In eulogizing the career of Mark Funkhouser, local blogger Joe explains one of the most damning documents in Kansas City's history. I've excerpted the highlights from Joe's post and here's the damage:
The city's financial condition is precarious and unstable, and the situation is worsened by a lack of direction and priorities . . .There is a ton of other good stuff in Joe's post (as always) but the most fascinating passage for me was the following: Proponents of the "big idea" or sexy idea are listed as one of the most powerful influences on KC's political environment. To me this means the whims of the construction cheerleaders who are always touting the next big thing from the Sprint "Glass bowl, manufactured in China, without a team" Center to the dumb idea of a downtown baseball stadium to the current Clay Crazy Crowd that has frantically ABANDONED their support of the ATA and now favors misguided light rail plans despite overall low ridership for public transportation throughout the Midwest aren't just crazy white people with nothing better to do . . . They represent a real threat to this city's financial well being just because they never got enough time playing with Legos as a kid. And while my stupid opinion is easy to ignore, it's surprising to see that there is documented proof that MANY others acknowledge the same phenomena.
The future might be a problem, according to another participant, who said the city is like a large corporation that could go down the tubes with a couple of bad decisions . . .
Kansas City, like other older urban cities, balanced its recent budget by using reserves and deferring maintenance . . .
The condition of streets has gotten worse over the past twenty years and infrastructure has decayed . . .
The Finacnial Condition Forum in 2002 was a joke! The report is full of generalizations with little or no back up and virtually no comparison to cities that compete with KC. Funkhouser has lots of opinions but as an auditor he fails miserably, which is perhaps why he threw is hat in the ring the last time the City Manager post was vacant. He didn't get hired so he spent the next two years trying to make his "sky is falling" predictions come true so he could say "I told you so."
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the Forum participants they are a bunch of suburban beauracrats who could care less about the well being of Kansas City, Missouri and who can retreat behind the state line and claim no responsibility for the financial soundness of the urban core that justifies their suburban existence.
Tell me what the City Manager of Des Moines and a professor from Northern Illinois University know about the challenges of providing the core metropolitan assets in a metro area evenly divided ecomomicaly by a state line.
Did you really use ridership #s from 2002 to try to prove your point for us not needing improved transit in 2006 and beyond? A lot has changed since then. Relying on 5 year old stats makes you perfect for local politics.
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