square Ball Drop captures an uninhibited, unconditional embrace of the new year. The beaming faces on those tens of thousands of people (the vast majority of them young and with strong bladders) says everything about the joy of being alive at the end of one year, poised to plunge into the new one.

Another thing about the Ball Drop that warms my heart — and many of you might be only vaguely aware of this — is that we owe its existence to journalism, particularly to The New York Times.

Blogger Kate Kelly tells the story of how the tradition got its start…

The first New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square occurred in 1904, just after The New York Times had relocated to a new building in what had been known as Longacre Square. Publisher Adolph Ochs had successfully pushed for a renaming of the district, and the triangular area where the new building sat at the intersection of 7th Avenue, Broadway, and 42nd Streets has since then been known as Times Square.

That year Ochs sponsored a party to beat all parties to celebrate the new location. An all-day street festival was capped off with a fireworks display, and there were thought to have been 200,000 people in attendance. The Times continued to sponsor a New Year’s Eve event in the area, and New Yorkers soon began going to Times Square instead of ringing in the new year at Trinity Church as had been the previous custom.

The Times soon outgrew the building in the heart of Times Square and has since moved a couple of times. It is still in the area, however, and, more important, the name of the world’s best newspaper has and always will be associated with the biggest New Year’s celebration of all.

**

Tonight, fittingly, a group of journalists will ring in the New Year in Times Square.

As the official special guests, the group will appear on stage with the Committee to Protect Journalists and will push the button that starts the lowering of the great ball, which is covered with 2,688 Waterford Crystal triangles and illuminated by 32,000 LED lights.

Perhaps the best known journalist on stage will be NBC’s Lester Holt, the anchor who interviewed President Donald Trump in May about his firing of FBI director James Comey. (One of the more remarkable quotes from that interview was this from Trump: “I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story.” Later, of course, he denied that the Russia investigation had anything to do with his firing of Comey.)

When I watch the ceremony, however — whether it be live or recorded — I’ll be focusing on lower-profile journalists like Karen Attiah and Alisyn Camerota.

Attiah is the global opinions editor of The Washington Post. In that role she oversaw the work of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post contributing writer who was murdered and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two months ago.

Camerota is an anchor at CNN, the network that in September was among targets of explosive devices allegedly mailed by a wild-eyed, unhinged Trump supporter named Cesar Sayoc.

**

Of all the crazy forays President Trump has embarked on — like insisting on building “The Wall” and refusing to acknowledge global warming — his attempt to denude and emasculate our free press might represent the biggest threat to the future of our democracy.

Tonight, then, in addition to celebrating the dawning of a new year, let’s give thanks for a free press. And tomorrow and for all of 2019, let’s do all we can to support the continuation of that cherished and invaluable American institution.

Happy New Year, everyone! Whatever you do tonight, have a great time and stay as safe as you can…

Read Full Post »

Just six months ago, David Jungerman was seeking an accelerated trial date and complaining he was wasting much of what remains of his life in jail.

Now, though, with his Feb. 25 trial date much closer than it was then, Jungerman seems to have changed his tune.

Four days before Christmas, his attorney filed a motion asking for a mental competency determination from the Missouri Division of Mental Health.

Specifically, the motion seeks a determination as to “whether the defendant has the capacity to understand the proceedings against him or to assist in his own defense” and “an opinion as to whether the defendant has a mental disease or defect and the duration thereof.”

We could see this coming, couldn’t we?

Jungerman

The way this dangerous old man has conducted himself the last 30 years stands as strong evidence that he is an irrational person who flagrantly flouts not only societal norms but also the law. Consider that he has…

— shot at least three people encroaching on his northeast Kansas City business

— fired a warning shot at a man he believed had stolen pipe from his property

— held several teenagers at gunpoint after he caught them on his property in Raytown

And, finally, since March he has stood charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Kansas City lawyer Thomas Pickert, who had won a big civil award for one of the prowlers Jungerman had shot.

…You’ll note I said Jungerman is irrational. That’s not to say he is suffers from a mental disease or that he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

I believe in each instance he knew exactly what he was doing. His problem is he believes that if someone — anyone — does anything he views as a threat to his money or his property, he’s entitled to go into offensive mode, locked and loaded.

He told me so himself, after a court hearing in an unrelated case earlier this year. Outside the courthouse in Nevada, MO, he said he firmly believed in “the castle doctrine,” which he succinctly described this way: “You come in my house, I’m going to blow your ass away.”

Jungerman thinks he’s funny, too. For example, when police asked him whether he was shooting at the man he believed had stolen pipe from him, Jungerman insisted it was a warning shot, saying, “Missing him would have hurt my pride.”

Only when it suits his needs does he claim to have mental problems…In the civil trial where Thomas Pickert represented one of the men Jungerman had shot (resulting in the man losing a leg to amputation), Jungerman claimed his thinking had been cloudy since he fell and hit his head on concrete several years ago.

Yeah, sure.

…Judge David Byrn has not ruled on the motion for a mental exam. I think he almost certainly will grant the motion, however, and I also believe state psychiatrists will conclude he suffers from no apparent mental disease or defect and will find him competent to stand trial.

If, by some chance, they determine he does suffer from mental disease or defect, do not worry; this man is not going free. He would change his plea from “not guilty” to “not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.” If a jury found him not guilty for that reason, he would be committed to the Fulton State Hospital, the facility for defendants found not guilty, or unable to stand trial, by reason of mental disease or defect.

This change of direction by Jungerman looks to me like the start of a delaying action. When the state has overwhelming evidence — which I think it has in the Pickert case — a defendant’s best option is to delay, delay, delay. Let evidence get stale, hope witnesses get cold feet. Whatever. Just forestall prosecution as long as possible.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this trial will still start Feb. 25, as scheduled. But don’t be surprised if it doesn’t.

Read Full Post »

I meant to write earlier about the death of Lloyd “Jim” Kissick III, president of Kissick Construction Co., but got sidetracked on other things.

Yesterday, though, after running into his nephew and business partner Pete Browne, whom I’ve had the privilege of getting to know in recent years, I came away knowing I had to pay written tribute to Jim.

This is a two-part story. The first is about Jim; how I met him; and his rise as a contractor. The second is about my final “encounter” with Jim. It occurred, oddly enough, after his death. (I know it sounds crazy but, please, read on.)

**

Like everyone who knew Jim, I was shocked to hear he had died suddenly on Saturday, Dec. 8, at his Leawood home. He was only 68 and had been in good health. (Pete says he has not heard if a specific cause of death has been determined.)

I met Jim when I was a young reporter covering the Jackson County Courthouse from 1971 to 1978. In the mid-70s, Jim, an MU graduate, became Jackson County Public Works director, which meant he was in charge of all county facilities and oversaw county infrastructure projects, such as road and bridge construction. At the time, he was in his mid- to late-20s and was overseeing a staff of more than 100 people.

I recall Jim as friendly, handsome and modest. He carried himself with confidence, and he was serious about his work. A lot of good-looking, smart women worked at the courthouse, and such a one was Cece Ismert, an animated blond, who was a receptionist in the county executive’s office.

Cece hadn’t been at the courthouse very long before Jim moved right in on her. They were an instant match; they married in 1979; and they remained married for the next 39 years. Along the way, they had three sons and six grandchildren.

Jim Kissick (left) and Pete Browne

On the career front, Jim took a pivotal step in 1994, when he and Pete started Kissick Construction. Jim’s obit says, “Taking a gamble on himself, he decided to take a leap of faith and invest nearly every dollar he had into starting the company, despite having three young children at home.”

The gamble paid off. Over the years, Kissick Construction expanded steadily. It is now a $100-million-dollar-a-year firm with more than 400 employees, specializing in earthwork, utilities, structural concrete and foundation piling.

From a distance, I admired the growth of Kissick Construction. Whenever I would see a Kissick truck, with the strong and distinctive, black and gold logo, I would think about how far he had come as an entrepreneur.

**

That brings me to my final encounter, if you will, with Jim.

I knew from the obit that the funeral was taking place at 10 a.m. last Saturday at St. Peter’s Catholic Church. I flirted with the idea of going but ended up not going. So, I forgot about it.

When Saturday came along — warm and sunny — I decided to play golf at Swope Memorial.

About 11:30 I started from home, going east on Meyer Boulevard. When I got to Holmes Road, where the church is, barriers were blocking passage on Meyer, police were standing around and a funeral procession was getting started.

‘Kissick!” it dawned on me.

Briefly I felt guilty about going to play golf when Jim was being hauled to his grave. But my thoughts quickly switched to surmounting this unexpected inconvenience. (Funny thing about golf…Once you decide to play, you become 100 percent consumed with getting to the first tee and sticking the tee in the ground.)

In seconds, I came up with Plan B. I knew this was going to be a long procession and didn’t want to wait. So, I went north a block to 63rd Street and headed east, planning to take that a few miles to Swope Parkway and then go south to the Meyer Boulevard entrance to Swope Park.

I raced along (by my slo-go standards, anyway), convinced I was going to outrun the procession. But — confound it! — after making the turn onto Swope Parkway I saw the funeral procession. It had beaten me to the park entrance by a minute or two.

Now, I was really up against it. But knowing that area like I do, I was determined not to be thwarted. A new plan quickly came together: I would retreat to 63rd Street and take it all the way to I-435. Then I’d go south on 435 to Gregory and then enter the park through the “back door,” going west on Gregory.

Off I went, really speeding now, going all of maybe 40 to 45 miles an hour…Got to 435; made a right; got off at Gregory and headed west.

I hadn’t been on Gregory for 15 seconds when I saw, straight ahead of me, coming eastbound — YES! — the damned funeral procession. (Sorry, Jim.)

It was the very front of the procession, and a motorcycle policeman was energetically waving me and a few other cars to the shoulder of the road.

At that point I surrendered. I relaxed in my seat and thought: I am destined to watch Jim Kissick’s funeral procession…So be it.

In short order I was most grateful I had lost my race against the procession. Leading the procession were big, white Kissick construction trucks — some GMC, some Ford, but each one big, powerful and impressive.

One after another they came. Most carried several people, a few had one or two. I was counting at first, and then I quit counting. There were 60…80, maybe more. The stream of white trucks went on almost 10 minutes. What a testament, I realized, to what Jim had accomplished — along with the entire Kissick team, which he so valued and loved.

In a minute, I had gone from a frustrated driver to a humbled admirer of Jim Kissick’s legacy. As the last cars came by (several regular vehicles brought up the rear), I pulled back onto the roadway and slowly headed the last mile to the golf course.

Minutes later, I was standing on the first tee, breathing easily on a beautiful, Indian summer afternoon. About the same time, a fine man whom I had met more than four decades earlier was being laid to rest in Mount Olivet Cemetery on Blue Ridge Boulevard in Raytown.

It was good to have known you, Jim. I’m still racing, and, in the scope of things, not very far behind you.

Read Full Post »

I pound The Star a lot, but I think it’s clear my biggest beef is with its corporate owner, McClatchy. Most daily papers in the U.S. have depreciated and struggled with the overall downturn of the newspaper industry, but I have a particular, grating dislike for McClatchy because of what has happened to my and your daily paper under its watch.

But there are some good things taking place at The Star. Recently, for example, the paper has begun adding small bio boxes about the writers of local stories. Accompanying the text are photos of the writers and, in some cases, their phone numbers.

This is a small change, but it helps personalize the connection between reader and writer. I don’t know if it’s a McClatchy idea or a Star idea, but it’s refreshing, and I hope it helps The Star and McClatchy with their difficult transition from print to digital.

Here are several examples of the bio boxes that have begun appearing…

Cronkleton

Robert A. Cronkleton gets up very early in the morning to bring readers breaking news about crime, transportation and weather at the crack of dawn. He’s been at The Star since 1987 and now contributes data reporting and video editing.

Joe Robertson specializes in reporting on criminal and social justice. He works to tell the stories behind the stories, while covering breaking news of all kinds.

Tony Rizzo covers federal and state courts for The Kansas City Star, where he has been a reporter for more than 30 years. He is a Kansas City native and veteran of the U.S. Army.

Rice

Glenn E. Rice covers crime, courts and breaking news for The Kansas City Star, where he’s worked since 1988. Rice is a Kansas City native and a graduate of the University of Central Missouri.

Katy Bergen covers Kansas education for The Kansas City Star. She is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism.

Lynn Horsley reports on Johnson County for the Kansas City Star, focusing on government, politics, business development and battles over growth and change in the county. She previously covered City Hall in Kansas City for 19 years and has a passion for helping readers understand how government affects their lives

Mark Davis writes about business for The Kansas City Star with attention to Sprint, investing, the economy and scams. He has been a winner and finalist in national competitions held by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing.

Kite

Allison Kite reports on City Hall and local politics for The Star. She joined the paper in February 2018 and covered Midterm election races on both sides of the state line. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism with minors in economics and public policy from the University of Kansas.

Gary Bedore covers all aspects of Kansas basketball for The Star — the current team as well as former players and coaches and recruiting. He attended KU and was born and raised in Chicago, as well as Lisle, Ill.

Alex Schiffer has been covering the Missouri Tigers for The Star since October 2017. He came in second place for magazine-length feature writing by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association in 2018 and graduated from Mizzou in 2017.

Lynn Worthy covers the Kansas City Chiefs and NFL for The Star. A native of the Northeast, he’s covered high school, collegiate and professional sports in various regions of the country. He’s won awards for sports features and sports columns.

Pryor

Brooke Pryor covers the Kansas City Chiefs for the Kansas City Star, where she works to give readers a deeper understanding of the franchise and the NFL through daily stories, game coverage, and player profiles. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and grew up in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Jesse Newell — He’s won an EPPY (Editor & Publisher award) for best sports blog and previously has been named top beat writer in his circulation by AP’s Sports Editors; has covered KU sports since 2008. His interest in sports analytics comes from his math teacher father, who handed out rulers to Trick-or-Treaters each year.

Pete Grathoff — From covering the World Series to the World Cup, Pete has done a little bit of everything since joining The Star in 1997. He writes about baseball and has a quirky blog that augments The Star’s coverage of area teams.

Kerkhoff

Blair Kerkhoff has covered sports for The Kansas City Star since 1989.

**

Not much has to be said about Blair…Just about every Star reader knows who he is.

Read Full Post »

In ways big and small, The Star is not serving its readers well.

Let’s start with the big…

Health reporter Andy Marso must be one of the most frustrated reporters in America these days. He’s been onto a potentially big story for months, but he hasn’t had a shred of support from management to break the story open.

Andy Marso

Now, in the wake of his editors (and possibly McClatchy management) sitting on their hands, he’s in the unfortunate position of watching another paper, USA Today, break details of the story, even though it got to it long after Marso.

The gist of the story is that a 66-year-old Kingston, MO, man named Dale Farhner died as a result of an altercation last May with a VA Medical Center police officer.

Based on limited information, Marso has had two stories about this strange case, but neither story has run on the front page. They haven’t made the front page primarily because the VA has stonewalled The Star on records pertaining to the case, essentially tying Marso’s hands.

Marso got a tip about Farhner’s death the same month it happened, in May, and he has been hounding the VA to release records, including submitting a Freedom of Information Act request shortly after the incident occurred. The VA informed him it has 18 pages of written records, a video and an audio recording, but it has refused to turn over any information, citing the “open/pending status” of the case.

After several more denials during the intervening months, Marso had a story last Tuesday saying U.S. Senators Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt were seeking answers about Farhner’s death from VA Secretary Robert Wilkie.

Recently, USA Today got in on the story, and on Saturday Marso was reduced to reporting that paper’s account of what happened last May 10.

According to USA Today, the altercation started after an unnamed VA officer spotted Farhner driving the wrong way on the medical center grounds on East Linwood Boulevard. An internal report that USA Today got ahold of said Farhner “began making inappropriate gestures and physically threatening motions with his arm.” After Farhner struggled, the officer took him to the ground and handcuffed him. In the struggle or when he went to the ground, Farhner apparently suffered bleeding around the brain. He was treated at the VA and then transferred to KU Hospital, presumably where he was declared dead.

A significant part of Marso’s Saturday story was dedicated to his concerted effort to get the VA to turn over some or all of its records pertaining to the case. You can feel his frustration just reading the story.

So, what should The Star — and McClatchy, by extension — have done to help him?

It’s simple….simple but costly, and that’s why it hasn’t happened. As soon as the VA refused to hand over the records, The Star should have sued. Its chances of getting those records would have jumped appreciably if they’d hired an attorney.

Filing a suit is what the paper would have done back when The Star was under more aggressive and determined ownership — back when ownership took seriously its mission to uncover the truth about troubling situations like the one that occurred May 10 on East Linwood.

But now The Star has a broken-down, corporate owner that is limping along and that would probably hire a lawyer only to get itself a property tax break — like it did in 2015 when it sought a tax-abatement extension on its $200 million printing plant. But hire an attorney to force a government agency to hand over documents that are clearly in the public interest? No way!

…I tell you, it makes me sick. And I’d bet anything Marso lies awake at night thinking about his paper doing nothing while USA Today belatedly scratches and claws to get to the bottom of what should have been his story.

**

Now let’s turn to a couple of smaller examples, although just as telling in some ways.

Example No. 1

On Saturday, The Star ran a story on page 2A about a 30-year-old man named Antoine W. Anderson being charged with several felonies after he and another man broke into the home of a woman they had bought a car from the day before. It was a terrifying incident in which the woman was robbed and sexually assaulted at rifle point and her purse was taken. Like a lot of other readers, I’m sure, I wanted to know where this occurred. But from reporters Tony Rizzo and Glenn E. Rice, each of whom has about 30 years experience with The Star, all we learned was this occurred in Kansas City.

At 319 square miles, Kansas City is one of the largest cities in the country, geographically, and just saying Antoine Anderson “is accused of forcing his way into a Kansas City home” isn’t good enough. Rizzo and Rice are excellent reporters, but that’s just laziness.

Granted, a Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office press release does not say where in Kansas City the crime took place, nor does a “probable cause” statement filed by the Prosecutor’s Office. It would have been easy enough, however, to call the Kansas City Police Media Office, like I did, and ask for the location of the crime.

For the record...it took place in the 5500 block of East Smart Avenue, which is in far northeastern Kansas City, east of I-435 and just south of Winner Road.

(Fox4 TV has reported that Antoine Anderson’s brother, Antonio Anderson, has also been charged.)

Example No. 2

On Sunday and Monday, The Star ran on its front pages a two-part investigative story about widespread sex abuse in fundamentalist Baptist churches across the country. It’s a big story and well worth the space dedicated to it.

But, but, but…get this: The name of the main reporter on each story is Sarah Smith, and under her byline is her email address — ssmith@star-telegram.com.

I wonder, how many KC Star readers know where the Star-Telegram is?

And, I wonder, how many readers thought that with the word “star” in the email address The Kansas City Star was somehow involved?

Not a word in either story indicates the paper is in Fort Worth, TX. Like The Star, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is a McClatchy paper. That, too, is not indicated at the beginning or end of either story.

I would bet that if 100 Star subscribers were called at random and asked where a paper called “the Star-Telegram” is located, fewer than 15 would be able to give the correct answer.

…It would have been so simple — and so helpful to readers — to include a sentence at the top or bottom of each story, saying something like: “This report was prepared by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which, like The Star, is owned by the McClatchy Co.”

But when a newspaper is in decline, this is the kind of stuff you see. Big and small tell the same story.

Read Full Post »

In a recent court filing, Jackson County prosecutors have set out a definitive line of argument they intend to use at trial against David Jungerman.

At the request of prosecutors, Judge David Michael Byrn swept aside the strenuous and persistent objections of Jungerman’s lead defense attorney and given the state the right to secure testimony from officials at two banks, UMB and Blue Ridge Bank and Trust, where Jungerman apparently keeps millions of dollars in assets.

It has been clear from the beginning of this case that prosecutors cannot physically place Jungerman near the Brookside front yard of lawyer Thomas Pickert, who was gunned down Oct. 25, 2017, while talking on his cellphone after walking his two young sons to school.

Prosecutors do have, however, a mountain of circumstantial evidence — some of it created by Jungerman as he shuffled assets in an attempt to shield them after Pickert won a $5.75 million civil judgment against him while representing a trespasser Jungerman shot in 2012.

As a result of the shooting, the trespasser, Jeffery Harris, had to have a leg amputated.

David Jungerman at a court hearing last May

Within days of the July 2017 civil verdict, Jungerman began moving money held in his name and that of his business, Baby Tenda, which produces baby high-chairs.

Specifically, prosecutors said in the recent filing, “He began opening and closing accounts, creating purported ‘irrevocable’ trusts, and transferring money and real property to his daughter, Angelia Buesing, his ex-wife Sandra Jungerman, and to other third parties.”

For decades, Jungerman, a gun nut, has lived by the conviction that he can take matters into his own hands whenever he feels someone represents a threat against him, his property or his money. He has shot at least three trespassers outside his Baby Tenda business in northeast Kansas City since 2012, and decades ago he detained at gunpoint a group of teenagers who were trespassing on property he owns in Raytown.

A hallmark of Jungerman is his off-the-charts recklessness in deed and word. That recklessness has not abated since he was jailed last March. Recently, prosecutors divulged that they had assembled 122 pages of notes from phone calls Jungerman made from the Jackson County Detention Center.

At the beginning of every call, a recording warns that inmate calls are monitored. That didn’t deter Jungerman from making scores of calls concerning the movement of money and property among various individuals, trusts and accounts.

This from the state’s recent filing…

The vast majority or all of the accounts and all of the persons listed in the subpoenas are discussed repeatedly by the Defendant himself on his jail calls. The Defendant discussed his interests at UMB as recently as May 29, 2018, and at Blue Ridge Bank as recently as November 2, 2018. He repeatedly referenced transfers to his daughter Angelia Buesing, and her daughter, Julianne Kiene, and to his ex-wife, Sandra Jungerman.

The State believes that this evidence strengthens the State’s motive evidence by showing how obsessed the Defendant is with his money, and the abnormally extensive lengths to which the Defendant will go to protect his money even in the face of legal judgments.

**

As I’ve said before, Jungerman got very lucky the day Pickert was shot with a rifle by someone sitting in a van parked across the street his home. No one can positively put Jungerman at the scene. But…

Two people said they saw an older, gray-haired man and a white van in the area…Jungerman has gray/white hair and a white van.

In addition, KCMO detectives have been able to piece together video from “traffic cameras, businesses, residences and two ATA buses” indicating Jungerman’s van was driven from Raytown to the Brookside area an hour before the shooting and driven back to Raytown after the shooting…Jungerman told police the van was on his Raytown property that morning and went nowhere. 

The evidentiary coup de grace, though, is a recording police obtained of Jungerman confessing to the crime while talking to one of his employees.

That was another instance of his recklessness: He had inadvertently left an audio recorder running after having turned it on earlier to record part of a court hearing in an unrelated criminal case, which was later dropped.

The way I see it, assuming the prosecution makes no fatal legal missteps, David Jungerman is going to spend the rest of his life behind bars. In addition, that $5.75 million judgment will be paid, and Thomas Pickert’s survivors will probably win millions in their wrongful-death civil suit.

The murder trial is scheduled to start Feb. 25.

Read Full Post »

Patty and I spent last weekend in the Boston area, where we were visiting my last living aunt, Nanette Eckert.

At one time, I had six sets of aunts and uncles — two on my mother’s side and four on my father’s. Back in my 30s and 40s, I couldn’t imagine the day when it would be down to a single aunt or uncle. But, alas, the day arrived.

Nanette, my late father’s sister, is 88 — a healthy and active 88, luckily. Her husband, Jim, died Oct. 27. They are originally from Louisville, where all my family is from. Nanette and Jim moved to the Boston area more than 40 years ago when he was transferred by his career-long employer, General Electric.

We had three days with Nanette, who lives in a retirement complex in Needham, and on Sunday evening we went to another suburb, Acton, to spend a night and part of Monday with a longtime friend, Ellen Oak, who lived and worked in Kansas City decades ago.

The time with Nanette and Ellen was gratifying. While they were the focal points of our visit, we also were able to go to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and twice we made it to Boston’s North End, the city’s oldest residential area and home to numerous, fine Italian restaurants. We had one lunch at a cramped and quirky place called The Daily Catch, which features seafood and pasta. Another day we ate at La Famiglia Giorgio’s, a more spacious and traditional restaurant.

I didn’t get as many photos as I would have liked, but I got enough for a decent representation.

I hope you like them…

Nanette and I, next to a beautifully outfitted tree/woman at the Museum of Fine Arts

The MFA lobby

Salem Street — one of two streets, along with Hanover Court, that comprise the heart of the North End

TD Garden, which about 20 years ago replaced the legendary Boston Garden, where such Boston Celtic stars as Bill Russell and Bob Cousy played.

This is a retail operation at Volante Farms in Needham. The “farmstand” features, among, other things, a gourmet deli, a butcher shop, homemade pastries and locally roasted coffee.

Some of the goodies in the bakery

Finally, here’s something that warmed my heart: A full, four-section, daily paper. In 2013, Boston Red Sox principal owner John W. Henry bought the paper for $70 million. As of Sept. 30, The Globe had nearly 100,000 digital subscribers — more than 10 times as many as The Kansas City Star.

Read Full Post »

Thursday afternoon’s news that Tribune Publishing’s board of directors had rejected a purchase offer by the McClatchy Co. has to come as a relief to most readers and employees of McClatchy’s 29 daily papers, including The Star.

McClatchy has been trying to cut its way to profitability since it purchased the Knight Ridder chain for $4.5 billion in 2006, and its print-to-digital effort has not gone well. And so, the prospect of McClatchy — some $800 million in debt — acquiring a significantly larger newspaper company just didn’t make sense.

Somehow, though, the company managed to put together what some reports called “a fully financed offer” that included $15 a share in cash and the rest in stock. Tribune’s shares closed slightly down Thursday, at $13.58, while McClatchy shares rose 6.5 percent to $8. (It was about $50 a share when it purchased Knight Ridder.)

The company obviously was able to tap into a funding source — perhaps a hedge fund — but I think it lost its edge after Patrick Soon-Shiong, who holds a 25 percent share in Tribune decided against throwing in with McClatchy. Earlier this year, Soon-Shiong, a surgeon, entrepreneur and philanthropist, purchased the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune from Tribune for $500 million.

Patrick Soon-Shiong (left) walking through the Los Angeles Times newsroom

In the heady weeks after that purchase, he reportedly was interested in teaming up with McClatchy to buy Tribune largely because of McClatchy’s string of California papers. The New York Post reported late last month, however, that Soon-Shiong had cooled to that prospect because of a declining print and digital audience in LA. In other words, he got a taste of the new reality that McClatchy has been dealing with since 2006.

With McClatchy out of the picture, the odds-on favorite to purchase Tribune is the combined team of the Donerail Group, headed by former hedge fund Will Wyatt, and AIM Media, a fast-rising company that owns papers in Texas, Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia.

AIM is headed by Jeremy Halbreich, former president of the Dallas Morning News and former chairman of the Chicago Sun-Times.

When I asked a local investment banker a couple of months ago what he thought was going on with McClatchy’s seemingly low-percentage attempt to buy Tribune, he said, “It’s a way to reorganize without going through bankruptcy.”

To me, this looked a lot like a Hail Mary pass. A desperate attempt to make some waves and start over with something resembling a clean canvas.

But now, with the pass falling short and given the depressing way things have been going, bankruptcy appears all the more likely for McClatchy.

As far as I know, no other chain is up for sale, and it would be difficult, anyway, to simply switch streams and reach out for another chain. Should McClatchy file for bankruptcy, it could either be purchased wholly or broken up, with its papers sold individually or in smaller groupings.

A break-up is the scenario I’m hoping for because it would offer the best chance of a deep-pocketed “angel” swooping in, buying it and attempting to restore it to its former status as a key element in the Kansas City fabric.

**

Reaction to Thursday’s development on the Kansas City Star Bylines Facebook page was not sympathetic.

Duncan Moore, a former Star reporter who now lives and works in Chicago posted this:

“Lucky for us here in Chicago. All we need is another absentee corporate owner that’s going down the tubes!”

And Les Weatherford, a good friend who worked on The Star’s copy desk for many years before being laid off after the McClatchy purchase, wrote, “Boo hoo hoo.”

No, McClatchy hasn’t won many fans here in Kansas City — nor, I would imagine, in any of the other cities that had Knight Ridder papers.

Not that being owned by Knight Ridder was a bowl of cherries, but I don’t believe there were any layoffs during the years KR owned The Star.

And in the end, Knight Ridder got lucky: Its board decided to sell after a major, disgruntled stockholder agitated for it, complaining that Knight Ridder stock was not performing as well it should have.

In the sale to McClatchy, Tony Ridder, Art Brisbane and other top KR executives made millions and walked away contentedly. At The Star (and the other KR papers) we didn’t realize it at the time, but the misery was just starting.

Read Full Post »

Kansas City Star employees and readers should be watching closely the next few days or weeks to see what happens with regard to its corporate owner, the McClatchy Co.

Common sense says there’s no way McClatchy, which owns 29 daily papers, could buy the larger (in financial terms) Tribune Publishing Co., which owns the Chicago Tribune and several other papers, and yet I keep seeing reports that McClatchy is in the hunt.

Just yesterday, Keith J. Kelly of the New York Post reported that McClatchy executives were “visiting some of the papers involved in a potential sale.”

Kelly quoted an anonymous source as saying “if it (a deal) doesn’t happen this week, it may not happen at all.”

…I tell you, those of you who still have two good knees (not me) should get down on them and pray that McClatchy doesn’t get control of Tribune.

McClatchy is a certifiable disaster as a journalistic enterprise and has been since it paid $4.5 BILLION for the Knight Ridder chain in 2006. That was at the precise time the newspaper industry was starting down what has turned out to be an amazingly steep slope.

I’d like to call on Congress — before it goes on Christmas break — to quickly pass a bill prohibiting any company with an $800 million debt from buying another company.

Not just that…McClatchy also has cut thousands of jobs at its papers and has reduced its print editions to shells of what they used to be.

And yet, if Keith Kelly is correct, this dolphin of a newspaper chain has its little jaws open and is chasing another whale.

It’s not clear if a wealthy individual or a hedge fund — or some other entity – is backing McClatchy’s bid, but it certainly can’t swing such a deal on its own. To me, it’s far-fetched from every possible vantage point.

More likely, from my way of thinking, is that Tribune ends up in the hands of a team of two men who have teamed up on a competing bid.

Heading that team are Will Wyatt, a former hedge fund manager, and Jeremy Halbreich, chairman of a fast-growing, private company that owns papers in Texas, Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia. Halbreich’s main claim to fame is resuscitating the Chicago Sun-Times several years ago.

Keith Kelly reported a couple of weeks ago that the Wyatt-Halbreich team had the financial backing of Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot. If that’s the case, Wyatt and Halbreich would seem to be holding a very strong hand.

According to Kelly’s New York Post story of Tuesday, Wyatt and Halbreich would be employing a “buy to bust it up” strategy, that is, selling off most of Tribune’s papers but keeping the Chicago Tribune as flagship.

On the other hand, I assume McClatchy would be buying with an eye to hold onto the new properties.

**

From The Star’s standpoint, not much good can come out of this particular deal, however it turns out.

If Wyatt and Halbreich emerge the winners, McClatchy regroups and continues trying to cut its way to profitability.

If McClatchy somehow pulls the deal off, it extends its failing print-to-digital strategy to another dozen or so papers.

Either way, it continues stumbling and fumbling along.

The best scenario, in my view, is bankruptcy, with a “bust up” that frees 29 daily papers from the grasp of company that has been tanking for a dozen years.

It’s hard to imagine how any other course could be worse than continued ownership by McClatchy. So I say, death to McClatchy, liberty to its newspapers.

Read Full Post »

A couple of weeks ago, one of my old Louisville buddies, John Blakeney, who now lives in Florida, posted a comment asking about the “status or progress of the new airport in Kansas City.”

“You were so wound up about it a few years ago,” John wrote. “Your comments now would be interesting to me, and probably a lot of your readers.”

Because the comment was unrelated to the post at hand, I moved it to the trash. But his prodding stuck with me because what he said was true: I lobbied hard for council and voter approval of a new airport, and I haven’t written about it in several months, despite a series of mostly troubling developments.

So today, it’s back to the airport, although, frankly and unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of insight to give you. Instead, it’s mostly opinion and frustration. But come along, anyway…

At this writing, the estimated cost of a new, single terminal has risen from $964 million to $1.64 billion since 2015. As The Star said recently, much of the price increase has been due to “expanding gates and holding rooms.”

That’s a 70 percent jump. SEVENTY PERCENT!

Here, then, are my main thoughts, which I’ll explain individually.

:: This has all the appearances of a bait-and-switch deal.

:: Nevertheless, because of the path Mayor Sly James and the rest of the City Council chose to go, there’s very little we, the public, can do at this point. Our hands are tied, and the Council has limited flexibility.

:: My biggest concern now is not cost, which is largely out of our control, but what the airport is going to look like and how it will function. Again because of the path the Council embarked on, we and the Council will have limited input into design and functionality.

Let’s take a closer look at each of those points.

Bait and switch

As we all know, it took several years for the single-terminal idea to come into focus. Because they will pay for it, the airlines were intimately involved from the outset. That means there was no shortage of planning time.

The original plan called for 35 gates, four more than the city currently leases to airlines at KCI. At the time, 35 struck some people as surprisingly low. Passenger traffic has been going up steadily for years, the metro area continues to grow, and people have grown accustomed to paying the much higher fares that have come with airline deregulation.

It wasn’t until April, five months after voters overwhelmingly approved construction of a new airport, that the airlines came forward and said, oh, we miscalculated…traffic has been going up faster than we realized and we need more gates. Now it’s up to 39, with the ability to expand to 42.

A KC Star story in April said this: “Officials said the expanded plans took shape over the last two months…As initial design work started, the city, Edgemoor (the winning contractor) and the airlines said they re-examined original assumptions to make sure they were sound.”

Never did I expect anything as singular and spectacular as the white “tents” — mimicking snow-capped peaks — above the terminal at Denver International Airport. But with the backassward way the city has gone about this, I’m just hoping we will end up with something that isn’t visually awful.

Instead of being the first consideration, design is bringing up the rear. Edgemoor’s primary consideration will be budget. It won’t be building to a city-specified design; it’ll be building to an agreed-upon price. That means the design will probably be pretty simplistic. I’ll be extremely surprised if it’s anything above plain-jane-mundane. I hope it will be at least functional, with plenty of natural light.

What we have seen so far from Edgemoor, in the way of design, is so rudimentary it’s laughable. There’s the rendition of the main building with a curving roof, but the focus is on a big airplane parked at a gate. (How unique!) Then, there’s a rendition of the interior with people walking about under ribbon-like ceiling panels interspersed with views of the sky. (We can only hope the interior approximates the blend of cover and natural light.)

**

The gist of all this is that Edgemoor managing partner Geoff Stricker is in the cockpit, and the rest of us — including the City Council, the Aviation Department and the airlines — are along for the ride.

Keep your seatbelts fastened, everybody; it’s going to be a long ride, with lots of turbulence.

Geoff Stricker

Read Full Post »