Naive liberal thought influences Kansas City's Mayor and his empty promises!!!

Big media seems to have bought Mayor Funky's line about Eastside development without asking any pertinent questions or remembering much of Kansas City's history.

Over the weekend, Mayor Funky held a press conference on the Eastside and mentioned the words economy and business . . . Apparently, the mere utterance of those terms were supposed to regain credibility for Mayor Funky in light of his wife's bigoted comments. Who knows? Maybe it worked.

Johnson County resident Mike Hendricks had a surprisingly nuanced column regarding the PR fest which included a few choice quotes. Here's my favorite:

"Can you remember another mayor who had an event like this in the ’hood?" Funkhouser aide Joe Miller asked me Saturday night as a jazz quartet finished its set in a vacant lot on the East Side.

Douchebag that Miller is . . . I guess he forgot about Mayor Cleaver, which is understandable given that Miller only moved to Kansas City halfway through Mayor Barnes' tenure.

And this little conversation pretty much sums up Kansas City's media market and it's coverage of this town's minority communities: Two white guys from out of town talking about restoring the urban core.

Sad thing is, if either one of these two would have bothered to do a little research they might remember a statement from Mayor Funky which demonstrates his commitment to his word (or lack thereof). Last year the Mayor promised:

"The first TIF proposal that reaches my desk had darn well better be from the East Side."

That turned out to be nothing more than a lie as Mayor Funky made (one of) the first major TIFs of his tenure a subsidy for a multi-million dollar soccer complex.

Even worse, this "white knight" mentality that Funkhouser seems to have picked up from Miller is the same kind of philosophy that marked the failure of the Mayor's media person as an author. It's the classic, tacit liberal bigotry of lowered expectations.

To wit, the Mayor's backing stupid plans with public money like The Black Heritage District which was a better idea when it was called 18th and Vine . . . Before it lost millions year after year of course . . . It seems that the savior mentality is in full gear and not only underestimates market forces but also the ability of people to see through a PR stunt.

Mayor Funkhouser offered neither a definitive plan for Eastside redevelopment nor a firm promise of funding . . . Instead there's nothing but empty rhetoric and clueless liberals using dated slang in order disguise a clear lack of purpose, integrity or skill when it comes to addressing the problems of the urban core.