tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50584353186811113372024-02-20T06:17:38.266-06:00Red Bridge StoryUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-2701609472388093362022-03-11T18:30:00.014-06:002023-02-23T20:26:32.778-06:00Alternative News Sources<!DOCTYPE NETSCAPE-Bookmark-file-1>
<HTML>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<Title>Alternative News</Title>
<DL><p>
<DT><A HREF="https://mate.substack.com/">Aaron Maté</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/">Afghanistan Analysts Network</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://theanalysis.news/">theAnalysis.news</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.antiwar.com/">Antiwar.com</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://armswatch.com/">Arms Watch</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://thebaffler.com/">The Baffler</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://blackagendareport.com/">Black Agenda Report</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.brasilwire.com/">Brasilwire</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://caitlinjohnstone.com/">Caitlin Johnstone</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.thecanadafiles.com/home">The Canada Files</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://chrishedges.substack.com">Chris Hedges</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.commondreams.org/">Common Dreams</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://consortiumnews.com/">Consortium News</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://covertactionmagazine.com/">CovertAction Magazine</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://dissidentvoice.org/">Dissident Voice</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://electronicintifada.net">The Electronic Intifada</A>
<DT><A HREF="http://theempirefiles.tv/">The Empire Files</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://fair.org/">FAIR — Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://geopoliticaleconomy.com">Geopolitical Economy Report</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://rumble.com/c/GGreenwald">Glenn Greenwald</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://thegrayzone.com/">The Grayzone</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://independentleft.news/#/">Independent Left News</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://rumble.com/c/TheJimmyDoreShow">Jimmy Dore</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://johnkiriakou.substack.com">John Kiriakou</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.patreon.com/m/414502/posts">The Katie Halper Show</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://kawsachunnews.com/">Kawsachun News</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.liberationnews.org/">Liberation News</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.racket.news">Matt Taibbi</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.thenation.com/authors/max-blumenthal/">Max Blumenthal at The Nation</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.medialens.org/">Media Lens</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://mediaroots.org/">Media Roots</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.mintpressnews.com/">MintPress News</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://mondoweiss.net/">Mondoweiss – News & Opinion About Palestine, Israel & the U.S.</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://news.mongabay.com/">MongaBay Conservation news</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://mronline.org/">MR Online</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://multipolarista.com/">Multipolarista</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.opednews.com/">OpEdNews</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://popularresistance.org/">PopularResistance.Org</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.propublica.org/">ProPublica</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://radindiemedia.com/">Rad Indie Media</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://onlineradiobox.com/us/wzhf/?cs=us.wzhf&played=1">Radio Sputnik</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://nader.org/">Ralph Nader</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://raymcgovern.com/">Ray McGovern</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://sabbysabs.substack.com">Sabrina Salvati</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://scheerpost.com/">Scheerpost</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.scottritterextra.com">Scott Ritter</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://seymourhersh.substack.com">Seymour Hersh</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://shadowproof.com/">Shadowproof: Independent journalism on movements for justice</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://sparrowmedia.net/">The Sparrow Project - Amplifying Voices for Social Change</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.thenation.com/authors/stephen-f-cohen/">Stephen F. Cohen at The Nation</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.telesurenglish.net/">teleSUR English</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://tcfrank.com/">Thomas Frank</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://thetricontinental.org/">Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://www.truthdig.com/">Truthdig</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://truthout.org/">Truthout</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://wikileaks.org/">WikiLeaks</A>
<DT><A HREF="https://worldbeyondwar.org/">World BEYOND War</A>
</DL><p>
</HTML>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-34324755127139748382009-09-16T22:26:00.005-05:002009-09-16T23:58:24.485-05:00Clueless in K.C.At a community meeting in southeast Kansas City tonight, dozens of local residents gathered, apparently to vent their frustration with two of the main speakers: Owen Buckley, whose company owns what was once Bannister Mall (now a pile of rubble), and Councilman John Sharp.<br /><br />Many of the people had come to previous meetings where Mr. Buckley and his attorney had painted a very rosy picture of what a soccer-centric redevelopment plan would look like. Even before the collapse of Wall Street, it was clear to me and my friends that this plan would never happen, and if it did, that it would be a failure of spectacular proportions.<br /><br />So, we were in the small minority there who weren't upset that there won't be another pro-sports arena in Kansas City. That's probably why I felt so detached from the whole thing. That feeling only got worse as Councilman Sharp convinced some in the crowd that it wasn't enough to have given away the store (in the form of diverting to the developer any taxes on the land or from any economic activity that may happen there). No, we needed to give them even more "economic incentives" with the help of the State of Missouri.<br /><br />Oy.<br /><br />The irony of these "economic incentives" now is that -- not having the burden of property taxes -- the owners of the land have no incentive to develop it. There is minimal cost to them as they sit on the property in hopes a better deal will come along sometime ten or twenty years down the road.<br /><br />Yet there was no suggestion of revoking the tax-exempt status of the land. And there was not one mention of the plan that <u>wouldn't</u> have been a spectacular failure, but which never had much of a chance due to the backward thinking in this town. Read about that in <a href="http://bit.ly/132oKI">The Pitch</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-22288441569513154452009-08-23T12:53:00.008-05:002009-08-23T14:05:08.585-05:00Who is our city council really working for?The other day, I referenced an article on firedoglake in a <a href="http://twitter.com/hiyashi_tanuki">tweet</a>:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>Reason we're screwed #1 Not only does campaign money corrupt Congressmen, the job is just a resume-builder for K-street <a href="http://bit.ly/2izO96">http://bit.ly/2izO96</a><br /></blockquote></div>This was about the U.S. Congress, but it applies to our own city council as well. Just look at the career of former 3rd district councilman Troy Nash.<br /><br />Nash sat on the Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Committee during his two terms on the city council (1999 to 2007 -- a period that witnessed too many sweetheart deals with developers to list, diverting your tax dollars into developers' pockets while putting the city in a precarious debt situation.)<br /><br />After being term-limited off the city council, Nash became Vice President and Director of Public Sector Consulting for Zimmer Real Estate Services, one of the largest firms in the Kansas City area.<br /><br />This fits the pattern perfectly: Use one's time in government to service wealthy interest groups, then work directly for them in the private sector, using the connections made while supposedly serving the people's interests to further the interests of their true masters.<br /><br />Information that indicates who these true masters are is out there, but you don't hear about it much, and doing your own research by looking up campaign contributions at the <a href="http://www.mec.mo.gov/EthicsWeb/CampaignFinance/CF_SearchComm.aspx">Missouri Ethics Commission web site</a> is not my idea of a fun leisure time activity.<br /><br />But, somebody needs to do it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-29824971335504927222008-12-08T17:43:00.003-06:002008-12-08T19:07:10.353-06:00Death to The StarThe Kansas City Star has refused to publish Arnold McMann's "As I See It" <a href="http://redbridgeroad.blogspot.com/2008/12/guest-comment-on-red-bridge-project.html">submission</a> critical of the Red Bridge Road Alternatives Study.<br /><br />While one can never expect or demand that one's letter to the editor will be published, the Star's summary dismissal of Arnold's letter seems suspicious in light of the fact that the Star previously published a piece praising the Alternatives Study.<br /><br />It's even more suspicious because that pro-Study piece was simply a re-editing of the literature being disseminated to promote the project by the public relations firm hired to manage the Study. The supposed author is well-known to many who attend local meetings in south K.C. as a hack for parasitic commercial interests. Some of his neighbors also had pro-Study letters published in the Star even though those neighbors had never previously expressed an interest in the project and in one case at least was not even registered to vote here. Again, those letters appeared to have been ghost written by that same P.R. firm.<br /><br />There is much going on behind the scenes that The Star has never shown an interest in uncovering for the benefit of open and efficient governance in Kansas City. Perhaps their evident collusion in the local culture of corruption explains all of this.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-46630985593651877802008-12-08T14:00:00.008-06:002008-12-08T19:06:08.484-06:00Guest Comment on Red Bridge ProjectSouth K.C. resident and investor Arnold McMann composed this post regarding the proposed monster bridge in Minor Park:<br /><br />On December 2nd I attended the unveiling of the proposed Red Bridge Road project that replaces the historic namesake. The plan is a culmination of almost five years of bitter debate pitting neighbor against neighbor to push through the politically volatile project. The plan to make Red Bridge Road the East-West artery designated by the Major Street Plan is very much in evidence. The right-of-way and bridge is designed for conversion to a four lane road at any time without further public comment. A true Trojan Bridge, where the City's four lane design is decorated like a holiday gift and the failed intersection at Holmes Road receives even more traffic. What is the monetary cost? Estimates are five million dollars to create and defend the design and fifteen million dollars in constructions costs. The current bridge could have been rebuilt for far less at a time when the City is running a deficit budget and bonds are too expensive.<br /><br /> It may be of only casual interest that in its infancy the citizens of the area were merely asking for curbs and sidewalks between Holmes Road and Grandview Road. This was documented in the last FOCUS survey the City conducted in 1999 and we still have no plans or budget to build them. The Sixth District City Council members lobbied MoDOT hard to retain a 71 Highway exit to Red Bridge Road, at great additional cost, despite the obvious traffic planning difficulties it presented. It was built to a four lane specification leaving the historic bridge as the last firewall to making Red Bridge Road a highway bypass.<br /><br />The machinations used to first drive the project included traffic counts inflated by major construction on 71 Highway, threats that any delay meant the loss of federal funding and the last refuge of every politician, public safety. When these and other straw issues were refuted, the City's gargantuan bridge plan was withdrawn. During the public outcry, City staff called individuals who opposed the project in public meetings "crackpots" and NIMBYs while mobilizing some citizens to support the project. Those of you who remember the election that followed know the casualties left in its wake.<br /><br />Not to be deterred, the next effort was taken out of Public Works and was carefully orchestrated to deliver a "consensus" decision that met every criteria of the original City project. A public relations firm was contracted to conduct the campaign. An advisory committee was invented where city staff, businesses, development representatives and institutional interests were in clear majority. The city design contractor would not let citizens in attendance speak nor did they make any provisions for them to hear the one-way discussions.<br /><br />Still another contractor was used to put together a "survey" of stakeholders. The survey was created without input from the advisory committee and determined by experts to be a push poll that included selected phone interviews and an arbitrary cutoff. Not surprisingly, the outcome of the survey supported the City agenda. It was the keystone used repeatedly to justify the planned outcome at every venue. The most apparent use of this device was at the Parks and Recreation approval meeting when the board members were also reminded of where their budget was approved.<br /><br />My neighborhood is not the first and will not be the last to fall victim to the development first, neighborhoods last mentality of Kansas City. This process was instructive in how far our governance has left behind those whom it has sworn to serve in order to perpetuate its own interests.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-54509086227729687892008-11-03T10:49:00.002-06:002008-11-03T10:54:23.166-06:00My perspective on the light rail issueThere are many arguments for and against the latest light rail<br />proposal, and although I support the concept of using trains<br />to move people around Kansas City, I'm voting no on<br />Tuesday's proposal. I'd like to present one of the reasons<br />for that here -- a reason based in what I learned from the Red<br />Bridge experience:<br /><br />About a year ago, The Friends of Red Bridge presented a plan<br />for Red Bridge Road to the governing board of the K.C. Parks<br />Department. The FoRB plan would cost a fraction of the City's<br />plan, and yet improve safety, the local economy, the<br />environment, and livability by far more. It was completely<br />disregarded.<br /><br />The process used to come up with the City's light rail<br />proposal on Tuesday's ballot was similar in important ways to<br />the Red Bridge Road study: it seemed the outcome was<br />predetermined, and innovative ideas that are working elsewhere<br />were not allowed.<br /><br />In the light rail discussion, that innovative idea is the<br />modern street car, a less costly and lighter-weight vehicle<br />that would also deliver better economic revitalization than<br />the larger light rail trains.<br /><br />In <a href="http://kctribune.com/article.cfm?articleID=18315">an article at kctribune.com</a>, you will learn that a south Kansas City<br />resident and member of the Citizen's Light Rail Task Force<br />said that while the Task Force's mission was to conduct an<br />"alternatives analysis" of all aspects of the rail transit<br />plan, the consultants never discussed street cars as an<br />alternative to light rail.<br /><br />"Garbage in, garbage out" as they say. Should we validate a<br />flawed process that is biased toward a system that is so<br />expensive, yet promises diminished benefits?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-63508443643421196692008-04-19T10:49:00.004-05:002008-04-19T23:18:04.115-05:00Funkhouser gets the citizen treatmentLast month during the city budget debate, Mayor Funkhouser wrote a letter to the K.C. Chamber of Commerce criticizing them for not giving due consideration to his learned opinion on the matter:<blockquote>“I am outraged that my input was not sought in the development of the chamber’s recent resolution on the city’s budget. I saw it for the first time when it was introduced at the board meeting. I raised concerns about the resolution. You and your board members listened politely and then called for questions and further discussion. There was none, and the motion to adopt the resolution was summarily approved.”</blockquote>While Funk fan Yael Abouhalkah wrote “good for the mayor,” The K.C. Blue Blog emphasized the arrogant tone of a letter “full of nothing but sentences bragging about his education level.”<br /><br />Now, I would like to put my spin on it that has nothing to do with either the budget or the Mayor’s lack of savoir-faire, but with something that might be even more important: governance in Kansas City.<br /><br />As someone who has been on the receiving end of one “ram through” after another (most recently by the Parks Board and City Council), Funkhouser’s complaint sounds very familiar. It’s business as usual in this town. Let’s turn it into an English lesson. Just fill in the blanks...<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">“My input was not sought in the development of _________.”</span><br /><br />Of course not. Your input doesn’t count. The decision was made before the facade of public debate began.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">“I saw the ________ for the first time when it was introduced at the meeting.”</span><br /><br />Because they don’t care what you think about it.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">“There were no questions and there was no discussion, and a motion to adopt it was summarily approved.”</span><br /><br />Because we have a democracy in form, but not in substance; that’s the bottom line, and there is no prospect for changing that on our flat Midwestern horizon.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-76268377844832529802008-02-27T15:01:00.004-06:002008-02-27T16:32:20.802-06:00Council Representation FantasyI wasn’t able to attend or watch the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee meeting today, but I imagined what a half-way-decent council person would have said:<br /><br />Council person (to consultant): “This doesn’t look like a consensus to me. There are still a lot of people upset about your plan.”<br /><br />Consultant: “Seventy one per...”<br /><br />Council person: “71% isn’t a consensus. A consensus is something everyone agrees upon, and with the failure to get any approval from the very group that stopped the plan before and is just as opposed to your plan now, I don’t think you have any kind of agreement at all, let alone a ‘<b>consensus</b>’”.<br /><br />Consultant: “It’s impossible to please all of the people all of the time. Nobody ever gets everything they want.”<br /><br />Council person: “Looks like the supporters of the big-bridge plan got everything they want, but that’s not the point. Sharron and Teresa here represent a group of people who set this whole process in motion. They are not entitled to a particular <span style="font-weight: bold;">outcome</span>, but they <span style="font-style: italic;">are</span> entitled to a <span style="font-weight: bold;">process</span> that empowers them and addresses their concerns. What you did would be like reaching a labor agreement by using management and shareholders as the interlocutors while the workers just stood by and watched.”<br /><br />Consultant: “I don’t think we could reach a 100% consensus.”<br /><br />Council person: “OK. Let’s try. Teresa, do you agree that we need a bridge over the Blue River?<br /><br />Teresa: “Yes."<br /><br />Council person: “Tim, do you agree that we need a bridge over the Blue River?”<br /><br />Tim: “Yes, and the railroad."<br /><br />Council person: “Sorry, not asking about the railroad. We have a consensus for building a bridge over the river. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”<br /><br />Consultant: “I don’t think the Citizens for New Red Bridge would call that a consensus.”<br /><br />Council person: “Why not? I’m sure a survey will get a 100% affirmative response to that question. That’s what democracy is all about, isn’t it: surveys?”<br /><br />Consultant: “Using those standards, Mr./Ms. council person, I don’t think any infrastructure project would ever happen. There’s always someone opposed to it.”<br /><br />Council person: “We have a sordid history of infrastructure projects being put in place over large-scale community opposition: The famous Robert Moses expressway through the heart of the Bronx utterly devastated that whole area and it still hasn’t recovered. Here we have the Watkins Expressway. The lesson I draw from these projects is simple: building without reference to a neighborhood’s character is destructive. This Red Bridge thing looks a lot like that. Basically, we have a proposal to change the status quo, so I agree that we need a consensus, or an agreement from the parties involved in order to carry out the plan. If you lack that agreement, the status quo should remain until such time as an agreement is reached. I think that principle is especially applicable when the course of action being suggested is irrevocable. Building a smaller bridge leaves the big-bridge option on the table. But once the big bridge is built, it cannot be removed. So, you’d better be damned sure that you are doing the right thing before you proceed. In this case, I don’t see how we can be sure of that at all.”<br /><br />Consultant: “But the federal funds expire in 2009.”<br /><br />Council person (sarcastically): “Oh, well why didn’t you say so!? Bring on the freaking bulldozers!”Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-37822671426644123412008-02-22T16:01:00.006-06:002008-02-22T16:21:24.259-06:00Rage against the PR machine<span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;color:black;" ><span style="color:black;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />I submitted the following letter to the editor to several area newspapers. I don’t think it was published by any of them.<br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;color:black;" ><span style="color:black;">It’s easy to make the case for your position when you can manipulate the facts to fit your conclusion, as Tim Henry did in Wednesday, February 6th’s “As I See It” column regarding the city’s ongoing push to put a huge bridge in </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;color:black;" ><span style="color:black;">Minor</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;color:black;" ><span style="color:black;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;color:black;" ><span style="color:black;">Park</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;color:black;" ><span style="color:black;">.<br /><br />If there were truly a consensus, why did so many people withdraw from the “alternatives study” in protest? The answer: It was not a public process, but a charade. As the project manager stated, the participants were there merely to observe. At all times, the consultant controlled everything, including a biased survey that was employed not to inform the project team about the community’s desires for the Red Bridge area, but to lead to the same pre-determined conclusion they come to every time. In fact, the contract drawn up with the consultant demanded that the result be the same big-bridge plan. What kind of alternative is that? Henry also mis-states the facts in regard to the differences between the latest proposal and the previous one. Only by comparing it to the proposal before the proposal before the last proposal can you say that the latest one is any kind of reduction. Even former councilman Chuck Eddy said that 5-year-old plan was “never serious”.<br /><br />Why is the city so determined to build such a big bridge on such a little road? The answer is obvious to many in south K.C., and it was in fact stated early on in the process by a Public Works official, then never repeated: Red Bridge Road is to be a highway alternate, helping to handle the tens of thousands of trucks that will be servicing the freight and warehouse facilities being constructed at the old Richards-Gebaur Air Force base.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-75846150791624970112007-12-14T01:09:00.000-06:002007-12-14T02:03:35.853-06:00Elephant 2.0It’s no longer the elephant in the room. The Mayor’s decision not to support the renewal of the City Manager’s contract has set off a firestorm in Kansas City politics. I would refer you to <a href="http://thekansascitypost.com/2007/12/city-manager-different-perspective.html">Mark Forsythe’s excellent post</a> on this topic, and just end this short blog with this: There will be no change in the dismal state of our City government without serious reform and new ideas. That means a new CM.<br /><br />I thought that’s what the last election was about. Change.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-74361722952912907142007-10-30T21:02:00.001-05:002007-10-30T21:43:53.190-05:00The Elephant in The RoomI attended Mayor Funkhouser's Town Hall meeting tonight, and I'd like to give you my take on the whole thing and perhaps get some feedback if anyone is actually reading this thing.<br /><br />A man stood up early on in the question session to address what he called the elephant in the room. The audience probably knew that he was referring to the Francis Semler affair, just as we seemed to get the allusion to Mrs. Semler earlier in the evening by the Mayor himself. The speaker voiced his support for Mayor Funkhouser's position, and received applause from the audience. After that, there were no further references to that issue. So, elephant it may be, but not something concerned citizens in south K.C. seem interested in talking about.<br /><br />If it is the elephant in the room, that's only because the matter has been blown up into a big media ta-doo for political reasons.<br /><br />The real elephant, the mother of all elephants, is something more fundamental, and I saw it in virtually every issue being brought up that people <i>really</i> wanted to talk about. That's why I got up to say what I said near the end about the bureaucracy being a huge dead weight dragging down the implementation of reforms that I think the Mayor and a majority of the Council want to see happen. I've heard it said that most City Hall employees voted for Mr. Brooks and now they have no incentive to see "A City That Works", and I know from my foxhole experience in the Red Bridge battle that we are up against stiff resistance to change and public involvement. In his response, the Mayor talked about the culture at City Hall, but my head was still spinning from having made a speech in public, so maybe I can hear from you about what you heard at the meeting.<br /><br />As far as Red Bridge is concerned, Terrence Nash explained another elephant in a different room: the project is essentially an illegal act. The Council said one thing, and the Public Works department has done something different. No, not different: <i>opposite</i>. Teresa Edens talked about the survey, which is just pure evil if you ask me. (I haven't been so incensed about anything since Bill Frist was Senate Majority Leader.)<br /><br />Arnold McMann was the first speaker of the evening, and brought up the issue of accountability of public funds. That was the first of many issues that for me keep coming back to the need to do a "full Gorbachev" on this City: <i>glasnost</i>, <i>perestroika</i> and democratization.<br /><br />Maybe the Mayor and his family should refrain from trips to their <i>dacha</i> in the Ozarks until we get things sorted out.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-42591765813212626022007-06-28T00:05:00.000-05:002007-06-28T12:27:19.241-05:00Your Honor, May I Approach The...Oh Screw That.I was sitting with my fellow <a href="http://fightbillboardblight.org">Citizens Against Billboard Blight</a> in the audience for today’s meeting of the Planning and Zoning committee. We were there to testify for an extension of the moratorium on new billboards. A representative for the billboard industry, Mr. James Bowers of White, Goss, Bowers, March, Schulte & Weisenfels, was there to propose some changes to the moratorium. (Thanks to councilman John Sharp, chairman Riley, and the other committee members, he was unsuccessful.)<br /><br />I hope you can see this on channel 2 or <a href="http://kansascity.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=968&entrytime=0:1025">via the City website</a>, but Mr. Bowers (wearing a bright orange tie) is running around behind the bar like he is just another City staffer.<br /><br />That sight says it all: The corporate lawyers have written the laws for so long here that there is no visible separation between them and those elected to write the laws.<br /><br />Citizens should demand that our council members put them in their place.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-4890416016350040672007-06-23T11:03:00.000-05:002007-06-23T11:45:00.194-05:00Changing HabitsBlogging regularly is a habit, and one that I have not adopted. As you can see, it has been almost two months since my last post.<br /><br />Old habits die hard, and when they are institutionalized, even more so. That is the obstacle to reform that the new mayor and city council face. Developers have come to expect that tax breaks will be a part of any deal they can work out, for example. I have become marginally familiar with the civil engineering community in this town, and I have seen enough to know that we are mired in the traditional approach to building roads, which is based on the assumption that traffic will grow into the future like compound interest, and all we can do is predict the rate of growth, and attempt to provide the amount of pavement it will take to move that traffic at the highest possible speed.<br /><br />In more progressive circles, that traditional approach is being displaced by a more balanced one, whereby the objective of moving traffic is only one concern among the many that relate to roads and their surroundings.<br /><br />Thursday night, I attended a public meeting that focused on a neighborhood street that is being used as a cut-through by non-neighborhood traffic. Speeding is the main problem. Last year, the public works department constructed an island in the middle of the main intersection there. The result was called a roundabout, though it did not include many of the features associated with roundabouts, and as a result, the raised section of the island was repeatedly hit by passing vehicles. The conclusion I drew from this was that our public works department hasn't studied the subject of traffic calming.<br /><br />On Thursday night, public works showed that they have since done some research on the subject, as they displayed four techniques right out of <a href="http://www.pps.org/info/placemakingtools/casesforplaces/livememtraffic">Traffic Calming 101</a>.<br /><br />However, the meeting itself was a mess. About 100 people showed up, and it was quite antagonistic at the start. Public Works only wanted the attendees to look at the alternatives and vote for one. No questions. No discussion. And the displays gave only the briefest introduction to the proposals.<br /><br />This confirmed to me that the skills needed to successfully engage the public for the purpose of building our public infrastructure are poorly developed in Kansas City.<br /><br />Developing those skills would be the primary goal of the Friends of Red Bridge policy initiative: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_Sensitive_Solutions">Context Sensitive Solutions</a>. The Federal Highway Administration is pushing for its adoption, and many state transport agencies are adopting it. Missouri is a laggard, and Kansas City needs to take a leadership position.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-57287394147851704702007-05-01T01:55:00.000-05:002007-05-01T02:06:11.805-05:00A New Day for Kansas City?Later today, the new mayor and city council will be sworn into office. Only three of the thirteen members were in the previous council. Gone entirely is the core faction that ran this city for eight years.<br /><br />So, we have a chance to change a lot of things. The most important thing is to bring true democracy to city hall -- a place that is, in my opinion, no better today than in the Pendergast era.<br /><br />Orange was the campaign color of the Funkhouser campaign. That has real meaning. See <a href="http://markfunkhouser.com/orange.html">why Funkhouser chose orange</a> as his campaign color. We need a little of the spirit of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Revolution">Orange Revolution</a> in Kansas City. The old guard has no concept of what that is about. It's up to us to make sure that the new council, and city hall, do.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-17326584776262679992007-04-22T12:10:00.000-05:002007-04-22T18:23:09.980-05:00A Well-Deserved ToastI just saw Becky Nace on <a href="http://www.kcpt.org/news/ruckus.shtml">Ruckus</a>, where she was a guest panelist. Becky was very popular among the Friends of Red Bridge (about equal with Mark Funkhouser), and she mentioned Red Bridge on the show, saying the outgoing council shouldn’t have passed that ordinance because the incoming council will just reverse it.<br /><br />She received a lovely toast from host <a href="http://bestof.pitch.com/bestof/award.php?award=16367">Mike Shanin</a> for her openness and straightforward answers. I’m sure the Friends of Red Bridge would join in that. On our issues, Becky just got better and better, from the day she made the motion to hold the ordinance in committee, through many meetings of the Operations Committee, and finally in the full session of the City Council.<br /><br />So, here is my very public THANK YOU to Becky Nace. If you would like to thank her, too, please <a href="mailto:becky_nace@kcmo.org">send a mail</a> to her.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-41682215864512609862007-04-21T22:46:00.000-05:002007-04-22T21:33:11.828-05:00Progress Then and NowThe serious setback suffered by the “BridgeZilla” project on Red Bridge Road hopefully will represent a watershed moment for transportation projects in Kansas City. Ten years ago, the community would have stood little chance of blocking the placement of a freeway-size bridge in the middle of our bucolic Blue River valley. Even in 2007, luck and timing played a crucial role. Nevertheless, two enabling forces can be seen behind this victory for communities over commercial interests. One is the internet: E-mail and the web made it possible to organize hundreds of our neighbors into a powerful grassroots organization. The other is the growing belief that over-engineered projects do not constitute “progress”. In the past, the driving force behind an opposition to a project like BridgeZilla might have been simply a sentimental attachment to the rural character of the Blue River valley. But it’s not a resistance to change that gave the Friends of Red Bridge the passion and dedication needed to fight City Hall; it is a vision for a future that we need to start building now. This vision is hard to articulate for many reasons: It is wide in scope, sometimes counter-intuitive, and a grave threat to the power status quo. For example, one might blink at the statement that this is about global warming or the fiscal solvency of our government, though it surely is. It may seem crazy to say that a narrow, curvy road with a railroad crossing is safer than a wide, straight road with no obstructions, but proponents of the New Urbanism would find it so. Does the project solve the problem of flooding, or make it worse? Well, how many rain gardens will it take to handle the runoff from a road more than twice the size of the old one?<br /><br />The realities of the 21st century are only beginning to dawn upon the engineers and planners that shape our communities. For the Friends of Red Bridge, the challenge now is to find the right people to bring that New Vision into reality.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-33059935568174931062007-04-21T22:28:00.000-05:002007-04-22T11:51:30.583-05:00Implications of the Excelsior Springs TragedyThe petition to put the project on hold was a smashing success, but it had me running around like crazy for a week. Now, I’d like to catch up on the blog. For starters, two editorial-type comments -- one that I wrote before the petition, and one after.<br /><br />I knew when I heard about the <a href="http://www.topix.com/forum/city/missouri-city-mo/T0FMB4LQSTUPI1T1I">fatal accident in Excelsior Springs</a> a couple of weeks ago that Chuck Eddy would try to exploit that tragedy to push through his pet project -- not because there is anything more than a superficial similarity between the railroad crossing there and the one on Red Bridge Road, but because the man is totally without any intellectual honesty or integrity and will say anything to advance his cause. <br /><br />Ironically, that incident points out the danger of a straight road: the driver’s attention strays, and his speed increases. Where the Union Pacific line crosses Red Bridge Road, the roadway curvature forces cars to slow down and focuses their attention. But the biggest difference between the two crossings is that Red Bridge has a crossing gate. This combination has resulted in a far better safety record than the other U.P. crossings in this area.<br /><br />Well, here is an editorial I wrote about crossing safety, and submitted to some local papers:<br /><blockquote><br />The recent loss of life at a railroad crossing in Excelsior Springs shows how out of whack our government’s priorities and methods are for promoting public safety. Even in the aftermath of this tragedy, the Missouri Department of Transportation is sticking to their standards that tell them it is a safe crossing and does not meet the criteria for the installation of guard arms. Instead of taking this relatively inexpensive measure to greatly improve the safety of railroad crossings, transportation agencies are more interested in the big-money projects that usually have a negative impact on safety. Likewise with the Red Bridge project, we have one of the safest railroad crossings in the region, yet nearby crossings that could benefit from safety upgrades go wanting because spending priorities have been set by commercial interests, not by the community. The galling irony is that proponents of the bridge claim that it will improve safety. They have no data to back up their claim, only theories that have not been vindicated by many decades of real-world experience.<br /></blockquote><br />I am not aware that any paper published it yet. Well, that’s what we have the internets for!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-49780818766875896922007-04-14T23:28:00.000-05:002007-04-15T14:35:36.910-05:00Petition DriveAs you can read at <a href="http://www.redbridgeroad.org/index.html#20070412">redbridgeroad.org</a>, the condemnation ordinance was adopted on Thursday. It doesn't take effect for ten days, though, and in that time, we intend to gather the required 100 signatures of registered Kansas City voters on a petition to declare our intent to file a referendum petition.<br /><br />Confusing?<br /><br />The bottom line is that we can prevent our neighbors from facing condemnation of their land until after the new (and vastly improved!) city council is sworn in.<br /><br />And then, with the leadership of our new Sixth District council members <a href="http://sharp4council.com">John Sharp</a> and <a href="http://www.cathyjolly.com">Cathy Jolly</a>, we will have the threat of “BridgeZilla” removed from our lives.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5058435318681111337.post-73530541531120048602007-04-13T23:53:00.000-05:002007-04-14T00:05:12.076-05:00Better late than neverMonths and months ago, my <a href="http://www.redbridgeroad.org/">Friends of Red Bridge</a> friends Sharron and Teresa, and I were telling <a href="http://www.cathyjolly.com/">Cathy Jolly</a> about the story of our campaign against a massive new bridge slated to be built in the heart of southern Kansas City's most beautiful parkland.<br /><br />The volume and detail of what we were telling her was overwhelming. Even I felt that. Cathy must have, too, because she asked if we had kept a diary.<br /><br />No, we hadn't , we confessed.<br /><br />“Please start”, Cathy said, and we all realized we should. But the usual procrastination and preoccupation with stuff that has to be done NOW kept us from it.<br /><br />Well, no longer.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com