Toellner Tells it

TIF for new Aldi location at 39th and Prospect

Today, Kansas City, Mo announced that it was going to TIF $5 million worth of spending on a new 16,500 square foot building that will house an Aldi store at 39th and Prospect.

Let me start with the good news.

1) I'm completely supportive of TIF money being used in the Urban core of Kansas City to help bring jobs, development, and resources to our badly-in-need urban core.

2) The new Aldi store will bring an estimated 13 jobs to this area of town.

3) Aldi is a great (and growing) brand, that serves low-cost goods. These types of low-cost food are in desperate need in this neighborhood that is in the middle of one of Kansas City's many Food Deserts.

So on many fronts, I applaud the city for funding this much-needed development in one of the city's high-need areas.

On the flip side, the building pictured above is an old Grocery Store that is in a strip mall at Linwood and Prospect -- a mere 7 blocks away. Could we not, less expensively, get a new grocery store to move into an old grocery store space just a couple of blocks away?  This would have helped end the blight of an abandoned building, helped the store get open sooner, and been less expensive for the city to help fund since it was an existing buidling.  Seems like it could have been an easier solution that could have left more available TIF funds for other projects instead of just throwing money at the situation for money's sake.  Not that this is a bad idea, just that it seems like there is a better, cheaper option.

Is the Star determining who is, and is not a viable candidate based on $$$?

Earlier today, Steve Kraske wrote an editorial about the quality of candidates in this year's version of the mayor's race?

But it was interesting that his column essentially eliminated two candidates from the start.

While his column features nice words to say about candidates Deb Hermann, Mike Burke, Jim Rowland and Sly James (along with current mayor Mark Funkhouser), he essentially never mentioned two other candidates in the mayor's race, Henry Klein and Charles Wheeler. 

But what makes these two candidates lesser candidates than the ones who are getting the press? 

The simple answer:  Money.

While the 5 candidates mentioned by Kraske have higher overall donations, neither Klein nor Wheeler had earned major donations as of a month ago. 

Sadly, it's not experience, smarts, or ideas that is keeping them from being mentioned by the city's leading news outlet as being legitimate contenders, it's simple money. Both have been regulars at the forums. Wheeler is the only candidate other than our current mayor who actually has experience being the mayor of this city. Klein lacks the political experience, but certainly doesn't have less political experience than Burke or James. Both have been active in all of the forums -- and Klein has brought a lot of unique thinking to the table with talk of improving public transit by partnering with private entities such as Zip Cars and in pushing green initiatives.

Sadly, it doesn't matter. Apparently only money matters to the city's newspaper of record...allowing the city's political insiders who collected early donations to continue to rule the roost in city politics.  The Star should report on the issues, and the ideas the candidates bring to the table to address the issues, and let the people decide who is worthy to be our mayor based on those ideas; instead of letting money decide who's viable and who's not.  

It's unfortunate that not being part of the political elite in the city doesn't warrant even consideration from the Star -- our citizens deserve better, and the city needs better than that.

The mayoral assault on crime begins

Last week, mayoral candidate Henry Klein posted a video talking about the significant crime problems in Kansas City -- and does a great job of breaking down the specifics of the crime issues in KC (Kansas Citians are less safe than 98% of the US population).

Then, this week, candidate Deb Hermann also reportedly noted that solving Kansas City's crime issues should be a major topic of conversation for the upcoming mayoral election.

There should be little doubt that Kansas City must address its crime issues. With the 2010 murder count now rising over 100 homicides, and property crimes and other lesser violent crimes also increasing, it is pretty evident that this needs to be a focus.

However, the talk of reducing crime in our city has to move beyond talking about the police force. I think it is really important for all of the future city leaders to realize that crime, in and of itself, is not the problem.  It is a symptom of the many other problems that face the city.  If we are to really address the issue of "crime" in Kansas city, we must address the other issues, like education, transportion, employment opportunities and housing issues that plague the city.

Improvements to our school system are essential to helping solve the crime issues. There are countless studies that show the connection between low educational attainment and crime.  And with KCMO schools having lacked accredidation for over a decade now (and having been substandard for longer than that), it is no wonder that many parts of the city suffer from poorly educated residents.  Poor educational attainment also can be directly correlated to high unemployment (see chart left from the Washington Post).

Which then leads to the problem of jobs.

Over the past 3 decades, the Jackson County portion of KCMO has lagged the rest of the metro in job growth.  In fact, over the past 15 years, the KC metropolitan area has grown total jobs by about 7%, while the US has grown by job about 15%.  Unfortunately, the job growth has been almost entirely on the Kansas side of the state line -- with the KS counties growing by about 17%, and KCMO losing about 15% of its jobs.

Even worse than the reality that the jobs have moved to other parts of the metro is the reality that many of the people in Kansas City's urban core do not have viable transportation to get to these jobs. If they cannot (or do not) afford to have a car, the lack of consistent and viable public transit options (particularly across the state line) have kept them from being able to acces the jobs that exist in other parts of the metro. So while many political officials have been made fun of for the need for a true regional transit system, the reality is that the urban poor in KCMO are the ones that suffer the most from it not being available.

And finally, there is the issue of housing. Because of the lack of jobs, the poor education system, and the inability to get to jobs, over 17% of the KCMO population is currently living below the poverty line -- with a large portion of the low-income living in the city's urban core in Jackson County. The high concentrations of poverty are also related to the high incidences of shootings in the metro.  If the city must also look at a very detailed housing policy that will help break up heavy concentrations of low-income housing (especially in instances where it's government funded low-income housing).

The mayoral race to be the mayor who is tough on crime (not that anyone is running on the pro-crime platform) must involve not only talking about the police department, but must involve talking about the underlying causes of crime - -the symptoms, vs just fighting crime itself.  Officials must focus efforts on improving education (not necessarily a city function, but there are things the council can do), real job growth,better public transit across state lines, and better housing policies.

Tackling the symptoms of the problems will not only cure many of our ills, but will also make sure "fighting crime" is not a mayoral talking point for the next 20 years as well.

Some thoughts on Missouri's Prop B

On Tuesday, the state of Missouri will vote on several state offices and initiatives -- including Proposition B.

Prop B, The "Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act" is a bill that would put more strict policies on commercial dog breeders in the state, including:

-- Require food, water, necessary vet care and housing protected from the elements

-- Sufficient space to turn and stretch freely and lie down

-- "Unfettered" access to the outdoors for animals, and minimum and maximum temperature requirements for dogs

-- Regular exercise and rest between breeding cycles

-- And limits ownership to no more than 50 breeding dogs

You can read the proposition in the entirety here.

The initiative seems like a no-brain er when taken on the face-value of the ballot-language -- which is why a recent poll shows that 69% of Missourians support Prop B. But unfortunately, not everything is as simple as it seems. 

To set the record straight, I am writing this as someone who is actively involved in animal welfare issues -- and actively work with rescue groups. I've never bred a dog or made a penny off of breeding dogs. And yes, I acknowledge that many commercial breeders take horrible care of their animals and that the mess does need to be cleaned up. Unfortunately, Prop B is not the solution.

Yes, much of the ballot language (feeding, watering, vet care) are complete no-brainers -- which is why they have been a part of the current state law for nearly 2 decades.  Much of the initiative is already included in the current law that governs commercial breeders, The Animal Care Facilities Act, in fact many of the initiatives in Prop B actually weaken the current law (including requiring feeding only once a day and having the requirement affect only those operations with 10+ breeding animals when the ACFA impacts those facilities with 3+ breeding animals).

The Missouri Vet Medical Association (which has come out opposed to Prop B) has a detailed overview comparing the two proposals so you can see the side by side comparison between the two laws that I think is definitely worth taking a look at.

As you can see, the changes in the actual care for the animals are actually quite minimal.

Prop B appears to be kind of an off-the-shelf approach to solving Missouri's puppy mill issues (the law is amazingly similar to a law that was passed in Washington 2 years ago), yet doesn't seem to solve the real problem with Missouri's commercial breeders.

The real problem stems from a long-term complete lack of enforcement of the current laws that has led us to get into this mess.

According to the ASPCA (who support Prop B), there are 3,000 commercial breeders in the state.  However, according to USDA number, there are only 1525 breeders that are licensed in the state.  With so many unlicensed breeders, and so many breeders altogether for only 13 inspectors, it isn't a huge surprise that enforcement of the current law might be an issue.  And in fact, it is.

According to the most recent state audit of the Missouri Department of Ag, in 2007, only 60% of all licensed breeding facilities were even inspected (even though the state law requires each facility to be inspected). This failure to even do basic services like inspections, was mirrored in a USDA audit  that highlighted their own ineptness.

Fortunately, the recent state audit inspired the start of Operation Bark Alert -- that led to the closing down of 164 breeding facilities and saving 3500 dogs in its first year of operation (2009) -- and 180 breeding facilities being closed down so far in 2010.

The problem in the state of Missouri doesn't appear to be the lack of laws -- clearly under Operation Bark Alert, many of the worst-of-the-worst breeding facilities have been closed down already -- it is the overall lack of enforcement that has been driving the majority of the state's "puppy mill" problem.

Prop B could actually make problems worse. The 50 breeding dog limit creates several scenarios that may make the situation worse. With the limited number of breeding dogs, many of the large breeding facilities will put their "excess" breeding dogs up for auction -- likely leading to one of two scenarios a) many of the dogs ending up at state rescues and shelters where they will likely end up "euthanized" at the area shelters or b) many very large breeding operations being broken into several smaller breeding operations that will make the state's enforcement issues worse, not better.

The end result could be making the enforcement problems worse, or the deaths of thousands of dogs.

Prop. B seems like an off-the-shelf solution to the state's problems that not only are not addressing the state's enforcement issues, but may be making it worse.  This may be why the spokespersons from Prop B are largely out-of-state spokespeople - -Betty White as a part of the robocalls in favor of the bill, Bob Barker doing radio interviews,Tony La Russa (who lives in California in spite of his job as the coach of the St. Louis Cardinals) doing TV commercials, and Wayne Pacelle, of the Humane Society of the United States also on the spokesperson front. 

While on the surface, Prop B seems like a "no brain er" type of law -- it isn't. It actually mirrors a lot of what is in the current laws, has dramatic unintended consequences for some new areas of the law, and doesn't even begin to deal with the primary issue of poor enforcement that has led to this problem in the first place. 

A vote against Prop B is not a vote in favor of Puppy Mills. In no way, shape or form should anyone support the cruel treatment of animals. And Missouri DOES have a problem with puppy mills. But Prop B is not the solution we've all been waiting for.

 

Many Winners in Yesterday's School Board Elections - unanswered question remain

Yesterday, Kansas City, MO held their elections for school board. It was a pivotal election for a lot of reasons. And coming out of it, there were some very obvious winners and losers. Once that is sorted out, the remaining questions of "what does this mean" will be sorted out.

Winners: Crispn Rea Jr., Kyleen Carroll and Joseph Jackson

They got the most votes (Rea and Carroll as at-large representatives, Jackson in his subdistrict). All three received approximately 73% of the votes (the Star's percent votes are a little misleading because there were only 11,350 voters yesterday, with each being able to vote for 2 candidates).

Winner: Superintendent Covington - Let's face it, KCMO hasn't been kind to school superintendents, churning out a new one about every 18 months for literally the past 50 years. That's part of our problem...no consistent leadership. Last month, Covington announced his plan to "right size" the school district in a move that would close nearly half of the public schools. It's a bold move -- and likely the best one for the students -- but very controversial. The three candidates that won in the election represent the three strongest supporters of the move. With 73% of the voter turnout being in favor of these candidates, it appears as if Covington has a large amount of support from the voting public -- and now of the school board. This should create some much need stability in the school adminstration, which is also a good thing.

Winner: Diversity and perceived racial divide in the school district. The three winners are a white female, a black male and an hispanic male. It's tough to get more diverse than that. Also, Joseph Jackson's election was a sub-district seat in a predominently low-income/black area. The fact that he got nearly an identical percentage of the votes as the At-Large candidates that also supported Covington, helps show that support for the Superintendent, and for the "right-sizing" of the schools is consistent across people of all neighborhoods and races. And that's a good thing.

Winner: Apathy in KC Politics - It could easily be argued that the single biggest factor that is negatively impacting Kansas City, MO South of the River is the schools. Poor education leads to higher crime. It leads to middle income families (who can't afford private schools, but can afford to move) to relocate -- often to the Kansas side of the line -- which hurts housing prices and the tax base for the city. The lower tax revenue impacts virtually all other services like police, roads, snow removal, parks and other things people complain about with the city. There is little that is more important than fixing our schools. And for that -- we got 11,350 voters out to the polls. That's it?  Ouch.

Winner: Kansas City Developers - Many of whom intend to redevelop some of the now-empty school buildings into lofts and office space.

It looks like there is now plenty of support for the Superintendent and for his "right-sizing" plan. But a lot of questions remain -- many of which can now get sorted out over the next 6 months.

1) Are we closing too many schools?  I get the need to close down quite a few schools as the district has lost half of its students over the past decade. But closing down nearly half the schools seems like a lot. Are we choking off too many schools and then not having room to grow if we are successful and the district starts growing again?

2) Will closing so many schools cause us to lose more students as families choose charter schools in their own neighborhoods...thus causing even more problems?

3) Will closing neighborhood schools decrease neighborhood/parent involvement as they feel like they are moving kids to someone else's neighborhood schools?

4) Will the developers who are redeveloping the old school buildings hold the city hostage for TIF money or other incentives in order to finish off the developments -- or will they sit on the buildings and let them blight neighborhoods?

Overall, I'm supportive of closing down a significant number of the schools. I think it is something that must be done. And over the next few months, the school board, including three new members elected yesterday, are going to get to work through these issues.

I wish them luck. There is little that is more important to the city than getting this right.

Note: Looks like 12th and Main posted some similar comments prior to me doing so.

Why are we making it harder for locally owned businesses?

From over at Blog KC, it sounds as if the city council's Public Safety and Neighborhoods Committee is, right now, meeting to discuss a new policy that would essentially eliminate all 3 AM bars in the city with the exception of the Power & Light District.

The new policy would definitely have a negative impact on many local neighborhood bars...and some districts including Westport. 

The idea that the city would actively pursue a policy that could have a dramatic impact on locally owned businesses in favor of an already subsidized bar district is baffling to me -- and the exact opposite direction we need to be heading. Already these bars have had to endure the competition for the subsidized P&L District, followed shortly by the city's smoking ban, and now, potentially, losing several hours of latenight business because they're no longer able to stay open.

Why do we keep sending the message to our local entrepreneurs that we really don't want their businesses in our city? We should be working to help local entrepreneurs...not working against them.

And it's becoming clearer and clearer that the P&L District has quickly become one of the most powerful lobbying forces in the city.

From over at Blog KC, it sounds as if the city council's Public Safety and Neighborhoods Committee is, right now, meeting to discuss a new policy that would essentially eliminate all 3 AM bars in the city with the exception of the Power & Light District.

The new policy would definitely have a negative impact on many local neighborhood bars...and some districts including Westport. 

The idea that the city would actively pursue a policy that could have a dramatic impact on locally owned businesses in favor of an already subsidized bar district is baffling to me -- and the exact opposite direction we need to be heading. Already these bars have had to endure the competition for the subsidized P&L District, followed shortly by the city's smoking ban, and now, potentially, losing several hours of latenight business because they're no longer able to stay open.

Why do we keep sending the message to our local entrepreneurs that we really don't want their businesses in our city? We should be working to help local entrepreneurs...not working against them.

And it's becoming clearer and clearer that the P&L District has quickly become one of the most powerful lobbying forces in the city.

Citizens have no input

This is going to end up being a rant. It's one measily story -- about not one of the most important topics in Kansas City, but I think, in a nutshell, it emcompasses almost everything that is wrong with politics in this city.

If you're a normal taxpaying citizen of the community, your opinion doesn't matter. Even if you get on a citizens committee, your opinion doesn't matter.  The city doesn't have to -- and won't likely -- listen to you.  At some point the government in this town quit caring about its residents, and now takes a "Daddy knows best attitude" toward the people.  And we need to fix it.

The Dog Park Debate

I quit caring much about the dog park in Sunnyside Park awhile ago. I was never the biggest plan of the proposal but even less of a fan of how it's been handled by our city officials.

Two years ago a group of citizens approached the parks board with the idea of building a dog park in Sunnyside Park in Waldo. They had raised $20,000 of their own money to help pay. They had crafted a design.  In a back room deal that I'm pretty sure violated open meetings laws, the parks board unanimously agreed on a proposal that required a dog park to be a certain minimum size, and that no dog park could exceed 20% of the size of the overall park.  The proposal essentially eliminated 90% of all of the parks in Kansas City from being able to contain an off-leash dog park -- including Sunnyside Park. 

After much debate, the Parks Board decided to create a citizens committee to make recommendations on potential dog park sites in the city.

For the next nearly two years, this committee met.  They studied parks based on Walkability, vegetation, topography, distance from programmed areas, rainwater management, availability of parking (it wouldn't be a KC discussion if we didn't discuss parking), restrooms and availability of water for a drinking fountain.

The committee wasn't swift in its findings, but it was thorough. And even though I don't agree with all of their recommendations, it was tough to find fault in their effort for their 47 page report.

Unless of course, you are our parks board. Which once again came back with a unanimous decision to createits own set of rules for the requirements of dog parks - -including that all dog parks must be no less than 5 acres big (this ignores the reality that Kansas City's only current dog park - -one that by everyone's assessment is extremely successfull - is only 3 1/2 acres big).  The new criteria virtually assure anyone living in on of the city's many older neighborhoods that will never get a dog park in their community -- based on an arbitrary size made up by 6 parks board appointees.

So while the Citizen's Committee created recommendations for up to 22 parks in the city that could be used for varying sizes of dog parks, the Parks Board came back with 6. The one in the "South Region" (nearest Sunnyside Park) that is recommeded is at South Oak Park.  While very close to Sunnyside Park, it's terrain is very wooded and would require the removal of 5 acres of trees to create the dog park -- making it so costly that it likely will never get done. The Citizens Committee ranked this park 12th best out of 15 parks in this region for suitability for the dog park. Nice.

The Parks Board essentially ignored the citizen committee's recommendations - wasting 2 years of time for a committee of 14 people. Daddy knows best. And the idea of creating a second dog park in the city of 500,000 people is on year 3 with virtually no progress.

Dog Parks

There have been a lot of comments about dog parks being for dogs, and parks for people, and all kinds of things on the internets. I want to set the record straight here. Dog parks are for dog owners as a place to take their dogs in the same way that Tennis Courts are for people who play tennis - -not for tennis rackets.  I've never quite understood why people think it's ok to build tennis courts with taxpayer money, disc golf courses,skateboard parks, playground equipment for kids, softball fields, soccer fields, bike trails, running trails and the vast array of things we put in our parks, but for some reason, not for dog owners. We share our park space. I don't play tennis -- but I think it's great that we have tennis courts for these people. I don't have kids, but like that kids have a place to play. Shared park space makes for a better city for everyone. But I don't quite get how a larger percentage of people can own dogs than have kids under the age of 12, or participate in most of the specific activities we put in parks and yet people who own dogs don't get much respect when it comes to their own space.  It doesn't make much sense to me.

In the 2008 citizen satisfaction survey, 51% of people said they don't feel safe in our city parks during the day.  90% don't at night. In large part this is because our parks are terribly underutilized and it isn't an odd occurrence to be in a city park and be the only one there.  Putting dog parks in many of our city parks would increase usage (see what it's done for Penn Valley park?) and the increased usage would increase the feeling of safety.  We're missing a huge opportunity with our under-utilized parks system.

Speaking of the parks system - -it should be noted that less than 50% of the population in the Citizen satisfaction survey were satisfied with every single element of the parks and recreation district (except the location of the parks). And only 18% of citizens are happy with our appointed boards, including the parks board.

But is anyone listening to the citizens?

Mark Funkhouser

Three years ago, mayor Mark Funkhouser announced his new parks board and it was with great satisfaction that he declared that this would be a non-elitest group (implying that the old board was). But since then, the board has been infested with the same old same old (or worse than the old group) problems. It started with the problems (and eventual stepping down) of Francis Semler who was a member of the minute men group and has manifested itself through an entire group of people who make snap, rash decisions, who put arbitrary limits in place with no rationale at all, and who seem more interested in using power to settle personal vendettas against other people than actually following any type of real public input and public service. It's been a real disgrace to this city in so many ways.

"Are we gong to disappoint people?" asked Parks Board President John Fierro.  "Of course.  We disappoint people every Tuesday when we meet here." 

It shouldn't be that way.

We must make the change

The citizens of this city need to take back their government. At some point over the past few decades we became a a group of people that fears their government -- when it should be the government that fears us. They work for us: the voters, the taxpayers. We need to demand better. We should no longer allow a few high-dollar campaign donors to raise enough money to keep electing THEIR candidates into office. We need to vote in OUR people. This may mean voting for the person with less money, without the snazzy ad campaign and signs. It may take going to forums, meeting the candidates, reading their websites and really getting to know them outside of the pages of the Kansas City Star. But the citizens need to do it.  The information is too readily available now online and in blogs for us to continue to make bad decisions on candidates who don't represent us -- or who think they can appoint a board that doesn't need to listen to its constituents -- or its own appointed citizen committees. 

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm tired of living in a city where the citizens don't matter....and we somehow accept it. 

This story is only about dog parks....but the same thing happens daily in virtually every area of our governing body.

Shame on us.

Even random shootings are somewhat predictable when bad public policy is at play

On Sunday morning, at around 1:20 am, 38 year old Lynn Glover was shot and killed while apparently waiting for a bus at a bus stop at 34th and Troost.  She was apparently killed by a stray bullet that was shot by a 16 year old who was shooting at someone else.

Ms. Glover's death is tragic.  And yet not unforseeable.

Just last week, KCMO published their Homicide Report for Q1 2009.

See the reddest dot on the map?  Yeah, that's where this shooting took place. I wrote about this back in January when I noted that back in 2008, this area had a new project-based Section 8 Housing building. These project based Section 8 housing units have proven around the country to increase crime in those areas. Back in 2006, Kay Barnes' staff signed off on a renewal of Section 8 housing in this area for another 25 years -- even though the contract violates current HUD standards.

Project based Section 8 is little more than verticle segregation that is creating modern day ghettos.

The crime from last year has continued into this year. Back in March, a man in one of the Section 8 buildings on that block was shot and killed. Now, Ms. Glover.

These Section 8 apartments have brought with them a wealth of problems. And Ms. Glover is just another victim of those problems. Two weeks ago my neighbors were held up at gunpoint a block from here as they went for a walk. It's bad enough when people are victims of violent crime in this city because poverty and bad schools have created problems in the city. These are tough problems to fix (although we seem to be making little progress on them). But when someone becomes a victim of crime because of careless city policy -- it is completely inexcusible. And there is some more serious talke about even more out-of-town developers wanting to come in and create more Section 8 housing in the area.

We must. Stop it. Now.

These projects are creating big red dots all over our crime maps.  While Ms. Glover's death was random in its choice of victim, the crime was anything but random. In fact, it was highly forseeable...every night as police cars sit in front of the buildings.

There are better ways. Better solutions. We shouldn't need more victims to prove it. It is time for our city leaders to really dig in to come up with better solutions to low-income housing than the policies of the early 1970s. We've learned a lot about success and failure of these programs since then and it's time to roll up our sleeves and come up with workable solutions instead of repeating the failures of the past and present. The neighborhoods, the people in the housing, and random people waiting for buses deserve better.

KCMO Budget Crunch

Last week, finance committee leader Deb Hermann announced that KCMO may face a $80 million budget shortfall in 2009.

This is going to lead the city to have to make very difficult budget decisions for next year. I'm sure, over time, I'll have some suggestions for the city on places to cut.

However, as the city makes hard decisions on the cuts, there are a couple of things I think they should keep in mind.

We should keep in mind how it is that we've gotten in this situation. I detailed it here, but the nutshell of it is, KCMO has had a declining population for the past 40-50 years. The rising costs of services, the increasing infastructure needs aver decades of deferred maintenance, and the fact that much of the populaiton growth in the city is coming in the northland that requires all new infastructure has led to much of our financial problems. As we make decisions on where to make cuts, we must do so with the idea that if we want to fix this problems long term, we MUST work toward increasing the number of people who live in Kansas City, MO. We need to increase the tax base, to fill up empty homes and neighborhoods and spread out the infastructure costs across more people.

I mentioned some of the things that can improved upon to encourage people with options to move to KC in the short term in posts here and here.  If we could focus our efforts on getting people to move (and stay) in KCMO, we should focus our budget efforts on:

1) Stopping crime -- the KCMO police department has asked for 60 new officers for next year -- we should do this, even if it takes even more money out of other budgets.

2) Improving schools -- this doesn't even require more money, it just requires the school district to do their job better and be better stewards of the money they're given.

3) Increasing jobs.

The city should also continue to look for other revenue streams -- including private and corporate donations for parks, advertising opportunities, selling off abandoned city owned properties (there are many that are complete eyesores), etc.

But the goal should be to cut budgets and programs that are less important in attracting new residents, and improving programs that are keeping people away. Meanwhile, it is the things that keep people away that make life tougher for the people who do live here. But we must increase the population base of KCMO in order to afford the infastructure improvements we so badly need....or the budget cuts will just keep coming. And it will be impossible to cut our way to prosperity.

Kansas City Prop 8 Protest

I'm behind on several things after a 2 week hiatus from posting, but I have several things lined up for this week. 

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a Kansas City area protest to California Proposition 8, a protest that was pretty well attended (about 400 in attendance) and was virtually ignored by much of the local media. Proposition 8, in California was a voter initiative that, by passing, outlawed marriage by gays in the state of California.  This law seemingly violates a Constitutional ruling in the state that said that prejudice based on sexual preference was not legal. 

The protest was attended by many. Obviously there was a big turnout by the gay and lesbian community. There was also a good turnout of local politicians including state Senator Jolie Justus, State Representative Beth Lowe, City Councilwoman Beth Gottstein and School Board member Airick West.  There were also many straight couples in attendence, including me and my wife.

So why would I be there?

The November election was a historic one in this country. For the first time ever, a black man was elected to be the President of the United States. A lot has been made of this, but it truly is amazing. The first 16 presidents of the US could have literally owned Obama. 140 years ago, Obama would not have been allowed to vote.  50 years ago, Obama would not have been allowed to attend the same schools as white people.  To be elected president wouldn't even have been an option.

In an election where we showed that as a nation, we can put bigotry aside, it was very disappointing that the state of California would then pass a bigoted legislation targeted the gay and lesbian community.

As a citizen of this country, I continue to be disgusted by the willingness of our citizens, and our government, the put unnecessary restrictions on small segments of the population. We pass bans on smoking in privately owned  restaurants. We restrict who the ability of people to park their work vehicles in their driveways. We restrict the ability to have carports.  We restrict certain groups of people from having the same insurance, medical and tax rights as others based on their sexual preferences.

As a citizen of this country, I remember that this country was found on personal freedoms -- including the freedom FROM our government from being forced to follow someone else's religion.

If you oppose gay marriage for religious reasons, that is fine. I understand. You and your church have every right to prevent gays from marrying in your church. But legally preventing them from marrying in ANY church is just wrong. 

At some point we need to stand up for other people's rights in this country...or else we, ourselves, may be left with none.