The Funky Administration is coming to an end and so far Kansas City's screwed up Housing situation isn't any closer to being solved.
A federal judge, disappointed by Kansas City officials’ lack of progress, said Friday that he may liquidate all of the city’s old housing assets.Again, they used to blame this all on former City Manager Wayne Cauthen . . . Sadly, Mayor Funky has been too preoccupied with his wife, his re-election plans and silly political schemes to really pay attention to lingering local problems.
That would include millions of dollars in real estate and mortgages held by the Housing and Economic Development Financial Corp., known as HEDFC . . . In a Friday hearing, U.S. District Judge Gary Fenner said he wanted to see the federal court’s supervision of HEDFC end soon.
This is likely to cost the City millions of dollars that it doesn't have to payback any Federal funds that KCMO and HEDFC spent inappropriately. Maybe, if we're lucky, the Judge will disband the City's existing Housing Dept. and start over!
ReplyDeleteWould it have helped if Council Woman Circo had retained the chair of the neighborhood housing committee?
ReplyDeleteThere probably would have been more progress if Circo had remained as chairman of that committee, but the poor quality and lack of initiative by the City Housing staff would have still been a big [problem. The judge should make them start over with a completely new staff.
ReplyDeleteWe have Tom Coyle, who used to have housing, ultimately to blame for this - and what exactly has Shirley Winn, the KC housing Director, been doing lately - other than screwing things up?
ReplyDeleteWhy doesn't anybody hold these two people accountable?
Remember that Wayne disbanded housing and demoted staff. moved them to City Planning and then brought in a crazy woman crook to run the show. She had to go, then he finally moves Housing back into a Dept. due to some council nagging and puts super idiot Winn in charge. Hello, this belongs to Wayne baby- not the Funk. This all started under former big flower wearing Kay Barnes.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I know both Tom Coyle and Shirley Winn. They are both good people. But the sad fact is they are both WAY over their heads.
ReplyDeleteShulte would do himself and the City a real favor by finding something else for them to do. Troy: bring in someone with a fresh perspective and a track record for getting things done. PLEASE.
If everyone would stop passing on the blame maybe something could get done.Circo was making progress and had a great working relationship with the Judge until Funkhouser stepped on his peter and screwed everything up. This mayor is not even doing the basic duties of mayor.I fugure this mayor has cost KC at least 10 mil and we have one more year.
ReplyDeleteCirco was making progress on housing issues until she was dumped by the Funk from the housing committee. Housing is not one of Tom Coyle's strong suits, and Shirley Winn is in way over her head, albeit better than her predecessor (who was totally clueless and incompetent).
ReplyDeleteWhat slays me is that the city paid lots of money to an outside consulting firm to work on housing issues and yet it looks like there's not much to show for it. HUD can't be terribly happy with City Hall right now.
Troy Schulte has a lot on his plate trying to clean up Cauthen's messes, but this is one that needs some serious attention.