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

My, my, there’s a lot of news going on pertaining to Missouri and Kansas City and the city’s two major sports franchises.

Let’s jump right in…

**

:: A Cole County Circuit Court judge ruled today that the Medicaid expansion plan that voters approved last August was unconstitutional, basically because, as proposed, the constitutional amendment did not provide for how the state would pay for the cost of expansion.

This is the second setback this year, the first, of course, being the General (Republican) Assembly’s failure to implement expansion.

Even though voters said they clearly wanted it, our head-in-sand political leaders are bent on defying the mandate.

And in the case of today’s ruling, the politicians are getting a boost from Judge Jon Beetem, who, no surprise, also flies under the GOP banner.

Not that you’d find his political affiliation noted in any news stories because, you know, it’s just not fair to question those guys and gals in those hot, intimidating black robes…is it, now?

But here it is: Beetem was first elected (as a Republican) in 2006 and re-elected (as a Republican) to new, six-year terms in 2012 and 2018. (Cole County is not one of five Missouri counties where judges are appointed as part of Missouri’s nonpartisan court plan.)

Today’s ruling is not the end of the case, though, because Chuck Hatfield, an attorney for the plaintiffs said he would file an appeal. “As all observers predicted, the issues around Medicaid expansion will be decided in the Court of Appeals,” Hatfield said. “We are disappointed in today’s ruling, but believe the Court of Appeals will disagree.”

Let’s hope the appellate court puts more weight on the will of the people than a technicality over how to fund expansion…How would the state pay for the expansion? Why, out of the state budget! And, if necessary, how about a tax increase to cover the cost? Oh, I apologize, that’s anathema to our “fiscally conservative” legislative majority.

**

:: I wish the failure to expand Medicaid was the only outrage taking place at the state level, but, of course, it’s not. Before the General (Republican) Assembly adjourned last month, it failed to approve a routine bill to renew taxes that finance a large portion of the state’s current, narrow Medicaid program.

The taxes, known as the federal reimbursement allowance (FRA), are assessed on hospitals, nursing homes and other health-care providers. In the budget year starting July 1, the taxes were projected to generate $591 million for the state and $1.5 billion in federal matching funds.

Here’s the crime: During the legislative session, efforts to extend the taxes bogged down when anti-abortion lawmakers argued over proposed amendments limiting contraceptives and tying the hands of Planned Parenthood.

So, on Tuesday, “Farmer” Mike Parson, our esteemed governor who hails from Bolivar (population 11,000), called a special legislative session, which started Wednesday. And now all the hicks from podunk towns like Bolivar packed their bags dragged their asses back to Jeff City to try to pass a routine tax that should never have been in jeopardy.

What a state…

**

:: Closer to home — well farther away if you take it literally — KC Chiefs’ defensive lineman Frank Clark set an amazing example for local youths when he was arrested in California Sunday for having a concealed Uzi submachine gun in his vehicle. Get this: It was the second time this year he’s been arrested for driving around and illegally concealing a weapon. The Star reported that Clark was arrested for a similar violation in March, the only difference being the first time officers found a rifle and a handgun. (A rich football star driving fancy cars and wearing lots of jewelry can’t be too careful, you know!)

Clark was booked on a felony charge after each incident and released on bond.

In an editorial published today, The Star said that “if he’s charged and convicted in the case, or pleads guilty to a lesser charge, the Chiefs should release him from the team.”

If the Chiefs had any sense, they would have released him already, but we know nothing — NOTHING — comes ahead of putting the strongest, fastest and most versatile players on the field, regardless of how they conduct themselves off.

I mean, how else can you explain Tyreek “You-need-to-be-terrified-of me-too-bitch” Hill still being on the team?

**

:: Oh, God, the Royals. What a sad sack of a team. Their two biggest power hitters, Jorge Soler and Hunter Dozier, are hitting .181 and .159 respectively, and yet both remain in the starting lineup.

Above and beyond his pitiful numbers, Soler looks like he doesn’t care. In addition, in my opinion, he disrespects the uniform by insisting on keeping his left-side back pocket turned inside out. I’ve heard that some players do that to indicate they are not pinching snuff. But I don’t care what the message is supposed to be, it’s a cornball look.

If I was the ump, I’d say, “You’re outta here!”

…And if I was John Sherman, I’d be seriously considering firing General Manager Dayton Moore. What a pathetic hand Moore has dealt Manager Mike Metheny.

**

I’m sorry I don’t have anything good to report today — like a cat plucked from a tall tree or a puppy rescued from a storm drain — but that’s the way it is this June 23, 2021.

Read Full Post »

QuikTrip management finally came to its senses: The company’s proposal of late last year to build a store adjacent to the northwest corner of 39th and Southwest Trafficway is officially dead.

I had not heard anything about the project in months, after writing two posts about the proposal last December. The company had gone silent, as had its local attorney, Patricia Jensen.

But when I noticed recently that a “for sale or rent” sign was up, I knew something was afoot because QT had had an option to buy the vacant building on the site.

Last Friday, I sent an email to Aisha Jefferson, a QT spokesperson, asking, “Has QT abandoned plans to build a store at the location?”

The answer came this morning: “Yes we have.”

This was not surprising news because nobody other than QuikTrip was in favor. Opponents included the surrounding neighborhood associations; 4th District City Council representatives Katheryn Shields and Eric Bunch; and Historic Kansas City Foundation, which is now strongly advocating a tax-incentive plan to redevelop the former Katz drugstore at Westport Road and Main Street. (The Council is expected to vote Thursday on a 10-year, 75-percent tax-abatement ordinance.)

Nevertheless, news of QT pulling the plug was a welcome relief to area residents.

Tosha Lathrom, immediate past president of the Roanoke Homes Association, told me today she had learned weeks ago about QT’s capitulation from Jackson County Legislator Scott Burnett, who lives in the area.

“We are all very happy about it,” Lathrom said. “We hope they (QT) move on farther east where there are no QuikTrips.”

That’s a nice wish but not likely to happen. QT seems to studiously avoid East Side locations. I know of at least one East Side (not very far east) location they abandoned many years ago: 75th and Holmes, which became a Conoco store and which, I believe, is now a Phillips 66.

It’s hard to argue with QT’s philosophy, however, because their formula has made them arguably the best and unarguably one of the most successful convenience-store chains in the country.

As of last year, the privately owned company was taking in more than $11 billion a year, with 850 stores in 11 states. Its strategy, stated on it website, explains why it steers clear of potentially problematic locations: It strives to be the dominant convenience/gasoline retailer in each market and to reach that level not through sheer numbers of stores but through key, high-volume locations.

And that’s precisely why it wanted to develop a big store at 39th and the Trafficway, even though it has two other locations — one on Westport Road and one on Main Street — within a few miles of the Trafficway.

Talk about high volume…According to the Kansas City Public Works Department, the average daily traffic volume at 39th and Southwest Trafficway was 72,818 vehicles a day in 2017. That made it the busiest intersection in all of Kansas City, running about 1,500 vehicles a day ahead of the second-busiest intersection, 31st and Southwest Trafficway.

In the end, I think, it was smart of QuikTrip to back down. Had it kept pushing, it would have incurred a lot more bad publicity, and it would have sapped some of the goodwill it has enjoyed throughout much of the city, despite battles over store expansions here and there, including both the Main Street and Westport Road locations.

It’s good to know the tenor of that wonderful midtown neighborhood will now be preserved, at least for the time being, and that Missie B’s — “Kansas City’s premier gay bar” — will remain the liveliest spot in the immediate area..

Read Full Post »

The roots for the hostilities that exploded recently between the two Kansas Citys — the Northland and that part of the city south of the Missouri river — were planted 75 years ago.

The teeth-grinding by the Northlanders started with a 1946 pitched battle between KCMO and North Kansas City to annex part of the Northland.

The story of how the battle played out was the subject of a “KCQ” (Kansas City question) article in The Star on May 5.

It is a fascinating story that revolves around a brilliant city manager, L.P. Cookingham, and it helps explain the persistent tension between north and south.

Before 1946, Kansas City was entirely south of the Missouri River. Cookingham, who had been hired in 1940 to bring the city out of the corruption of the Pendergast regime, understood that with suburban expansion, Kansas City would be left behind if it could not expand to the north, with downtown the central hub.

After learning in 1946 of North Kansas City’s intention to annex part of Clay County, he quickly initiated a similar process in KCMO. North Kansas City got its proposal to the ballot box first, on Sept. 10, 1946, when North Kansas City residents voted 801 to 33 to annex part of the unincorporated area.

Kansas Citians voted on Nov. 5, 1946, and the measure squeaked by on a vote of 39,978 to 37,920. (In both elections, the residents of the area subject to annexation could not vote, and Northland residents, who favored North Kansas City, didn’t like it one bit.) Because almost everyone at City Hall was under the impression that a three-fifths majority was needed for passage, it was assumed the proposal had gone down to defeat.

One person, Cookingham, did not believe that was the case. The morning after the election, he went to Mayor William Kemp and said: “I’m not satisfied with this. Let’s go down to the law books and take another look.”

All morning Cookingham pored over law books and finally concluded the three-fifths provision was not there. When a city attorney challenged him Cookingham said, “Show it to me.”

The KCQ article then says: “Upon deeper examination, it was learned that the three-fifths rule for annexation had been changed to a simple majority requirement in 1920 and not been reenacted when the state Constitution was amended in 1945.”

So Cookingham was vindicated…But there remained the matter of NKC having voted first.

Again, Cookingham had the hole card: He apparently knew from his legal research that the determining factor was not when the vote was held but which city’s annexation proposal had been introduced first.

Kansas City had introduced its proposal on Aug. 19. NKC had introduced its proposal a few days later.

After three years of litigation, the Missouri Supreme Court sided with KCMO, and, as the KCQ article said, “Kansas City had officially moved into Clay County.”

Had KCMO not won that battle, who knows what would have ensued? More annexations followed, but maybe North Kansas City, emboldened and empowered by an initial success, would have been more aggressive and would have grown rapidly.

But now it’s KCMO that is one of the largest cities in the country, encompassing 320 square miles, while landlocked North Kansas City consists of just 4.5 square miles.

**

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to meet and cover Cookingham, who was affectionately known as “Cookie.”

When I was assigned to cover City Hall for The Star in 1985, Cookingham, then 88 or 89, was president of the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners. Also on the board were Anita Gorman and Ollie Gates.

Gorman succeeded Cookingham as board president in 1986, and Gates succeeded Gorman in 1991.

Cookingham spent his last years at Kingswood Manor, 100th and Wornall. He died July 22, 1992, at age 95. He may well have been the best city manager Kansas City ever had, certainly the most visionary.

We can live with the tensions between north and south; the most important thing is there is a north and south. “Cookie” made sure of that.

Read Full Post »

I always know when the Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded because a story pops up on The Star’s website saying Melinda Henneberger of the editorial page was once again a finalist.

And so it was today that Henneberger is, for the third year in a row, a PP finalist.

Now, this is a big deal for The Star and for Henneberger, and it’s too bad she’s been a bridesmaid three successive years. For the life of me, however, I don’t understand why The Star does these blinkers-on stories, year after year, without listing the actual winners of the Pulitzers.

That is a much bigger deal than The Star finishing second, and it reflects, once again, how parochial the hometown paper has become under Mike Fannin’s leadership and, more broadly, under the old and new McClatchy management.

It’s also a big reason why circulation has been in free fall and why the paper doesn’t have anything close to the influence it used to have over such things as civic projects, local elections and state and local government. It’s a shell of what it used to be.

I’m not going to harp on it any more because this has been unfolding before our eyes the last decade or so. But it’s worth noting, and I hope my constructive criticism will be noted somewhere down at 16th and McGee…at 16th and Mcgee until the end of the year, when the last of the paper’s employees there will be moving someplace else.

You wouldn’t know it from The Star, but the Pulitzer Prizes reflect the ongoing strength of traditional and non-traditional media nationwide. (Perhaps the most noteworthy non-traditional recipient of a Pulitzer this year was the publication Runner’s World.)

With that in mind, let’s move on to the Pulitzer Prize winners, who were announced announced today at a ceremony at Columbia University.

And I am pleased to report that we did have one local winner, Chris Haxel of KCUR, who contributed a podcast to the Guns & America national reporting project. Haxel was one of four NPR correspondents who shared the prize for Audio Reporting.

Here are the others…

Special Citation: Darnella Frazier, who was 17 when she recorded George Floyd being asphyxiated under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. She testified at Chauvin’s trial, and her video contradicted the initial police account of Floyd’s death.

Breaking News Reporting: The staff of The (Minneapolis) Star Tribune for coverage of Floyd’s death and the reverberations that followed.

Investigative Reporting: Matt Rocheleau, Vernal Coleman, Laura Crimaldi, Evan Allen and Brendan McCarthy of The Boston Glove for reporting that uncovered state governments’ systematic failure to share information about dangerous truck drivers.

Explanatory Reporting: (Two sets of winners) Ed Yong of The Atlantic for a series of pieces on the COVID-19 pandemic, and Andrew Chung, Lawrence Hurley, Andrea Januta, Jaimi Dowdell and Jackie Botts of Reuters for an examination of the legal doctrine of “qualified immunity” and how it shields police who use excessive force from prosecution.

Local Reporting: Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi of the Tampa Bay Times for reporting that exposed how a powerful and politically connected sheriff built a secretive intelligence operation to earmark children who might “fall into a life of crime” based on factors like whether they’d been abused or received a failing grade in school.

National Reporting: The staffs of The Marshall Project, Alabama Media Group, The Indianapolis Star and the Invisible Institute for a yearlong investigation of K-9 units and the damage that police dogs inflict on Americans.

International Reporting: Megha Rajagopalan, Alison Killing and Christo Buschek of BuzzFeed News for a series of stories that used satellite imagery, architectural expertise and interviews with two dozen former prisoners to identify a vast new infrastructure built by the Chinese government for the mass detention of Muslims.

Feature Writing: (Two winners) Nadja Drost, freelance contributor to The California Sunday Magazine (which went out of business last October) for an account of global migration documenting a group’s journey on foot through the Central American Darién Gap, one of the most dangerous migrant routes in the world, and Mitchell S. Jackson, freelance contributor to Runner’s World, for an account of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery that shed light on systemic racism in America.

Commentary: Michael Paul Williams of the Richmond (Virginia) Times-Dispatch for columns that led Richmond, a former capital of the Confederacy, through the painful and complicated process of dismantling the city’s monuments to white supremacy. (In this category, Henneberger was a finalist for “tenacious and deeply reported columns on failures in the criminal justice system.” One of her columns column was about Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith‘s failure to utter a word about George Floyd’s death for six days and then not naming him when he did talk about it.)

Criticism: Wesley Morris of The New York Times for criticism on the intersection of race and culture in America.

Editorial Writing: Robert Greene of the Los Angeles Times for editorials on policing, bail reform, prisons and mental health in Los Angeles.

Breaking News Photography: The staff of The Associated Press for a collection of photographs from multiple U.S. cities capturing the country’s response to Floyd’s death.

Feature photography: Emilio Morenatti of The Associated Press for a series of photographs that took viewers into the lives of elderly people in Spain struggling during the pandemic.

Audio Reporting: Chris Haxel, Lisa Hagen, Graham Smith and Robert Little of NPR for an investigative series on no-compromise gun rights activists that illuminated the deepening schism between American conservatives.

Public Service reporting: The New York Times for sweeping coverage of the coronavirus pandemic that exposed racial and economic inequities, government failures in the U.S. and beyond, and filled a data vacuum that helped local governments, health care providers, businesses and individuals to be better prepared and protected.

Read Full Post »

Kansas City’s Black elected officials — U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and those on the City Council — are determined to make the 18th and Vine Jazz District succeed as a tourist attraction.

Back in 2016, the City Council approved $7 million for a new round of improvements, and if there was any doubt about Black elected officials’ determination to go even bigger, it was erased this week when $6 million was included in the U.S. House of Representatives’ surface transportation bill.

Eighteenth and Vine is one of five projects totaling more than $18 million Cleaver was able to get included in the INVEST in America Act, which the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has begun to consider.

The transportation bill, which comes up every five years, marks the the return of Congressional “earmarks,” in which senators and representatives are able to direct funds to specific projects in their states and districts.

Earmarks went away a decade ago after they became synonymous with corruption, but now they are back with a fresh start and a chance to create projects that will give cities and states a lift.

If this particular earmark would put 18th and Vine on the map again, as more than an East Side attraction, it would be a great thing for Kansas City. As we’ve all seen, redevelopment at the legendary jazz district has proceeded in fits and starts. It’s still a long way from becoming a reliably strong tourist area, where people of all races converge to have fun, but the new project could be a big step forward.

It provides for creation of a “pedestrian plaza,” which would involve closing 18th Street to vehicles along a two-block stretch, from the Paseo to Highland Avenue. Here’s the area in question.

Supporters of the plaza envision farmers markets, festivals, outdoor concerts and more along the plaza.

Cleaver, brandishing his usual optimism, said, “The plaza area is going to be one of the most beautiful spots in Kansas City.”

Who can say for sure it won’t be? Several outstanding attractions are there now, headed by the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and the area is ripe with possibilities.

The district will never go big-time, however, unless people feel safe going there. A big setback on the safety front took place April 25 when a 34-year-old personal trainer named Gary Taylor was killed in a bout of gunfire.

Twenty-nine-year-old Jerronn Anderson has been charged with first-degree murder in the case.

It was just the kind of incident that is all too common on Kansas City’s East Side streets. Court documents say Taylor was walking south on Vine Street with two of his friends. As the group approached 19th Street, Taylor stopped and turned toward the north. Anderson approached the three from that direction, and as Taylor turned away, Anderson brought out a handgun and fired. As Taylor fell to the ground, his two companions pulled out guns and fired toward Anderson, who later showed up wounded at an area hospital.

Now, that’s not a prescription for success, but that’s not to say the problem can’t be brought under control. It’s easy to say, “It’ll never happen,” but stranger things have happened, and millions of dollars of investment have produced some impressive results so far.

To me, the pedestrian plaza idea is worth a try. If that area could one day be something akin to Westport, it would be a remarkable feat. If that happened, as you traveled around the country, you’d hear a lot more people in other cities singing Wilbert Harrison’s immortal words, “Goin’ to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come.“

**

Besides 18th and Vine, here are the other Cleaver-sponsored projects that made it into the surface transportation bill…

:: $6 million for the KCATA to purchase zero-fare electric buses. (Kansas Rep. Sharice Davids filed a separate request for an additional $4.5 million.)

:: $2.16 million for improvements to Cliff Drive Scenic Byway in northeast Kansas City.

:: $3.1 million to replace a bridge in Lawson.

:: $900,000 for infrastructure improvements in downtown Odessa.

Read Full Post »

Time for another news digest, bringing you up to speed on what’s going on in KC and the region.

:: Once again, our governor, “Farmer” Mike Parson, has shown how much he detests Kansas City. (Same for St. Louis, he just hasn’t exhibited that in a while.)

There’s been story after story about wrongly convicted Kevin Strickland, the Kansas City man who has been imprisoned for more than 40 years for a 1978 triple homicide that prosecutors are now convinced he did not commit.

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker’s hands are tied until a new law takes effect in August, when she and other prosecutors will be able to start asking judges to overturn convictions in cases of erroneous convictions. But Farmer Mike’s hands are not tied; he has the power to pardon. This week he pardoned 36 people, but he passed over Strickland, whose case he knows about.

Parson’s failure to act prompted Tricia Rojo Bushnell, director of the Midwest Innocence Project to say: “It’s hard to imagine how everyone can know someone’s innocent and he’s still there. At this point, no one with power has done the things to let him out.”

Farmer Mike doesn’t seem to care. His police board is going to war, legally, with Kansas City over the City Council’s decision to redirect $42 million that is part of the Police Department’s budget. That and Strickland’s plight are just two instances of how Parson and his Republican cohorts — most of them hailing from towns of 10,000 or less — like to hold the largest city in the state hostage to their whims and biases.

For the record, Parson, when he’s not in Jefferson City, lives in Bolivar, a town of about 10,500.

:: The new McClatchy Company, now owned by a New Jersey-based hedge fund, didn’t fight a unionization effort by the approximately 40, non-management editorial employees at The Star. This week, McClatchy said it would voluntarily recognize the Kansas City News Guild, which formed last month under the leadership of longtime columnist and reporter Mike Hendricks.

I suppose the reason McClatchy didn’t fight it was twofold: First, it would make the company look even more shark-like than it already is, and, second, McClatchy recognized fighting the movement would be a losing effort because the vast majority of eligible employees were on board.

You won’t see any more reporters hired as a result of this development — or more substantial coverage of local news — but at least those remaining employees will have some leverage with management.

The Star union will become a unit of the NewsGuild-CWA, the nation’s largest union for journalists and other news industry employees. The News Guild is a sector of the Communication Workers of America, representing about 24,000 journalists.

:: In the interests of linking downtown “islands” with downtown proper, several U.S. cities have removed, or are removing, some of parts of downtown interstate loops. One city that has done so with great success is Rochester, NY, which, in 2013, won a nearly $18 million grant from the Obama administration that enabled it it to remove a segment of its inner loop. In an exhaustive report about loop extractions, The New York Times said…

“People have already moved into townhouse-style apartments where the highway once stood. Scooters and bicycles share space with cars along the new Union Street corridor, a once unlikely sight. Several cross-streets cut off by the highway have been reconnected, encouraging more walking in the area. And the big fear of removing a highway — terrible traffic — hasn’t materialized.”

Could it happen here in Kansas City? Sure, and I hope it does. Kevin Collison, who for several years has written and published the website CityScene KC, reported this week that the Washington D.C.-based Congress for The New Urbanism (CNU) had published a report that advocated removal of part or all of Kansas City’s North Loop, which separates downtown from the River Market and the Columbus Park neighborhood.

As envisioned, the approach to the Heart of America Bridge, also known as the Missouri 9 bridge, would be lowered to grade, reuniting the River Market and Columbus Park neighborhoods and establishing easy access to Independence Boulevard.

A related idea is to fill in and cover up to four blocks of the South Loop with a downtown park. That would establish a seamless connection between Downtown and the Crossroads district.

Both ideas are just in the conceptual stage, but sooner or later one or both of those hideous loops will be going away, replaced by multi-lane roads that move traffic but allow easy access to the downtown, the River Market and the Crossroads.

For people like me, who are always looking for ways to avoid freeways, it will be a godsend.

:: The final step toward resolving the honoring of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will take place this weekend as city Public Works crews will place Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard signs along Volker Boulevard and sections of Swope Parkway and Blue Parkway. A KCMO news release said the project will involve switching out of 37 standard street-name signs, as well as five traffic signal signs equipped with LED lighting at Volker and Oak, Swope Parkway and Prospect and Blue Parkway and Eastwood Trafficway.

If, like me, you are a supporter of the legacy of businessman and philanthropist William Volker, don’t worry: A nonresidential section of Oak Street between 45th Street (the Nelson Gallery) and 52nd Street (near UMKC) will be renamed Volker Boulevard.

:: Last but not least, we finally have a new trial date for 83-year-old David Jungerman, who is charged with murdering Kansas City lawyer Thomas Pickert outside Pickert’s Brookside home on Oct. 25, 2017. Jackson County Circuit Judge John Torrence recently scheduled jury selection to start on Monday, Dec. 13, with the trial beginning immediately after a jury has been sworn in.

Even though Jungerman, a mean and hateful man, has been safely off the streets for more than three years now, it will be good to see him finally brought into court and facing the assistant prosecutors and police investigators who have worked so hard to bring him to justice.

Dec. 13 will be a gratifying day for many people, assuming Jungerman doesn’t die in the Jackson County jail before then.

Here’s a photo of him from 2019.

Read Full Post »