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

I doubt it.

You wake up, and it is over. The people who work are going back to work, and the people who don’t work are cleaning up and thinking, “What now?”

In our case, Brooks and I (Patty went back to work) are doing dishes, shutting the windows, turning on the A.C. and planning to return a dozen folding chairs and two tables to our neighbor down the street. (When I was making the borrowing arrangements, my neighbor said, “I wish I’d been to as many parties as my tables and chairs have been to.”)

Josie

Another small task is to take a front screen window to the hardware store for re-screening. Our black lab-German Shepherd got so excited during our fireworks display last night she bulled her way through the screen and joined us in the yard. She’s a social animal, our Josie. (At another point, with people coming in and out the front door, she got out and wandered off into the Ward Parkway median. I didn’t realize she had been gone ’til I went to the front door and there she was, waiting to come in. A few minutes later, a woman — a stranger — appeared at the back gate and said the dog had been out in the parkway. Whew!)

Unlike a lot of people, we didn’t leave any fireworks detritus in the street. Contrary to my expansive statements beforehand, our display was relatively small (although every bit as spectacular as I had promised), and we scooped up the remnants immediately afterward.

The party’s over.

But back to the finality of the Fourth…There are other holidays that end with a thump — like Memorial Day and Labor Day — but the anticipation of those days isn’t as pronounced, and it’s easier to wake up the next day without missing too many beats.

Then you’ve got Christmas, with the biggest buildup of all. It tends to linger. Family members who have moved away are often in town; people have taken off work the entire week; and, in this era, young and old alike can continue playing with their new electronic gadgets.

New Year’s Day also tends winds down slowly. It used to end more quickly, back when the big college football bowl games were concentrated on that one day and there were no more after that. Now, they drag on for two weeks, and people say “Happy New Year” for two weeks after that.

The closest thing to the July 4 evaporation on July 5 is the disappearance of Easter Sunday on Easter Monday. He — HE — rises on Sunday, and on Monday it’s back in the saddle; the stone rolls forward.

So, here it is, July 5, and about all I can think of is I’m one day closer to knee-replacement surgery…It was a great day, though — the Fourth. We had a terrific party with good friends from as far west as Olathe and as far east as Brookside Boulevard. The food was fantastic, the weather was accommodating…and nobody drove home drunk. It’s great to wake up in America on July 5.

Happy Fourth, everyone. We’re having a party tonight, and I’m putting on a gigantic fireworks display in the Romanelli West neighborhood, so if you’re in the neighborhood and hear sirens, you’ll know what’s going on. I’m sure even the KCMO cops won’t be able to ignore the blockbuster demonstration I have planned.

…But anyway, I’ve got other things on my mind, too.

Like, how about that Steve Vockrodt story on The Star’s front page today? It was a nearly 70-inch takeout on Kansas City Councilman Quinton Lucas’ valiant attempt to get his council colleagues to pass an ordinance that would significantly limit tax abatement. Overly generous tax abatements for developers has become, after many years of tolerance, a matter of keen public interest. But public interest will fade, of course, unless relevant aspects of a situation are highlighted in the press.

And that’s where Vockrodt, who just joined The Star’s staff June 1 after several years at The Pitch, provided a big public service today: He put a bright light on Lucas’ effort to rein in a tax-abatement scheme that has gone on way too long.

Just as surely as a majority of Kansas Citians don’t want a new single-terminal airport, a majority is strong opposed to the current tax-abatement system, which developers, lawyers, architects, engineers and others have utilized to line their pockets for many years and build projects in areas that should not qualify for public supplements. The system came to a head earlier this year when opposition erupted over the Helzberg plan to refurbish a warehouse in the booming Crossroads Arts District and convert it into headquarters for the BNIM architecture firm.

Promoters dropped the project after several people, including my friend Clinton Adams of Freedom Inc., organized and pursued an initiative petition to deny tax increment financing for the project.

Quinton Lucas

In the wake of that, the development “community” assumed a lower profile, hoping public attention would fade and time would reinstate the lucrative status quo. In May, however, Lucas, whose 3rd District is starved for redevelopment projects, introduced an ordinance that, in general, would reduce the amount of tax abatement or tax redirection” by 25 percent.

Vockrodt clearly explained it like this…

For example, a standard inducement offered by the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority abates as much as 100 percent of property tax increases on development projects for the first 10 years after approval, and then by 50 percent for the following 15 years. Under Lucas’ bill, the expansion authority could abate 75 percent of those taxes for 10 years, then 37.5 percent for 15 years.

It would affect tax increment financing, another popular incentive program. Under normal circumstances, TIF captures 100 percent of increases in property taxes generated by a development project, along with 50 percent of economic activity taxes (earnings, sales and utility taxes) and makes them available to reimburse developers. Under Lucas’ ordinance, property tax redirections would be limited to 75 percent, and economic activity tax redirection would fall to 37.5 percent.

Reading along on this story, I thought Lucas might be a lone tree trimmer out on a long limb, but, no, his ordinance has six co-sponsors: Teresa Loar, Katheryn Shields, Jermaine Reed, Alissia Cannady, Heather Hall and Lee Barnes. Seven votes is all it takes to pass an ordinance, but it’s not as easy at is sounds, especially when you’re taking on powerful vested interests who exercise their power partly through the political lifeline of campaign contributions.

A key councilman who is delaying action on Lucas’ ordinance is Scott Taylor, chairman of the Planning, Zoning & Economic Development Committee. It is through that committee that Lucas’ ordinance must travel to get before the full council. But Taylor has refused to schedule a committee hearing on the ordinance, saying, “We definitely don’t want to implement something that would shut down the economy, as we’re creating a lot of new activity, jobs and new investment in Kansas City…”

Let’s hope Lucas and his co-sponsors are able to keep up the pressure and get this ordinance passed — and that Mayor Sly James doesn’t veto it. It’s a good start at reining in an inequitable system that has endured too long.

**

My only qualm about the tax-abatement story is the headline in the print edition. It says, “Fight to lessen tax cuts is long, lonely”

I read that headline several times, and it sounded like a battle was afoot to keep taxes high. It’s confusing and should not have run that way. The headline in the online version was much more precise: “Will KC get a law to rein in development incentives? Once councilman is trying”

I understand that the person who wrote the headline for the print edition was limited to one column, and that is certainly challenging…Nevertheless, it could have been much clearer.

:: Let’s start with the tragic.

Maybe you saw the obit of 45-year-old Lara Gail Taylor. It was one of those obits that jumped out at you because of the photo. There she was — just her face — with a big smile, pretty hair and glowing eyes. (Online, you could see her hair was red.)

Lara Gail Taylor

She was 45, had a son — apparently she was divorced or widowed — and lived in Amarillo. The obit was in The Star because she had been born in North Kansas City and formerly lived in Parkville.

The first sentence of the obit left me totally confused: “Lara Taylor…passed away unexpectedly about 8:40 a.m. Tuesday, June 28, 2016, in a tragic head-on collision involving two BNSF freight trains near the town of Panhandle, Texas.”

My first thought was, “What the hell was this woman doing in the vicinity of a freight-train collision”? Was she a bystander? What? It just didn’t compute.

Obviously, I was thinking stereotypically because a Google search revealed she was a crew member on one of the trains. Two other crew members also died and a fourth escaped by jumping off one of the trains just before the impact.

A memorial service is being held Tuesday at Harmony Vineyard Church, Kansas City, North.

:: The strange.

In last night’s 6-2 win over the Phillies, Royals’ starting pitcher Danny Duffy not only dominated the Phillies but he drove in a run with a weird bunt that looped over the head of the Phillies’ starting pitcher and landed in the grass in front of their shortstop. Describing the play in his game story, The Star’s Rustin Dodd compared the ball’s flight to “a delicate lob web from just off the fringe.”

I think Rustin has been spending too much time on the Internet because the words he was looking for were lob wedge. That’s a club you use to pop the golf ball up and over a hill or sand trap.

:: The heroic.

The terrorist attack at a Bangladesh bakery took the lives of two police officers, six attackers and 20 hostages — all foreigners…The attackers didn’t want to kill fellow Muslims. (Among other things, the attackers lectured the hostages on religious practices and told the kitchen staff to pray regularly and study the Qu’ran.) They did kill one Bangladeshi man, however. He was Faraz Hossain, a student at Emory University in Atlanta. Hossain was with two women wearing Western clothes — one from India, the other from the U.S. The terrorists offered Hossain the opportunity to leave, but, courageously, he declined and chose to see it through with his companions. He was among those found dead on Saturday morning, after the 10-hour siege.

:: The fascinating.

By far the most interesting story in today’s papers is The New York Times’ story about President Obama’s late-night work and correspondence habits.

The story opens like this:

“Are you up?”

The emails arrive late, often after 1 a.m., tapped out on a secure BlackBerry from an email address known only to a few. The weary recipients know that once again, the boss has not yet gone to bed. 

New York Times photo

It seems that almost every night that he’s at the White House, Obama has dinner at 6:30 with Michelle and his daughters and then withdraws to the Treaty Room, a private office down the hall from his bedroom, where he works for four or five hours, under a portrait of President Ulysses S. Grant. Among other things, he reads staff reports, works on speeches and reads 10 letters — letters from the public and chosen each day by his staff.

The story says he also “watches ESPN, reads novels or plays Words With Friends on his iPad.”

He doesn’t rely on caffeinated drinks to keep him going. Usually it’s just bottled water.

Now, you would think that working four or five hours would require lots of snacks. Not for this reed-thin chief executive. His nightly indulgence is seven lightly salted almonds. Never more, never less. Seven.

I’ve become greatly enamored lately of a certain straightforward, strong-minded woman running for the nation’s highest elective office.

She appears calm and assured in the face of crisis and someone you can trust to put the nation’s interest ahead of personal aspirations.

Her name is Theresa May, and she’s the odds-on favorite to become leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, and thus the next prime minister. For the last six years, May has been Britain’s Home Secretary, a post in which she is responsible for the internal affairs of England and Wales, as well as immigration and citizenship for the United Kingdom.

Another thing I like about this lady…she would fit right in at the Kentucky Derby. Take a look at this photo of her taken Friday at a regatta in Henley, England.

If you haven’t noticed, an irresistible stew of British intrigue, personalities and high-wire politics has relegated the Trump-Clinton race to down-page headlines this week. It started, of course, with last week’s “Brexit” vote and escalated sharply this week with a political betrayal that turned the prime minister’s race on its ear. 

The former mayor of London, a free-wheeling, frumpy-looking fellow named Boris Johnson, seemingly was on his way to 10 Downing Street to succeed Prime Minister David Cameron when Michael Gove, a man who had been a close ally of Johnson, decided he was going to run for Conservative Party leader.

Michael Gove

Gove had the portfolio and standing to leapfrog Johnson. He is Britain’s Justice Minister — a senior cabinet member — and a longtime government official with a lot of clout. Once he said he was running, Johnson, who has no current governmental foothold, was toast.

Gove has a few things working against him, however. For example, he has said several times that he did not feel equipped to be prime minister and did not want the job. Then, there’s the specter of his wife, Sarah Vine, a columnist for a conservative British tabloid, working behind the scenes as puppeteer.

In a recent email she wrote to her husband — an email that inadvertently ended up going public — she cautioned Gove to seek “reassurance” from Johnson about his own future in government before pledging to support Johnson. That apparently contributed to Gove’s decision to renege on supporting Johnson.

At a news conference this week.

Against that backdrop, May quickly moved to fill the void. In a news conference within hours after Johnson announced he wouldn’t run and Gove said he would, May made a strong case why she was the best person to lead the way into Britain’s clouded future, even though she had quietly supported the “Remain” campaign.

Here’s part of what she said:

“First, following last week’s referendum, our country needs strong, proven leadership to steer us through this period of political and economic uncertainty and to negotiate the best possible terms as we leave the European Union…Brexit means Brexit. The campaign was fought, the vote was held, turnout was high, and the public gave their verdict. There must be no attempts to remain inside the E.U., no attempts to rejoin it through the back door.”

She went on to say she was not motivated by “ambition or glory.”

I know some politicians seek high office because they’re driven by ideological fervor…But my reasons are much simpler. I grew up the daughter of a local vicar and the granddaughter of a regimental sergeant major. Public service has been a part of who I am for as long as I can remember. I know I’m not a showy politician; I don’t tour the television studios, I don’t gossip about people over lunch, I don’t go drinking in parliament’s bars, I don’t often wear my heart on my sleeve, I just get on with the job in front of me.

…Every once in a while, a politician comes along who really connects with people — who speaks in a way that inspires confidence and makes you want to run out and pull the lever for him or her. I wish I could vote for Theresa May — or somebody like her.

And like I said, she sure would look good at the Kentucky Derby.

**

In light of Laura Hockaday’s comment (below) about Boris Johnson, I’m adding this photo of Boris, seen with his wife Marina leaving a hotel after announcing he would not run for Conservative Party leader.

I’d been bracing myself for the death of Pat Summitt the last two days, since reading that the inspirational, former University of Tennessee women’s basketball coach was nearing the end and surrounded by her family.

Still, the news of her death today knocked me back and left me with an empty feeling.

She was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s just five years ago. When it was announced, I thought she’d be around maybe 10 more years, but that disease is relentless and moves more quickly than many of us like to acknowledge. It took her at 64.

Summitt in action and in charge

Although she rang up three fewer national championships (with eight) than Coach Gino Auriemma of Connecticut, she racked up more wins than any other Division I college coach, male or female. Her drive, competitive spirit and icy glare — which she bestowed on her players and referees alike — were legendary.

Here are a couple of classic Summitt quotes:

:: “Teamwork is what makes common people capable of uncommon results.”

:: “Success is a project that’s always under construction.”

Both are so true but, at the same time, so hard to live your life by. Striving for teamwork — in the workplace, at home, wherever — is difficult. At the same time, once you achieve a degree of success, it’s tempting to sit back and loll in satisfied feelings.

Summitt, who grew up on a farm in Tennessee, was an incredible trailblazer. She became Tennessee’s head coach at 22 after graduating from the University of Tennessee-Martin in 1974. That was eight years before the N.C.A.A. began sponsoring women’s basketball and 43 years after the NCAA held its first postseason tournament for men.

Her starting salary was $250 a month. A New York Times story said: “She held a doughnut sale to help pay for the team uniforms, which she washed herself. Her team once slept on mats at an opponent’s gym because there was no money for a hotel.”

**

I can’t say I started following women’s basketball because of Pat Summitt, but I’m sure she had an indirect influence. Under her, women’s college basketball became a big deal. Not as big as men’s basketball by any stretch, but it started making headlines and getting on national TV.

I recall the apex of the 1997-98 season, when Tennessee beat Louisiana Tech 93-75 in the women’s final at Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium. It was Tennessee’s third consecutive NCAA title and the only perfect season (39-0) the Lady Vols ever had.

I didn’t go to that Final Four, but it was about then that I was getting into women’s basketball. In recent years, I’ve been to several Women’s Final Four tournaments. At one of them — can’t remember which — Summitt was the halftime show. Seated on a stool and holding a mic, she answered questions from an interviewer and talked about her life and times as a coach. It was a terrific halftime show, and afterward I saw her standing on an arena concourse, about to return to a private suite. She was surrounded by a handful of people, and I passed up the opportunity to wait and say hello. Now, of course, I wish I would have waited to shake her hand and look in those eyes.

**

As you would expect, she faced her death sentence with determination and grace. In an interview that is running on ESPN, she said accepting the Alzheimer’s diagnosis was extremely difficult but that after about a year she decided to dig in and fight as hard as she could.

“You can keep livin’ your life,” she said. “It may not be the best thing. But you just got to make it what it is. And, you know, that’s what I’ve done.”

What a coach…what a woman…what a person to emulate.

From my view not far from Meyer Circle, things aren’t lookin’ so good these days.

You know how I hate to be a negativist but, damn, a few things have me wringing my hands.

Have you got a minute?

— Let’s start with the fountain itself. When the city’s other fountains came on this spring, the Sea Horse Fountain at Meyer Circle didn’t come on. Stayed dry. And it hasn’t functioned yet. Turns out the fountain’s “vault,” which contains the inner workings, including the pump, collapsed. The preliminary estimate for repairs is $500,000. Our neighborhood association is applying for capital improvements funds, and the City of Fountains Foundation will be able to help some, but it’s not going to be quick or easy.

— As much as we want to hope that what we’re seeing isn’t “the real deal,” it’s looking more and more like the Royals are a shadow of their former selves. On Friday night, they gave up nine runs in the first inning, and last night they gave up seven runs in the second inning. I feel sorry for the people who went to those games; that had to be pretty bleak. Those of us who started watching the games on TV could, mercifully, tune out and still have most of the night ahead to entertain ourselves otherwise.

— What can you say about that crazy Kansas Legislature? For three or four days, it cast about in special session, wrestling with something called a “hold harmless” provision, before finally coughing up enough money to finance the 2016-17 school year. Some of the news stories prior to Saturday’s were pretty much gobbledygook, and I think it was only partly the reporters’ faults. The Republican-dominated Legislature also contributed to the muddle by refusing, until the end, to come up with more money to open schools in August. A lot of those conservatives simply don’t believe in a balance of power; they’d like to see the Kansas Supreme Court go poof in the night so they’d have clear passage to do what they damn well please.

The Star’s lead editorial Saturday called for Johnson County voters to select several moderate legislative candidates over several conservative candidates in the August primary. Among those recommended for departure was state Sen. Greg Smith, father of murder victim Kelsey Smith. I went through teacher-certification courses with Greg at Avila University in the mid-2000s and admire him and wife Missy greatly. But I agree with The Star; it’s time for Smith to leave the Legislature, which badly needs more people who will take the blinders off. The conservatives idea of playing in the sand box is simply throwing as much as possible, and now the box is just about empty.

— Today, Bishop James Johnston of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph will lead a “Service of Lament” at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception to apologize for the local priest sexual-abuse scandal. He’s asked all the priests of the diocese to attend and wear purple vestments as a sign of penance. I guess this is a good thing, but the specter of our recently departed, criminally convicted Bishop Robert Finn will certainly be hovering inside the cathedral’s golden dome. I certainly have no interest in being there. Furthermore, the specter of that exclusive Men’s Club — priests, deacons, etc. — congregating in purple garb just sounds kind of weird and warpy.

— Finally, I’ve got my own cloud looming on the horizon: knee-replacement surgery toward the end of next month. Damn thing’s been getting progressively worse for about a year, and I’m ready for the sawing and gluing to get underway. A couple of weeks ago, I had to cancel a planned trip to the U.S. Open Golf Tournament outside Pittsburgh because of the discomfort. I can still play a little golf, provided I take anti-inflammatories beforehand and acetaminophen before and after. I try to put it in perspective, though. Last night and early today, The Star had on its website a short story about a 34-year-old Kansas City man who lost control of his vehicle at 10:40 a.m. Saturday morning on the entrance ramp to southbound U.S. 71 from Bannister Road. His vehicle left the roadway, went down an embankment and hit a tree. Bam. That was it for him…I’ll be thankful if I can get to the O.R.

With all the depressing stuff going on in the world, it’s refreshing to see something positive come along to lift the spirits.

Such is the story of the puppy — a pit bull mix — that two Royals’ fans helped rescue from a hot car at Kauffman Stadium on Sunday.

Michael Warner of Independence and his brother Josh Lee of Overland Park were walking back to their car in the eighth inning (the game went 13 innings) when they heard whimpering and followed the sound to the vehicle where the dog had been left. They summoned help, and team officials were able to get the dog out of the car. (I believe the windows had been left open enough to allow access to the release buttons.)

The dog, estimated to be about 16 weeks old, is at the city’s animal shelter, run by Kansas City Pet Project, and will be put up for adoption if the owner doesn’t claim the dog within several days…It seems unlikely to me that the owners will step forward, partly because of the embarrassment awaiting them and also because they could be charged with animal cruelty under city ordinances.

Warner, one of the rescuers, has expressed interest in adopting the dog. Congratulations to Warner and Lee for stepping into action and possibly preventing this little guy from dying.

**

A little more than a year ago, the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph was riven with conflict stemming from then-Bishop Robert Finn’s controversial reassignment of several priests.

Among others, many St. Thomas More parishioners in south Kansas City were fuming because Finn had reassigned their popular pastor, Rev. Don Farnan, to the hinterlands of northern Missouri. Also, many Visitation parishioners were in open rebellion against the appointment of Rev. Vincent Rogers as their new pastor. He was coming from St. Andrew the Apostle Church in the Northland.

The chaos revolved around Finn’s perceived desire to banish Farnan, with whom he was at odds, and, in a related move, impose a priest aligned with his orthodoxy (Rogers) on Visitation parishioners.

Before the moves were implemented, Pope Francis summoned Finn to Rome and canned him. Finn was singular in an ignominious way: He is the only American bishop who has been convicted of a crime (cover-up) in the priest sexual abuse scandal. A month after Finn was canned, the interim bishop, Joseph Naumann, of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, pulled the plug on the most controversial Finn transfers.

Recently, the new permanent bishop, James Johnston, announced reassignments that apparently were met with uniform acceptance. As part of the transfers that will take effect July 1, Farnan will be going to St. Charles Borromeo Church in the Northland, and Msgr. Brad Offutt, pastor at three rural parishes, will be going to Visitation. (Offutt is a former diocesan chancellor, the highest position besides bishop.)

The current Visitation pastor, Rev. Pat Rush, who had to put off his retirement plans after last year’s upheaval, will now get to stand down. And as far as I can tell, Rogers will remain at St. Andrew the Apostle for at least another year.

…In his first year, Johnston seems to have gone a long way toward restoring peace in the diocese and goodwill at the chancery, 20 W. Ninth Street. Among other things, I understand he recently led a group of people on a march from the chancery to Municipal Auditorium for a recent hearing regarding new federal rules to rein in the payday lending industry.

Takin’ it to the streets…That’s real leadership and, I’m sure, what Pope Francis would have done had he been here.

Bishop James Johnston

If you go to the website of the Shawnee Mission Post, the first thing you see is a pop-up ad for SoJo Summer Fest — formerly known as Jazz in the Woods — which is having its 27th rendition this weekend at Corporate Woods Founders Park.

Pop-ups can be greatly irritating to readers, but as they go, this one is fairly unobtrusive and, because of the mission and scope of this online newspaper, it is actually as informational as it is irritant.

Most important, that pop-up is eye candy and money in the bank to Jay Senter and Dan Blom, co-publishers of the Shawnee Mission Post.

For Senter and Blom, who produce nearly all the stories for the Post, this is a celebratory week: On Wednesday, they observed the sixth anniversary of their publication’s founding. They also celebrated the fact that, in an era when traditional newspapers are battling to make the transition from print to online and when many online start-ups are experiencing brief life spans, the Shawnee Mission Post is making money and expanding.

Senter’s and Blom’s business strategy has revolved around three elements: being patient and flexible; churning out multiple byline stories every day; and not taking on debt.

“It took us five years to get this business model oiled and running smoothly,” the 36-year-old Senter said in a phone interview Wednesday. “It’s a constant shifting of hats that we do every day.”

Kevin Collison

Senter and Blom raised the stakes significantly in January when they hired their first full-time employee, sales director Jennifer Vanourney, whose background includes 15 years as an ad rep at The Kansas City Star. In recent days, Senter and Blom committed to an equally important full-time hire on the editorial side, nabbing former KC Star development reporter Kevin Collison, who is set to start in mid-August. (Collison will continue doing freelance stories for KCUR-FM 89.3.)

Coinciding with Collison’s start, Senter and Blom will officially launch their second site, the Blue Valley Post. That will extend the Post’s reach from about 95th Street to the southern reaches of Leawood and Overland Park. The new site is already up and running in soft, or “beta,” format. As you might expect, the pop-up for SoJo Summer Fest is the first thing you see on that page, too.

Jay Senter

Senter and Blom expect the Blue Valley Post to be the first of several additional sites, each of which would serve specific parts of Johnson County. The model Senter envisions parallels The Star’s expansion into Johnson County about 20 years ago. Back then, home delivery sales were starting to fall badly in the central city and Wyandotte County but growing in Johnson County. The Star responded by rolling out several “Neighborhood News” publications — stand-alone, tabloid sections that were inserted in weekday editions, once or twice a week. At its peak, The Star was publishing about a dozen targeted neighborhood sections.

Those sections made good money for several years, but they withered in the late 2000s because of the general downturn in the newspaper industry — a situation triggered, of course, by the relentless rise of the Internet.

The Star wasted little time pulling its horns, not only dropping the Neighborhood News publications but also closing its suburban bureaus after decades of success with them.

That left the existing community newspapers — and digital start-ups — to re-seed the suburban landscape. As Collison aptly put it in a phone interview, the digital start-ups, like the Shawnee Mission Post, are “filling in the gaps as the old war horses retreat.”

**

Senter and his wife Julia Westhoff, founded their paper as the Prairie Village Post in June 2010. For the couple, Prairie Village was a natural starting point. Not only do they live there but Senter was raised in Prairie Village and graduated from Shawnee Mission East in 1998. Senter has a master’s degree in journalism from KU, and he previously wrote for Yahoo! Sports, the Lawrence Journal-World and KCFreePress.com, among other publications. He also held jobs at the University of Kansas Hospital and the American Academy of Family Physicians before making the Post his full-time endeavor two years ago.

Dan Blom

For the first two years, coverage centered on Prairie Village, Fairway and Mission Hills, with Prairie Village Shopping Center merchants providing most of the initial advertising. In August 2012, Blom came on board as co-publisher. Also a Prairie Village resident, Blom, 66, had previously worked for nearly 30 years at community newspapers in northwest Indiana. With family-owned Howard Publications, Blom worked as a reporter and editor and then on the business side as as operations director, general manager and publisher.

After Blom’s arrival, the two men expanded coverage into Mission, Roeland Park, Merriam, Westwood, Westwood Hills, north Overland Park and north Leawood. Two months ago, the expansion had reached a point where a name change was warranted, and the Shawnee Mission Post was born. The Post’s website is now averaging about 4,000 unique visitors a day, including weekends, when new content is not published.

On deck: the wide open spaces, burgeoning business environment and fertile real-estate-development opportunities of Blue Valley.

**

When you go to the “Advertise” tab on the Shawnee Mission and Blue Valley Post websites, the first words you see are: “You’re local. So are we.” With that simple concept and searing focus, Senter and Blom have found a formula that has worked for them so far…From our vast staff at JimmyCSays — where 200 unique visitors marks a good day — congratulations to Senter and Blom on six successful years and best wishes for a prosperous, expansive future.

When you’re hired on in some businesses, you have a week or two to settle in, take an introductory tour around the facilities and maybe even go through an orientation program.

In the newspaper business, though, you’re usually thrust right into action.

On my first day at The Kansas City Times, in September 1969, a reporter named Harihar Krishnan (how could I forget that?) gave me a brief newsroom tour, showing me where to hang my coat, get notebooks and other supplies and how to use the criss-cross directories. He then said, “That’s about it.”

“What do I do now”? I asked Krishnan.

“Sit down, put your feet on the desk, smoke a cigar, read a magazine — do whatever you want,” he said.

…Now this, I thought, is pretty good!

Within minutes, however, the phone on my desk was ringing. Puzzled, I picked up the heavy black receiver and said, “Hello.” The voice on the other end said, “This is the McGilley Midtown Chapel; I have one for you.”

I had no idea what the person was talking about and asked him to hold. Covering the mouthpiece with my hand, I shouted over to the city editor that somebody on the line apparently had the wrong number.

“No,” the city editor called back. “It’s a funeral home calling with an obituary; take down the information.”

It was at that moment I learned I hadn’t really been hired as a “general assignment reporter” but as an obituary writer — which, at the time, was the apprenticeship every KC Times and Star reporter had to serve before reaching true general assignment status.

I bring up my Kansas City Times indoctrination as a parallel to what has occurred since Steve Vockrodt, formerly of The Pitch, started work as development reporter at The Star on Monday, June 6.

Steve Vockrodt

I expected Vockrodt, an experienced reporter, to get out of the blocks quickly, but his production has surprised even me. By my count, using the kansascity.com “search” box, Vockrodt has had nine bylined stories in eight working days. That’s churning ’em out, and it shows what an impact the hiring of one experienced journalist can have. It also illustrates, by contrast, the enervating effect that laying off and buying out experienced reporters can have.

Since 2008, two years after McClatchy purchased The Star and about 20 other Knight Ridder papers, The Star has shed scores of newsroom employees — and hundreds in the overall operation — to the point where the news hole got so small that many people wondered how long The Star could continue publishing the print edition every day.

No longer do I hear significant speculation about the prospect of some daily print editions being dropped, and the hiring of Vockrodt and several other young journalists in recent weeks tends to indicate The Star has steadied after years of tumbling down the cliff.

..But back to Vockrodt and the impact one reporter can make. His most recent story, posted today, is about Cabela’s announced intention to build a new store in Lee’s Summit. Should it come to pass, it undoubtedly would hurt business at the only existing area Cabela’s store, the one at Village West in Kansas City, KS.

As part of a development agreement with the Unified Government, Cabela’s apparently agreed not to build another store within 150 miles until at least 2023. The Unified Government is now considering its options, which, presumably, could include legal action. In his story, Vockrodt said a spokesman at Cabela’s corporate offices in Sidney, NE, did not respond to “several attempts seeking comment for this story.”

This is an important story and one that might not have gotten the attention it deserved if Vockrodt was not on the job. But it’s a symbolic of a bigger picture, too. To execute its mission — providing readers with the news they need and want — major metropolitan newspapers have an obligation to maintain strong reporting staffs. They need a lot of people watching and applying pressure in various places — including private enterprise and government agencies — and making those “attempts seeking comment for this story.”

For once, there was a lot of news about The Kansas City Star in the Star.

The Sunday edition shed some light on the muddled situation with longtime columnist C.W. Gusewelle, and it announced the addition of five young journalists.

First, about those hires…I was pleasantly surprised to see The Star “toot its own horn.” In all my years of working at and now following The Star, I have never seen a story about the hiring of reporters. Stories have been limited almost exclusively to the comings and goings of upper-level journalists and administrators, such as publishers, editors, managing editors, editorial page editors and business-side vice presidents.

I think the decision to write about these new hires owes to the avalanche of criticism in recent years about reductions in the staff and the actual size of the paper. Because of budgetary cuts by its owner, the McClatchy Co., The Star has been laying people off and offering buyouts since 2008, two years after McClatchy purchased the Knight Ridder chain, which previously owned The Star.

It’s been a depressing era to work at The Star, and everyone down at 18th and Grand has felt the pressure. Think of it like an ancient ship, where banks of oarsmen provided the power, but rowers kept disappearing during the ocean crossing until only a skeletal crew was left to pull the weight that had been borne by hundreds.

Things have changed for the better, though. The first sign was several months ago, when the four -page In Depth insert was added to the A-section Tuesday through Friday. That has deepened the news hole, although it still irritates the hell out of me that on those days the editorial and op-ed pages are not at the back of the section, where they should be. I frequently find myself rifling through the section looking for the editorial page.

Another big change, of course, was the departure of do-nothing publisher Mi-Ai Parrish last year and the naming of young (38 when he took over in January) and energetic new publisher Tony Berg. From the outset, Berg voiced strong support for the newsroom and hard-hitting stories, and he has tackled the circulation problems head-on. In March — undoubtedly with Berg’s blessing and perhaps at his instigation — The Star named Greg Farmer as managing editor, a post that had been left vacant since Steve Shirk retired a year earlier.

Ian Cummings

In addition — last year, I believe — The Star hired a young reporter named Ian Cummings whose byline has become a consistent presence in the paper. Coincidentally, he had Sunday’s lead story, a provocative and disturbing take-out on the dangerous levels of lead poising in Kansas City area children.

Another hopeful sign was McClatchy posting “help-wanted” ads to fill two editorial-page vacancies after the retirements of Steve Paul and Barb Shelly. (On the not-so-good-news side of that development, a friend of mine, a person with outstanding credentials, applied five weeks ago and has not received a response or any kind — not even an acknowledgment. Bad form but not surprising.)

I have to admit I got worried anew toward the end of the Kansas Legislature’s session, however, when I noticed that Topeka correspondent Ed Eveld, who was assigned that beat about a year ago, wasn’t writing any stories. The Star was again picking up legislative reports filed by a reporter for the Wichita Eagle, another McClatchy paper.

I called a friend at The Star, and the friend told me Eveld was still at The Star but had taken an editing job on the sports desk. In addition, I learned, The Star was hiring a former intern, Hunter Woodall, to take over the Topeka post.

About the same time, Steve Vockrodt, a standout reporter at The Pitch, announced he was was joining The Star’s staff as a business reporter.

I had no idea, until Sunday, that The Star had hired three other journalists. They are Katy Bergen, another former Star intern who is now a general assignment reporter; Ashley Scoby, a former Sports Illustrated intern who is primarily covering high school sports for The Star; and Maria Torres, a former MLB.com intern who now is The Star’s digital and social media editor.

…Let’s hear a round of applause for the new hires; it’s good to see a few new oarsmen on the benches.

**

Now, regarding Gusewelle…Most of you know he hadn’t written a new Sunday column in months. In his absence, The Star ran old columns of his, along with a tag line saying his column would return.

Well, it returned Sunday, but it’s possible Sunday’s column could be his last. He wrote: “In these past months, I have been dealing with chronic health conditions. Time spares none of us.”

He said he would continue to “contribute to The Star as time permits” but that his weekly column was over.

Gusewelle

A friend of mine, who knows Gusewelle (pronounced Gus-well) very well, told me recently he has long had breathing problems and is on oxygen much of the time…When I got to The Star in 1969, it was the proverbial smoke-filled newsroom, “Gus” was one of many people puffing away. (One of the smartest things I ever did was give up cigarettes in 1964, immediately after the surgeon general’s report on smoking came out.)

Gus has had a run of more than 60 years at The Star. How he maintained his connection that long I will never know or understand…He’s got a huge following, and I’m sure all readers of this blog join me in wishing Gus good luck and congratulating him on a phenomenal career. In a way, as far as Kansas City is concerned, he’s the Ernest Hemingway who stayed.