TKC MUST READ!!! TRANSIT ACTIVIST CLAY CHASTAIN KINDLY WARNS KANSAS CITY MAYOR-ELECT QUINTON LUCAS!!!

A message and a word of political caution as the most prolific petitioner in Kansas City history continues to advocate for new transit alternatives.

Checkit:

Congratulations Mayor Lucas on winning the Mayor's race.

As opposed to our current Mayor, we voters all hope you will be fair and respectful of valid petitions submitted to the City from the people. As our next Mayor, I am asking you to rein in Sly James, Scott Wagner, Jolie Justus and the City's dubious legal department who are currently and jointly scheming to, yet again, undermine another light rail petition from the people that threatens Sly's shady and obsolete streetcar system. The "'Green Transit" petition seeks to replace the ATA's wasteful, unpopular and out-dated diesel bus-based transit system with a green (quick, quiet and clean) electrified and citywide system that will improve mobility, reduce transportation costs and help grow and prosper our city. It will also replace the proposed southward streetcar expansion plan with a much faster rail system.

I do not want you to get off to the same sorry corrupt start Mayor Sly James got off to in 2011 when he defied the people's valid light rail petition and refused to place it before voters (tied it up in court) for 3 years.


Sly only placed it before voters (2014) after the Missouri Supreme Court ordered him to do so. And then, he and the City's legal dept. sabotaged it by eviscerating its ballot language (the light rail plan ((itself)) was removed) so it would be rejected by voters. And, of course, who can forget the City's oppressive act of overturning the 2006 light rail election (and the stated will of 75,000 voters) while the KC Star cowered on the sidelines.

Now Sly, Wagner and Jolie are up to their old dirty tricks again in trying to delay, undermine and change the ballot language of another transit-improving petition from the people. They have delayed moving it out of the City's Finance Committee for 7-weeks now. The City's dubious and biased legal department testified that the petition's ballot language was not a "concise and unprejudiced" statement. But of course, unlike the stupid voters who approved the ballot language, they know what is.

City Hall is afraid to let citywide voters decide the transit issue in Kansas City because it is trying to protect special interests - the greedy developers benefiting from the streetcar!

These on-going contrived actions of bad faith by James, Wagner, Jolie and the City's legal department against the stated will of petitions from the people, only serve to further erode public trust in City Hall.

Please Mayor Lucas, don't pick another fight with democracy. Do not do what Sly and company continue to do. Stand up for the people and democracy. Step in and move to place the people's "Green Transit" petition before voters (in November) in its "original form" as designated by the City Charter.

Kansas City community activist, Clay Chastain
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