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

Well, now…The new publisher is off to an excellent start, in my opinion. And I think you will agree.

Prodded by comments from former society editor Laura Hockaday and a regular reader named Bill Hirt, I sent an email to Tony Berg this afternoon, congratulating him on his appointment and urging him to devote considerable time to the circulation and delivery problems that many people have complained about in recent months.

Earlier, I had encouraged Mr. Hirt to send Mr. Berg an email and tell him about the problems he had experienced. (If you’re interested, Mr. Hirt’s explanation of his delivery problems is in the comments on the previous post.)

…I was out for a while this afternoon, and when I got back home, I saw Mr. Hirt’s follow-up comments on the previous post, as well as Mr. Berg’s email.

First, here’s what Mr. Berg had to say…

Greetings Mr. Fitzpatrick — I appreciate the kind words and (the) welcome to the (publisher’s) post. As you did in your (blog) post, I would encourage your readers to send their concerns to me, and I’ll work diligently with our team to get them addressed. Again many thanks for the kind words and warm welcome.

Publisher Tony Berg

Then, I saw that Mr. Berg had called Mr. Hirt and told him he would get on his concern. A while later, another Star official called Mr. Hirt and assured him he would attend to his delivery problem.

I also had received an email from Laura Hockaday, thanking me for my intercession with Mr. Berg and complimenting him on his responsiveness.

Laura wrote: “If he can solve them (the delivery problems), he will make hundreds of subscribers — if they are still subscribing — overjoyed. The circulation problem is rampant and ongoing.”

Laura signed off with this…“Amazing that Tony Berg answered an e-mail immediately. Maybe there is hope.”

…Yes, indeed, readers, it appears the new sheriff at 18th and Grand is going to stir things up. Maybe he’s going to blow up the do-nothing atmosphere that permeated the four years of Mi-Ai Parrish’s time as publisher.

…You can contact Mr. Berg at tberg@kcstar.com. (With a few exceptions, the email address form for KC Star employees is first letter of the first name, followed by last name, @kcstar.com).

You can also reach employees, including Mr. Berg or his administrative assistant, by phone. Call (816) 234-4141 and follow the dial-by-name directory.

I strongly encourage you to write to or call reporters, editors, advertising executives, the publisher or any other Star employee whose name you know and would like to contact. Contrary to the impression a lot of readers have, the newspaper business is interactive. Most reporters and other employees welcome feedback. They don’t know what readers are thinking unless we let them know. Also, if readers think they’re being heard, not only will they continue to subscribe but they will spread the word about their positive interactions. That equates to happy readers and fatter numbers on The Star’s bottom line.  

What a day here in our town!

We saw one of the most important positions in all of Kansas City re-filled today, and people everywhere were joyous, some almost delirious.

…Yes, folks, that’s how deeply the naming of a new publisher at The Kansas City Star can affect people.

Tony Berg, in The Star’s newsroom today

The new publisher is 38-year-old Tony Berg. That’s awfully young. But he’s from this area, and he’s had 15 years of newspaper experience, including three years in charge of advertising at the Wichita Eagle and nearly a year in the same position at The Star. Berg was born and raised in Kansas and received a bachelor’s degree in strategic communication and journalism from the University of Kansas. His wife Audrey is also a KU graduate. They have two sons, Archer and Wyatt.

Like The Star, the Eagle is owned by the beleaguered McClatchy Co., based in Sacramento, CA.

The fact that Berg is young had to be a consideration for McClatchy, which is carrying a debt of about $966 million: They don’t have to pay him nearly as much as they would an older, experienced publisher.

He succeeds Mi-Ai Parrish, who put in a strange four years as publisher — strange as in ineffectual and nearly invisible — before moving on to the Arizona Republic last year.

The Star’s report on Berg’s appointment was accompanied by video of him addressing employees in the second-floor newsroom. I’ve been to several of such gatherings, which are traditional at big newspapers nationwide when a major player is introduced — usually a new owner, publisher or editor.

(One such gathering I distinctly remember was after the Walt Disney Co. had purchased Cap Cities/ABC, whose holdings included The Star and several other newspapers. Word on the street was Disney was not the least bit interested in the newspapers, that its main target was ABC and ESPN, which was part of the deal. But when Disney C.E.O. Michael Eisner appeared in the newsroom and addressed The Star’s staff, he said Disney had no intention of selling the newspapers. A year later, the papers were up for sale and were purchased by KnightRidder, which later sold to McClatchy.)

But with the arc of newspapers in an extended descent, there was little chance of Berg making reckless proclamations or promises.

After being greeted with enthusiastic applause and some cheers, he gave a heartfelt, down-to-earth speech that had to hearten the beaten-down staff, which has been overworked and preoccupied with job security since McClatchy paid way too much for the KnightRidder papers in 2006.

Berg acknowledged the wolf at the door — the Internet — but said he believed The Star could prevail in the battle for news supremacy in Kansas City and the rest of The Star’s distribution area. As he and every other new publisher is obliged to say, he asserted that The Star’s future was bright. He then added…

“We’re in a fight, and it’s a tough fight. But it’s not unlike the fight Col. (William Rockhill) Nelson fought 135 years ago when trying to take control of the paper business here in Kansas City. The only difference today is that the fight is on the digital front. That fight has no rules. It has no regard for how long you’ve been in business. But it is a fight that we can win…We have shown audience growth at a time when people said we were going to die. And we didn’t. Our audience has never been bigger than it is today.”

At another point, his words had to make the hearts of reporters and editors soar when he alluded to a recent expose that showed Kansas City Fire Department supervisors had failed to clear firefighters from an alley at a big fire on Independence Avenue. Two firefighters who were in a “collapse zone” that should have been cleared died when the wall of a three-story building came crashing down. Berg said:

“That piece…didn’t make us many friends, but you will learn this from me: It’s not just words; I will stand behind work like that very proudly, and I will stand behind work like that every day because that is what makes us so important in the community we work in. It’s what makes us so important to the towns we represent.”

And so begins a new era at The Kansas City Star. With today’s move, it’s a time to be guardedly optimistic. A young, seemingly energetic leader is on the scene, and he understands the challenges. My best advice to him would be what it was to Mi-Ai Parrish, who ignored it:

Get involved in civic leadership. Let the Civic Council and the Chamber of Commerce know there’s a new sheriff at 18th and Grand. Raise The Star’s flag, figuratively, everywhere you go. Accept every invitation to appear on radio and TV. Elevate The Star’s profile by raising your own profile. Sell the paper as confidently and as assertively as you sold ads. Go out and kick ass; you lead the best and strongest news-gathering operation between Chicago and the West Coast. 

…Oh, I forgot to mention that I heard another fairly important position in Kansas City was refilled today. Great to have Gordo back…It’s been a great day in Kansas City.

Soon after arriving in Kansas City in the fall of 1969, I began reading and hearing about this place called the Country Club Plaza, which for months I pronounced “plah-za,” elongating the first syllable. (To this day, you hear a lot of newcomers struggling with the pronunciation of what would seem to be a simple word.)

And, truly, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. Block after block of beckoning, solidly built retail stores and restaurants. The district was so extensive it seemed like a maze. Three of my favorite places were on the west side of the district — the bowling alley, Sears and Gateway Sporting Goods.

One of my outstanding early memories of Kansas City was buying a ping-pong table at Gateway. I lived at 59th and McGee in a rental house with four other guys, all MU graduates, including a KC Star colleague named Harry Hill. (Harry left the paper after a few years and went on to become a state representative and later a lobbyist at the State Capitol.) One day Harry and I decided it would be a good idea to buy a ping pong table for the dining room, which was devoid of furniture. We didn’t even have a table there; for dining we had a picnic table with two benches in the kitchen.

So Harry and I went down to Gateway and bought a ping pong table. The next problem was how to get it home. Being young guys with low salaries, we didn’t want to spend whatever it cost to have the table delivered. We talked about it and Harry came up with the brilliant idea of me holding the box while lying against the back of his dark green VW, with feet planted on the back bumper.

Do you get the picture? I was leaning against the gently rounded back of the VW, arms spread wide and holding the big box in front of me. The only thing people behind us could see of me was my hands and feet.

“Drive very, very slowly,” I told Harry.

And off we went — onto eastbound Ward Parkway, over to Main (which then crossed Brush Creek), down to Brookside Boulevard and up either 57th or 59th to McGee.

We made it without mishap, and that ping pong table served us well for several years. I believe it was still there when I moved out in 1977.

…Those old stores that many of us remember fondly — the three I mentioned, along with others like Macy’s, Woolf Brothers, Jack Henry and Putsch’s cafeteria — left the Plaza long ago. But the Plaza has always remained a special and wonderful place for Kansas City. It’s our “crown jewel” for good reason.

And now, for just the second time since J.C. Nichols built it in 1923, it is having a change of ownership.

Kansas City area residents were concerned after the Nichols Co. folded and a Raleigh, NC, named Highwoods Properties bought the Plaza in 1998. With a few hiccups along the way, Highwoods proved to be a responsible owner. And, most important, the Plaza has continued to prosper.

From today’s Kansas City Star story, it appears to me that the Plaza once again is landing in responsible hands. The incoming owners — who will pay $660 million for the Plaza — are two experienced shopping center owners — Taubman Centers and the Macerich Co. Taubman, based outside Detroit, owns and manages 23 shopping centers in the U.S. and Asia. Macerich is the third largest owner and operator of shopping centers in the U.S, according to Wikipedia. The company was founded in 1994 and has its headquarters in Santa Monica, CA.

I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of Macerich, but I have become familiar with a Taubman property — Taubman Prestige Outlets in Chesterfield, MO, just west of St. Louis. I have stopped there several times on the way to or from St. Louis or Louisville, my hometown.

One of the things I like about the Chesterfield outlet mall is it doesn’t look like a mall from the front. It could pass for a large, low office building but for the names of some well-known stores on the facade. The stores do not have front entrances, however. People funnel into the mall through a brick walkway that opens into a wide walkway flanked by stores on both sides. Almost all pedestrian traffic is not visible from out front. It is something like the inner pathway at the Prairie Village Shopping Center, if you can picture that, although much longer. Contributing to a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere in the “center court” are sculptures and a variety of plants.

Of course, it is impossible to say from this example that the Plaza will continue to prosper under Taubman. But I think it’s a good sign…Also, I wouldn’t worry about the Plaza becoming an outlet mall. With rent rates what they are on the Plaza, merchandise almost has to be top of the line, full price.

Finally, I think it’s safe to assume the Plaza Lights tradition will continue. It’s a big expense, but it draws people from throughout the Midwest.

…At this point, I have just one piece of advice for the new owners: Drop the damn fireworks display on Thanksgiving night, when the lights are turned on. (I have already written a letter to Robert Taubman, chief executive of Taubman Centers, about that. Out with the fireworks!)

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s now time for the main event.

Please welcome in the blue corner The Great Kraskini, aka, Steve Kraske, political columnist for The Kansas City Star. In the red corner, it’s little-known, but always game, Jimmy C (formerly The Fabulous Jimmy C).

The Great Kraskini

Jimmy C

The ref

Tonight’s bout will be five rounds, predicting the outcomes of five national and Missouri state political contests on tap for 2016.

Round 1: The Republican presidential nomination

T.G.K. throws a wild haymaker, picking Ted Cruz.

Jimmy C, having seen time and again that arrogance is a terrible burden to haul up a steep hill, counters with a crisp left jab and says Marco Rubio.

Round 2: The presidential election

:: T.G.K. and Jimmy C split this round, both picking The Lady With Her Own Email Server to win big.

Round 3: The Republican nomination for Missouri governor

T.G.K. unleashes a bolo punch (straight over the top, toward the crown of the head) and says Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, who has held the No. 2 job for 12 long years, will be the Republican nominee.

Jimmy C sees the overhead punch coming and slips it. He also sees Rex Sinquefield’s millions pushing Catherine Hanaway past Kinder, who once dated a stripper. (Not that there’s anything terribly wrong with that; it’s just hard to envision a former strip-club patron in the governor’s mansion.)

Round 4: Missouri governor

T.G.K. throws a right cross, pegging Democrat and current attorney general Chris Koster as the next governor.

Jimmy C leans away, Rope-A-Dope style, and plasters T.G.K. with a straight right to the nose…Catherine Hanaway.

(T.G.K. might be able to look a short distance into the future, but his knowledge of history is suspect. He must have forgotten the front-page, 2014 New York Times story that exposed Koster as a slave to special interests…The story recounted how a lawyer for 5-Hour-Energy buttonholed Koster at a convention of state attorneys general and prevailed on him to grab his cellphone and pull Missouri out of a multi-state investigation of 5-Hour-Energy…At a meeting of Republicans in Kansas City early last year, Hanaway passed out bottles of 5-Hour Energy drink bearing a caricature of Koster under the name “24-Hour Corruption.” )

Round 5: Missouri’s U.S. Senate race

T.G.K. goes with a conventional right hook and picks the incumbent, Republican Roy Blunt, but then he slips on the canvas, seeing Blunt “barely getting past a stronger-than-expected Jason Kander.”

Being a good sport, Jimmy C catches T.G.K. before he falls to the canvas and guides him back toward his corner, whispering in his ear, “Kander gets slaughtered.”

(Again, T.G.K.’s institutional memory fails him. In. 2010, long before the Red Sea flooded Missouri, Blunt beat Democrat Robin Carnahan by 264,000 votes out of about two million votes cast.)

**

Although the fight should be over, the referee signals a bonus round for the wildly cheering fans…

Bonus Round: Which presidential candidate wins Missouri — Mrs. Bill Clinton or Rubio/Cruz?

T.G.K. remains seated in his corner, exhausted and beaten down. Jimmy C  walks to the center of the ring, grabs a fat Sharpie from the ring announcer and writes on the mat, “The Republican, of course.”

As one, the fans scream, “Why?”

Before donning his robe and exiting through the ropes, Jimmy C scratches this on the mat…

2008 — McCain, 1,445,814; Obama 1,441,911

2012 — Romney, 1,482,440; Obama, 1,223,796

2016 — Fill in the blanks

While waiting for the ball to drop in Times Square and Kathy Griffin to further embarrass Anderson Cooper on CNN, here are a few New Year’s Eve jottings…

:: Driving to the DMV in Raytown today, I noticed that all the parking spaces in front of the Speedy Cash store at 63rd and the Paseo were full and the lobby crowded. Must be a banner day for the payday loan guys…

:: I was undecided whether to go to the Downtown DMV or the one in Raytown. I chose correctly. While the one in the Missouri State Office Building on 13th Street has a good texting system that lets you know where you stand and how long your wait is, the wait is almost always pretty long. When I got in line at Raytown this morning, there were 12 to 15 people ahead of me in an S-shaped queue. I had taken my New York Times and was expecting to wait 30 minutes or more. Five clerks were working on renewals, however, and one of them was watching the line closely and giving crisp instructions to people waiting. “You people over here need to go to the back of the line,” she said at one point. Another time, she told a hesitant person at the front of the line, “Just go up to any window; we all do everything.” It was the first time I’d ever seen a take-charge clerk at any DMV location. They’re usually bored, tattooed and impatient…For the record, I got to the front of the line in about 15 minutes. Barely had time to read one newspaper story.

:: The report out of Cleveland is that quarterback Johnny Manziel, who led the Browns against the Chiefs last Sunday, is out of this weekend’s final, regular-season game because of “concussion symptoms.” That, despite no indication during or immediately after the Chiefs’ game that he had suffered a head injury. The report was being greeted skeptically on the Internet. Here’s what two commenters had to say on a New York Post story: 1) “He ain’t got no damn concussion, he got a hangover” and 2) “Johnny Manziel is being evaluated for a possible hangover; tests revealed a 30 rack of Bud heavies under his jersey.”

Mojave

:: I don’t know what The Star is coming to…A very touching and well-reported “dog” story by Lynn Horsley ran in the paper today, but it ran on age A4 instead of the front page, where it and all touching cat-and-dog stories have historically gone. I guess that’s what happens when a “redesign” dictates only two stories will be on the front page. So, the story of “Mojave” being rescued by a dedicated animal control officer after being dumped near 45th and Brooklyn got bumped by Bill Cosby and a statehouse ethics story. Those were both good stories, too, but Mojave should have been “outside.”

Jordan

:: Here’s a strange one…The Star reported that Ray Anthony Jordan, 41, of Grandview, turned himself in Wednesday, three days after he struck and killed a 38-year-old man walking along East Outer Road near 128th Street early Sunday. Jordan is charged with leaving the scene and driving with a suspended license. In an interview, Jordan told police he thought he had struck a deer with his SUV. (Uh huh.) He not only left the scene but he later took the SUV to an Independence body shop, apparently to repair damage from the hit and run. Among other things, investigators found pieces of hair in the damaged windshield. It wasn’t deer hair…

:: You’ve gotta see this — Kansas City’s Joyce DiDonato singing “Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City” with the New York Philharmonic, which lost a World Series bet with the Kansas City Symphony. One of the best parts of this video is the irrepressible DiDonato wearing an Amos Otis jersey.

Happy New Year, everyone. I wish you a safe and healthy 2016. And thanks for your readership this year.

While a high school student back in Louisville, KY, in the early ’60s, I used to watch The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson just about every night in the summer, when I could sleep late the next day. When Carson first took over The Tonight Show in late 1962, the show came on the air about 11:20 p.m. (Eastern Time), after the nightly local news, and didn’t end until 1 a.m.

I remember well some of those comics that Carson had on, like Buddy Hackett and Bob Newhart. But the one who made the biggest impression on me was Bill Cosby, who sprang onto the scene in 1963 with his routine about street football in his hometown of Philadelphia.

Cosby started the routine by describing “the greatest quarterback in the world,” the guy who had to control 23 players on a side and design plays around the various impediments in a busy downtown neighborhood.

Part of it went like this…

Here’s a guy with an ingenious mind.  He’d call a football play like this….”Now, listen to this, now. Uh, Arnie, go down, uh, ten steps and cut left behind the black Chevy. Filbert, you run down to my house and wait in the living room. Cosby, you go down to 3rd Street, catch the J bus. Have him open the doors at 19th Street. I’ll fake it to you. They always have one fat kid they never throw it to, says, “What about me?” He says, “You go long.”

I thought that was about the funniest routine I ever heard, and I marveled at this African-American comic who played football at Temple University and then had gone into stand-up comedy.

That routine — and others — propelled Cosby to stardom, and he went on to have a sensational TV career, as well as continuing to do stand-up comedy and issue record albums.

Then, in recent years — in the twilight of his career — came the allegations that he sexually assaulted many women, mostly after inviting them over for a drink and mixing quaaludes into the drinks.

All of a sudden, Cosby went from being a funny guy and a legendary comic to a suspected sexual predator.

Bill Cosby, on Wednesday in Pennsylvania (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

The nadir came today, when a heavy-jowled, sad-eyed Cosby was led into court in a Philadelphia suburb to be arraigned on a felony charge of aggravated indecent assault, dating to a 2004 incident. The complainant, a 42-year-old Canadian named Andrea Constand, alleges Cosby assaulted her at his home in a suburb north of Philadelphia.

The New York Times described Cosby’s arrival at the courthouse…

Carrying a cane and stumbling slightly along the way, he walked past the flashing bulbs and ignored shouted questions from reporters lined up behind barricades before entering the courthouse.

Judge Elizabeth McHugh ordered him to surrender his passport and to avoid contact with Ms. Constand, reporters inside the courtroom said.

Judge McHugh concluded the proceeding after about 15 minutes by saying “good luck to you, sir,” to which he replied “thank you,” a reporter in the courtroom said. He will remain free on bail of $1 million.

Constanc

Although the allegations started coming several years ago, a comic named Hannibal Buress deserves a lot of credit for paving the way for what happened today in Pennsylvania.

In October 2014, Buress — who, like Cosby, is black — called Cosby “a rapist” in a performance in Cosby’s hometown.

Burress said…

And it’s even worse because Bill Cosby has the fucking smuggest old black man public persona that I hate. ‘Pull your pants up, black people. I was on TV in the ’80s. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom.’ Yeah, but you raped women, Bill Cosby. So, brings you down a couple notches. ‘I don’t curse on stage.’ Well, yeah, you’re a rapist, so, I’ll take you sayin’ lots of motherfuckers on Bill Cosby: Himself if you weren’t a rapist.”

Ripping Cosby publicly took a lot of guts, even though several women had already filed civil lawsuits against Cosby.

Hannibal Buress

Buress, though, has shown he doesn’t hold back on anybody. At a roasting of Justin Bieber earlier this year, Buress, standing several feet from a seated Bieber, said: “I don’t like you at all … I’m just here because it’s a really good opportunity for me. I hate your music. I hate your music more than Bill Cosby hates my comedy.”

He was smiling when he said that, but it was clear he was saying what he felt. Discombobulated, Bieber smiled awkwardly and self-consciously…A nice bit, indeed.

**

I noticed that when he arrived at the courthouse today, Cosby was wearing a handsome, black-white-and-gray-flecked hoodie, which appeared to be cashmere. Must have cost at least $500.

Even though Cosby lives a high-end lifestyle and can afford the finest and most expensive apparel, I find it comforting that a fancy hoodie doesn’t count for much when a rich guy with a big ego is charged with a felony that may land him in prison. He’ll look just right in black and white stripes, or orange, or whatever colors the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections puts him in.

As most of us have experienced, the best kind of Christmas present — either giving or getting — is one that costs nothing. It is the gift of service, talent and self to someone who needs something money can’t buy.

Such is the gift that a friend and fellow writer, David Chartrand, gave Saturday night to a Prairie Village woman whom David wrote about 37 years ago when she was young and facing a lifetime of harsh physical limitation.

The woman, Dana Wray, has been a quadriplegic since a terrible 1974 car crash — and her life is as difficult as ever.

Having reconnected with Dana through Facebook a couple of years ago, David arranged a reunion aimed at lifting Dana’s spirits. Besides being a writer, David is a musician, and he staged what amounted to a personal concert for Dana at Kaldi’s Coffee, 79th and State Line Road.

The only other people on hand were me, caregiver Kathy Kelly and a few coffee shop patrons who drifted in and out.

I played a small role in the reunion. Earlier this year, I reconnected with David, who worked at The Star in the early 1980s. We met for coffee three times this year — once in Overland Park and the last two times at Kaldi’s, which is in Prairie Village. After David got the idea for the reunion, he asked a manager at Kaldi’s if it could take place there, and the manager kindly obliged.

So last night, while the rain came down steadily outside, David performed a variety of songs, including some great oldies like the Everly Brothers’ “All I Have To Do Is Dream”; The Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty-Four”; Bobby Darin’s “Dream Lover”; and Blood, Sweat & Tears’ “And When I Die.”

Dana Wray and her caregiver Kathy Kelly listened to David Chartrand sing and play guitar Saturday night.

In between songs, the three of us talked about a variety of things, including Dana’s condition and quality of life.

In addition to her ongoing disability, Dana has had surgery for bladder cancer, and last month she had surgery for colon cancer. On Monday, she will start chemotherapy, which will be administered by pills. No questions about her condition or circumstances are off limits; she talks about all of it openly, and at one point said with a smile, “If you’re around me, you get more information than you need.”

Dana lives in a house owned by her stepmother. She has round-the-clock care and has Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare benefits. Despite her struggles, she enjoys the good times that present themselves, such as last night’s reunion. She especially likes to go to concerts. When I asked her point-blank if her life was extremely difficult, she replied simply, “It’s hard to find good caregivers.”

Her focus, it seemed to me from a few hours around her, is on the practical ramifications of getting through one day and moving on to the next.

**

The crash occurred July 26, 1974, near Savannah, MO, not far from Maryville, where Dana was an education student at Northwest Missouri State University. She was a passenger in a car being driven by her roommate. The car went off the road and flipped onto its side after the roommate over-corrected. The roommate, who was wearing a seatbelt, wasn’t seriously injured. But Dana, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was thrown toward the back of the car, and her body smashed through the rear window. Two cervical vertebrae were broken or severed. At age 20, life as she had known it — and had not foreseen it changing drastically — was over. She had planned on becoming a teacher but was never able to do so, even though she got her bachelor’s degree and later got a master’s degree in social work from KU.

David did not become familiar with Dana’s case until 1978, four years after the crash, when she was living in a Lawrence, KS, nursing home. David was a 24-year-old reporter covering the statehouse for the Lawrence Journal-World, and Dana’s life was in more than ordinary crisis. The nursing home was threatening to evict her because it did not have the finances or resources to care for a person with needs as extensive and time consuming as hers.

Alerted to Dana’s case by a nursing home reform group, David wrote a story about Dana’s plight. Even though the story didn’t even make the Journal-World front page, it caused a firestorm.

A Lawrence resident set up a trust fund and began raising money to benefit Dana. At the state level, several Lawrence members of the Kansas Legislature brought pressure on the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services to do more to help Dana. In a matter of days, SRS came up with funds to pay for a private nurse to tend to Dana eight hours a day while she was in the nursing home. A few months later, a special legislative committee embarked on a study of services to people with severe disabilities.

David’s initial story won a second-place award from the Inland Press Association, an Illinois-based organization with about more than 1,000 daily and weekly newspaper members. “It was pretty heady stuff for being a young reporter,” David recalled.

David stayed at the Journal-World for two more years, until late 1980, when he was hired by The Star (actually, The Kansas City Times, the longtime morning edition of The Star). He worked at The Star — where I got to know him — for a few years before going out on his own. He now writes about mental health and does humorous commentary. Currently, he is writing a book about the epidemic of adolescent suicide and depression in the U.S. in the 1990s — an epidemic that he says was not recognized as such at the time. The book revolves around an Olathe youth who was severely depressed and committed suicide at Stull Park in Overland Park.

**

David and Dana were both 24 when David wrote his story about her. Now, they’re 62, and their relationship, if you will, has come full circle.

The last song David played for Dana was “In My Life” by The Beatles. He looked at her as he sang the lyrics…

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain

All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends
I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I’ve loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new

Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

This Christmas Eve, I am sorry to report the death of one of Kansas City’s stoutest, most resolute friends of Kansas City’s disadvantaged people.

Rev. John Wandless — retired Catholic priest, founder of the Urban Ranger Corps and founder of the nonprofit organization What U Can Do — died this week.

John Wandless

John was 79 and lived a stone’s throw from the grounds of St. Teresa’s Academy. He was found in his home yesterday afternoon, apparently having died a few days earlier of a heart attack. (He suffered from atrial fibrillation.) Funeral arrangements had not been made as of this writing.

Before becoming a priest, John was a husband and father. His survivors include his son Tom Wandless, who lives in the San Francisco area, and daughter Julie Thompson of Kansas City. (Julie’s husband is Chris Thompson, one of the late Byron Thompson’s sons.)

…I was proud to call John a friend, as well as an associate through political involvement.

John and I worked together on two political campaigns. The first, in 2013, was Jackson County’s foolhardy bid to convince voters to approve a sales tax to make the county a “translational medical research” center.

John contributed several thousands dollars to an opposing campaign committee that I formed — Committee to Stop a Bad Cure — and voters defeated the proposal by a mind-boggling 86 percent to 14 percent.

One statement John made during that campaign is permanently etched in my memory; it reflected his general view toward the haves and the have nots: “The one percent is always ready to tax poor people.”

The second political issue on which John and I teamed up was the push earlier this year to convince the Kansas City Council to approve a $15-an-hour minimum wage. The initiative failed, but once again John put his money (and he had a lot of it) where his convictions were. He recruited me to spend thousands of his dollars to purchase billboards and newspaper ads to promote the minimum-wage campaign.

He still hadn’t completely given up hope on the minimum wage issue at the time of his death.

Although John did not have a high public profile, he was extremely effective at what he did for three reasons: Purity of intent, irresistible personality and willingness to spend his own money on the causes closest to his heart.

When I say purity of intent, I mean he was never, ever looking for publicity or to advance himself. His abiding interest was improving the lot of poor people — helping them get good jobs and, in turn, gain pride and dignity.

In personality, he was a joy to be around. In an easy-going way, he would propound big ideas and sometimes unattainable aspirations — always for the benefit of others — but then he’d circle around to the here and now and say, “Let’s go to Panera and get some lunch.”

**

His route to personal success and then to the priesthood was unusual.

He got a college education through the G.I. Bill of Rights. He then worked for the federal government during the 1960s War on Poverty program. Later, he got into the computer software business and founded a company, Cactus Software in Overland Park, that provides products and services to the health care industry. He made millions.

An article in The Catholic Key described how he became interested in becoming a priest after his wife of 30 years died of cancer.

Inspired by the love and service of priests who stood by him in his grief, (he) entered the seminary at a time when men his age were making their final plans for retirement. He was ordained in 1997 at age 60 and gave 10 years of active service as a priest, including the inner-city pastorate at St. Louis Parish that he actively sought.

One of his greatest successes while serving as an inner-city priest was forming the Urban Ranger Corps, which provided summer jobs to boys 14 to 18. The goal was to give the boys confidence and basic skills, such as home repair, that would serve as a stepping stones to more significant jobs down the road. The Urban Ranger Corps, which remains active under different leadership, was not a hand-out program. The boys were held to demanding standards, which were embodied in six words that John stressed: “Be on time. Dress properly. Speak respectfully.”

John’s last venture was founding What U Can Do, a social welfare organization that John used as a vehicle to continue pushing for a better life for disadvantaged people. Once again, though, John used his money to advance his altruism. At the time of his death, he was in the process of establishing What U Can Do as a 501(c)(4) organization, which is different than a 501(c)(3) in that it can spend money on political activities and campaigns, as long as those activities pertain to the organization’s mission.

**

I will close with a few quotes that John gave to the writer of The Catholic Key article. They go to the heart of his philosophy about the importance of human dignity and empowering the lowly.

“When someone appreciates you and what you have done, that builds up self-esteem.”

“There’s no job that doesn’t have anything to do with your future.”

“If you have a chance to go to work and earn a paycheck, then you have choices.”

May you be with God in heaven this Christmas Eve, John.

Everyone responds to pressure differently. But to mow down people on a crowded sidewalk in Las Vegas?

Holy shit!

To me, that incident, which killed a 32-year-old Arizona woman and injured many other people, including four college wrestlers, was almost as frightening as the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. Although many more lives were lost in those incidents, the Las Vegas tragedy ranked right up there for sheer randomness and lunacy.

The Las Vegas tragedy also struck closer to home: Our 26-year-old son, Charlie, is a graduate student at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and he has often walked along the part of Las Vegas Boulevard where 24-year-old Lakeisha Holloway, a homeless mother from Portland, ran amok in her 1996 Oldsmobile.

Valenzuela

Fortunately, Charlie wasn’t on The Strip Sunday night, and he’s scheduled to fly into KC this afternoon to spend Christmas with us. Sadly, the family of 32-year-old Jessica Valenzuela of Buckeye, AZ, will not experience the joy of her presence this Christmas, or any Christmas in the future. She is the one victim who died. Three other victims were in critical conditions with serious head injuries.

One of the ironies of the incident is that Holloway’s three-year-old daughter was safely strapped in the back seat of the Oldsmobile as her mother wreaked havoc.

Holloway

According to an arrest report, Holloway told investigators that she hadn’t been drinking or using drugs but was under extreme stress because security personnel at various parking garages kept moving her along as she tried to sleep in her car.

That part — that she was prodded to move along — jibes with what our daughter, Brooks, told us after returning from a recent visit with Charlie. She said hotel, casino and restaurant personnel do not tolerate any loitering; if you’re not spending money, you can’t take up space anywhere.

Investigators believe Holloway was headed to Dallas to find her daughter’s father after they had a falling out. Along the way, she apparently ran out of money.

Adding to the complexity and sadness of this case is that fact that just a few years ago, Holloway appeared to be on the verge of overcoming a very difficult childhood. An African-American newspaper called The Skanner, which covers the Pacific Northwest, published a story in 2012 about Holloway. She had recently completed a program offered by the Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center, which reconnects “alienated, at-risk youths” through education, work training and mentoring. 

Holloway three years ago — after earning a high school diploma and planning on a career in the U.S. Forest Service.

In the article, Holloway described being homeless during her freshman year in high school and said that her mother had lost hope after struggling many years to earn a living with only an eighth-grade education. Her mother had turned to alcohol, leaving Holloway to fend for herself. With the help of the industrialization center, Holloway had obtained a high-school diploma and was pursuing a career in the U.S. Forest Service.

The Skanner quoted Holloway as saying: “I would like to thank the Forest Service for sending me an application and taking a chance on me. And I’d like to thank POIC for the love and support and for being more than a program, for being a blessing.”

For whatever reasons — maybe pregnancy and the responsibilities of motherhood, maybe a failing or failed relationship with her little girl’s father — Holloway’s hopes of pulling herself up by her bootstraps crashed down Sunday night on The Strip.

The irony is hard to grasp. In a matter of moments, the energized atmosphere of the Las Vegas Strip — lights, action, thrills! — turned into a scene of carnage, with bodies flying and blood flowing. And Holloway, who seemed close at one time to pulling herself together, is now charged with murder, child abuse and failing to stop at the scene of an accident.

Why? Why?

Police and emergency crews respond to the scene of a car accident along Las Vegas Boulevard, Sunday, Dec. 20, 2015, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Apparently, he’s finally gone.

I speak of former Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert W. Finn, who bathed himself in ignominy and shamed the diocese.

Some friends who are members of Visitation Catholic Church, said the Rev. Patrick Rush, Visitation’s pastor, announced recently that Finn had moved to Lincoln, NE, to serve as chaplain at a nuns’ convent.

Very fitting. After being convicted three years ago of a misdemeanor charge of child sexual-abuse cover-up, he can’t serve in a parish. And Pope Francis, who called him to Rome and demanded his immediate resignation, certainly doesn’t want him anywhere near the Vatican.

Plus, the Diocese of Lincoln has a reputation as one of the most conservative in the country. That should suit Finn, an adherent to the ultra-conservative Opus Dei association of priests.

After resigning last April 21, Finn continued living for a time in palatial quarters that had been renovated to his specifications several years ago in diocesan offices at 20 W. 9th St. That arrangement continued during the months that Joseph Naumann, leader of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, served as administrator of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese.

I believe the move to Lincoln took place shortly before or after the new permanent bishop, James V. Johnston Jr., arrived from Springfield, MO, in November. From what my friends told me, Finn and the bishop in Lincoln are friends and the friend invited Finn to take the Nebraska post.

It sounds to me like Finn slinked out the back door when he left Kansas City….The Star apparently didn’t find out about it — no article — and I don’t think the diocesan newspaper, the Catholic Key, reported his departure. The last article I could find about Finn on the Key’s website (which is a certifiable disaster — no dates on any stories accessed on the search button) was the announcement last spring that he was resigning. The Key never wrote anything negative about Finn. Of course, Finn was in charge of the paper and kept a heavy thumb on the reporters and editors.

…Meanwhile, the nasty stew that Finn cooked up shortly before he was asked to resign is still playing out and untangling. He ordered several extremely controversial priest reassignments, including naming a problematic Northland pastor to succeed Pat Rush at Visitation.

For space reasons, I’m not gong into detail about the Northland priest (you can read all about it here, if you’d like)…but suffice it to say some Visitation parishioners created such a squall that Archbishop Naumann canceled that reassignment and a few others. As a result, Rush had to delay by a year his planned retirement.

Another priest who had to delay his retirement was Robert Rost, who was at odds with Finn and whom Finn had consigned to the boonies of northern Missouri several years ago. Rost had to put off retirement because Finn had reassigned another priest he was at odds with — Don Farnan, pastor at St. Thomas More — to replace Rost in northern Missouri. But Farnan torpedoed that plan when he dug in his heels and said he wouldn’t report until after he had taken a sabbatical.

I’ll never forget what Don Farnan told me about that conversation with Finn: “He sort of went off.”

Very telling. Perfect temperament, don’t you think, for a bishop who had hundreds of people reporting to him? In the end, Farnan remained at St. Thomas More, but he could get reassigned in the spring, the time of year priest reassignments are usually announced.

(As you know, I usually run photos of my blog subjects. In this case, I just can’t bring myself to do it. But you can picture him.)

**

A couple of closing thoughts:

First, I wonder what those nuns in Lincoln think about Finn. You might remember that under Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican ordered an umbrella group for U.S. nuns to “shape up,” in so many words, after an investigation concluded the nuns’ group had taken positions that undermined Roman Catholic teaching on the priesthood and homosexuality, while promoting “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.” I would bet anything that Finn was 100 percent in favor of hammering the nuns. Pope Francis, by the way, has pressed forward with the reformation. (It’s still a good ol’ boys club, you know.)

Second, I wonder what kind of living quarters Finn has now…I’d like to believe what my Visitation friends jokingly suggested: He’s living in an Airstream out back.

(Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…God, please forgive me for being so mean-spirited, but I think I should get a pass on this one.)

**

Editor’s note: It’s Saturday morning (I posted the Finn piece Friday night), and I just read The Star’s story about special prosecutor William Seay charging Highway Patrol Officer Anthony Piercy with involuntary manslaughter in Brandon Ellingson’s May 2014 drowning at Lake of the Ozarks. “I have charged him with recklessly causing the death… It relates to an unjustifiable risk being taken,” Seay said. Seay (pronounced See) is the second special prosecutor who reviewed this awful case. The first special prosecutor, Amanda Grellner, fumbled and bumbled the case not once but twice, wasting precious months. Seay, a former prosecutor and retired Circuit Court judge in the Ozarks area, got it right. He hired an investigator, took his time compiling the evidence and then lowering the boom on a totally ill-trained water patrol officer, who also had the distinct disadvantage of lacking common sense and compassion. Congratulations Mr. Seay!