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

I see from a story in the morning paper that Quinton Lucas is trying to make points by criticizing Jolie Justus’s acquiescence in the Sly James-Burns & McDonnell gambit to build a new KCI terminal without bids.

Lucas is a smart guy, and that is an exploitable issue, but I don’t think it’s going to get him very many votes. Here’s why…

For starters, Lucas, like the 11 other council members (besides James and Justus) had every chance at the time to jump up in the spring of 2017 and say, “Hell, no, we’re not going to proceed with a no-bid contract!”

But they didn’t. A strong majority was poised to go along with the no-bid contract until, basically, The Star’s editorial page blasted the deal and demanded that proposals be solicited from other companies. That resulted in several months of reconsideration and, ultimately, the council tossing out Burns & McDonnell’s proposal and going with that of Edgemoor Infrastructure and Real Estate.

Like The Star, I was one of the lone voices expressing skepticism about the Burns and Mac deal. On May 18, 2017, the day Burns and Mac officials first addressed the full council about the deal, I published a post asking, among other things, “how much of a voice…would the public, or even the city, have in design of the terminal” and “how much money would Burns and Mac stand to make.”

Quinton Lucas asked several questions that day, too, including who would control the revenue flow — the city or the developer — but before he asked any questions, he declared, “I love the project!”

…The crux of the matter is the Burns and Mac deal was born of frustration and opportunity. The frustration lay with Sly, Jolie and others who realized KCI was a disaster and needed to be razed but were confronted with surveys showing large swaths of voters were dead set against a new terminal. That opened the door for “the hometown team” to seize opportunity and present city leaders and the public with a deal that would pluck the project from the dead-wood pile.

So, for Lucas to say now that Jolie and Sly should have rebuffed Burns and Mac’s overture — and that he would have done so — should be dismissed out of hand. I think every council member except Teresa Loar, who had her head in the sand, badly wanted to see a new terminal at KCI, and Burns and Mac’s proposal appeared to them to be a way to move forward when hope appeared to be lost.

…The airport project will now move ahead under Jolie’s capable leadership. She’s going to be our next mayor, and KC residents will get the benefit of her grace, equanimity and vast political experience for at least four years. Go Jolie!

**

I hope most of you read Andy Marso’s excellent take-out Sunday on the Johnson County hospital “building boom.” It was very long — nearly 3,800 words — but an easy and interesting read.

The gist, as captured by the headline, was that Johnson County was getting the lion’s share of hospital construction, while large parts of Wyandotte and Jackson counties are going “medically underserved.”

Marso is right on target, and it’s too bad, in some ways, that the biggest proportion of privately insured people — those who provide hospitals their biggest profit margins — is in Johnson County. At the same time, though, many of us benefit from the disparity.

I recently got pulled, somewhat reluctantly, into the Johnson County medical industrial complex after doing most of my medical business at facilities and with doctors connected with North Kansas City Hospital.

Here’s how that came about…

I was at Kansas City Orthopaedic Institute — a small, specialty hospital on College Boulevard — for a knee replacement in February. I was supposed to spend two nights at KCOI and then go home. But the day after surgery, I experienced an episode of heart failure. When EMTs arrived, the lead EMT asked me which full-service hospital I’d prefer to go to. Now, I don’t know why she asked me that because she already had made up her mind where I was going. But, anyway, I said, “St. Luke’s on the Plaza.”

That’s when she said, “We’ve got to take you to the nearest full-service hospital, and that’s St. Luke’s South.”

I once again requested St. Luke’s on the Plaza but she was firm, and off we headed to 123rd and Metcalf (lights not flashing and sirens not blaring, thankfully).

Over the next five days, I made the acquaintance of several physicians at that hospital, including an ER doctor, a hospitalist, a cardiologist and a pulmonologist.

The cardiologist became my cardiologist, and the pulmonologist became my pulmonologist. In addition, I’ve had to make two additional ER runs since then, and both times — by my choice and to Patty’s chagrin — I chose St. Luke’s South.

Those are my guys out there now, and I’m grateful Johnson County has a boat load of top-notch medical facilities.

…Oh, if you’re worried about me, stop. I’m still kickin’ and fully expect to be doing so for quite a few more years…