Let’s look at three big stories that have been in the headlines the last few days:
:: KU fires football Coach Les Miles but keeps, for now, the idiot athletic director, Jeff Long, who hired him.
(Update: At 2:46 p.m. today, The Star posted a story saying Jeff Long had resigned.)
:: Roy Blunt decides to retire from the U.S. Senate, and spineless Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas says he is considering a bid for the Democratic nomination to try to succeed Blunt.
:: The (new) Clay County Commission drops an appeal of a Sunshine Law ruling in favor of The Kansas City Star, and county government promptly starts handing over newly requested documents.
Only the last of those stories constitutes good news, so let’s start there.
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Clay County Commission
Back in 2019, when the three-member Clay County Commission was controlled by two dunderheads, The Star filed suit after a private lawyer representing the county said a reporter would have to pay $4,200 to review legal invoices that his law firm submitted to the county.
A judge last year ruled in favor of The Star, saying that by charging such an outrageous fee, Clay County was subverting the Sunshine Law’s intention to give the public access to most government records.
At the time, commissioners Luann Ridgeway and Gene Owen held sway, and they decided to appeal the judge’s ruling to the Missouri Court of Appeals.
Jon Carpenter
Beyond that case, Ridgeway and Owen were making a mockery of the Sunshine Law. They were so bad and had fallen into such disfavor with county residents that they decided not to seek another term in office and left office last year. Replacing them were Jon Carpenter, a former state representative, and Megan Thompson, who had been the Clay County clerk.
Recently Carpenter and Thompson joined Commission Chairman Jerry Nolte in voting to withdraw the appeal. In a story posted Tuesday on The Star’s website, reporter Steve Vockrodt, who had written extensively about the abuses of Ridgeway and Owen, posted a story that provided evidence of the satisfying end of this ordeal:
“On Tuesday morning, a Star reporter requested commission spending in December 2020 through a Sunshine Law request. Most of the records were produced before noon.”
For the first time in years, the political winds appear to be at the backs of Clay County residents.
Megan Thompson
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Quinton Lucas for U.S. Senate
This man is dreaming. Missouri has steadily been turning redder and redder the last 20 years or so. Democrat Claire McCaskill was the best senator and best campaigner the state has had in a long time, and she lost to that empty suit Josh Hawley 51 percent to 46 percent in 2018.
Missouri has never had a black U.S. senator, and Lucas will not be the first.
Lucas is all about keeping his powder dry and not crossing any special interest groups, like the firefighter and police unions, that helped get him elected mayor in 2019. In that regard, he has refused to lead a push to fire Police Chief Rick Smith or to rid the city of state control of the department — a situation that borders on the criminal.
Where Hawley is an empty suit, Lucas is a glib lawyer who likes to hear himself speak. He does speak well. The problem is he fills the air with more air.
He seems to have a nice, safe, political future, though. He will probably be re-elected in 2023 and then succeed Emanuel Cleaver as 5th District U.S. representative. Cleaver has cruised along for eight and a half terms in the House with precious little too show for it, and I would expect the same from Lucas.
So who’s going to succeed Blunt? This is Missouri, right, which has been getting more conservative every year. The next senator from Missouri will be Eric Greitens, who will get to Washington by playing the role of the martyr, following the lead of almost every conservative’s hero, Donald Trump.
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Hand holders Les Miles and Jeff Long
This is an appalling story. After being hired in 2018, Long, former University of Arkansas athletic director, hired Miles to replace the previous bad coach, David Beaty. Long and other KU administrators agreed to pay Beaty $2.55 million to settle his contract, and now the school will be paying Miles $2 million to go away.
Jeff Long
The hiring of Miles is mind boggling. Not only were Miles’ best years far behind him, but Long, in hiring him, either failed to discover or conveniently overlooked the fact that Miles had been accused of sexual harassment by multiple women who worked in the athletic department while Miles was coach at Louisiana State University. It stands to reason that a prospective employer making such a significant hire would get out the shovel and turn over the soil to see what lay beneath the surface. Somehow Long failed to do that, or, like I say, he knew what was under the surface and ignored it.
Long and Miles had worked together years earlier at the University of Michigan, and the friendship they formed was apparently the main factor in Long’s decision to bring Miles to KU.
During Miles’ two years as coach, the KU football team won three games: They went 3-9 in 2019 and 0-9 last year.
In a column posted on the Star’s website today, Sam Mellinger called on KU Chancellor Douglas Girod to fire Long and not give him a second chance to hire another bad coach.
Mellinger wrote: “KU football’s problems cannot be solved simply by finding a more credible AD. But they sure as hell can’t be solved by keeping Long.”
…I’ve said several times before that KU should just drop football and Memorial Stadium should be used for marching band performances and competitions, high school and college. Almost overnight, Lawrence and KU could become the marching band capitol of the nation. KU could charge $10 admission and probably draw 30,000 people a performance — more than they’re getting for football.
Yes, it’s kind of quaint, but what the hell, the nation can use a throwback to a time when marching bands took center stage at the Super Bowl, instead of rappers, mumblers and lip-syncers.
I’m right, aren’t I?
I think you are right, Fitz, that Greitens will probably take Blunt’s seat. He will play the martyr, a la Trump, and he has no concrete values other than promoting himself. I interviewed him once several years ago, and he misled me and the readers greatly. He’s fooled a lot of people for a long time, but methinks Missouri voters are pretty gullible these days.
Most of our outstate residents have been played for fools by people like “Farmer” Mike Parson and “Prayin” Jay Ashcroft…Ashcroft comes by it naturally; he’s a second generation con man. (Ashcroft said this afternoon he would not be running to succeed Blunt.)
I think Missourians will do what Kansans did last year and elect an empty suit and empty-headed congressman (Jason Smith) over a more well-known polarizing figure (Greitens). Jason Smith is to Missouri what Roger Marshall is to Kansas, and I don’t mean that in a positive way.
The Clay County Commission episode you recount is an example of why responsible local press attention is important to good government. How do you grade The Star’s overall reporting (and commentary) so far about Lucas?
I think the editorial writers have been pretty good at holding him to account…The City Hall coverage, as well as political coverage in general, has been sorely lacking for a long time…What do you think, Vern?
I’m torn between admiring his verbal skills in various appearances around town and concerns about some of his votes. I worry I too easily excuse his lack of leadership as an effort to avoid burning bridges. This makes it difficult for me to compare The Star’s coverage against my own doubts, which is why I value opinions like yours about how The Star covers and judges him.