The Big Takeaway From Yesterday's Election

Okay so we got that election out of the way, for better or worse.

Thankfully, we are now down to only two candidates for mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. That trying to weed through a dozen was a bit crazy but hey, this is America. We love choice.

No surprise, I don't think, the vote to possibly help pre-kindergarten with daycare died. Between the fact that even the school district didn't support it and that it was "just one more tax", I can't say I'm surprised it died.

And now we have 2 choices for mayor. The differences couldn't be more stark, could they? Jolie Justus and Quinton Lucas? Yet more of us will have to go out and do some more homework, for those not fully familiar with both.

But here's the big takeaway, the big blessing, for me, anyway, and maybe for a lot of us--the entire city?--after this election.

We likely--hopefully?--don't have to hear from or about Clay Chastain any longer.

Understand, this is not a post to mock, ridicule or otherwise make fun of Mr. Chastain. Not at all.

But come on.

We have seen and read and heard so much from and about him over the last several years and it seems he doesn't even really live here.

I get the sense he was sincere and well-meaning, good intentioned with his hopes and plans and dreams and ideas for our city. I'll give him that.

But you ought to live here. And you ought to live here full time.

And you shouldn't have what seem to be kooky--or worse--ideas. 

As mayor, you would have to lead all of the city. Everyone would have to come along with you. That means being with and behind you on your ideas.

Too often, it seemed Mr. Chastain had his own, very headstrong ideas but that much of the metropolis wasn't with him on them. I could be wrong on this but I don't think so.

So with this, Mr. Chastain, I think it's safe to say, again, for most of the area, maybe thank you for your thoughts and ideas and efforts. Thank you for those intentions. We wish you well.

Now, go, enjoy retirement.

Wherever you live.

Heads Up, Kansas City!!

Don't look now, folks, but guess who was back in town---and says he's running for political office?

  

First this--I apologize for the blurry photos but that, ladies and gentlemen of Kansas City, is one Clay Chastain.

You remember Clay, right?

The guy who has all the answers for our fair city?

Even though he lives, most of the time in--where is it? Virginia?

Anyway, seems he was not only back in town this weekend, this is him outside the Brookside Price Chopper grocery, and he was saying he's running for political office, yessiree, Bob.

So don't think we have, you have seen or heard the last of Mr. Clay "I Know What This City Needs" Chastain.

It's my hope that, if he's actually serious about running for city political office for us again, that someone in the media like Steve Kraske on KCUR or someone down at the the Star or the Pitch or Mike Shanin at KCPT's "Ruckus" or someone, somewhere interviews the man. We need to know just what he's planning. Or working on.

If he's serious about running for office, and I'm sure he is, he needs to get the word out and we need to hear it.

However misguided and/or foolhardy.

Look Who Was In Town Yesterday

So I ran to the grocery yesterday morning here in Brookside at the Price Chopper. I got what I needed quickly, came out and who was there?

None other than our own come and go Clay Chastain, in the flesh.

He seemed to be approaching (accosting?) people, yet one more time with one of his seemingly countless, endless petitions, no doubt for light rail in the city.

What is it about this guy? What does he have in for Kansas City? What is his goal? What's with the cross-country preoccupation?

I wish someone like Steve Kraske on KCUR or someone, somewhere would interview this guy and ask him what he and this is all about. I'd love to know. It's never ending.

And the heck of it is, I'm personally all for mass transit.

But what is it with his obsessive preoccupation with it all and this city?

Somebody Call Osawatamie On This Guy

He's still at it. He's still pushing for light rail. Here in Kansas City. From his home in Virginia.

And now this.

Clay Chastain sues Kansas City officials and his own attorney over light-rail failures

I'm sure Mr. Chastain's attorney guaranteed him a successful outcome, aren't you?

Notes on a Kansas City Weekend

Things noticed over the weekend;

1)  Prairie Village seems to want to become either Kansas City, Missouri or just more like them.  If you've driven 75th Street headed West lately, you know what I mean.  I don't think any one Kansas City street has ever had any more construction plates on the road than that city (town?) does now;

2)  Meanwhile, in nearby Mission, Kansas, holy cow, people. Johnson drive is a God-awful, bumpy, crowded, narrow, nearly dangerous mess. I suppose that's the only way it can be repaired but what a driving nightmare.  As an additional note, I can't imagine how the businesses on the South side of that street are able to continue. I don't know how long it's been torn up but it's clear it won't be done any time soon;

3) And speaking of Mission, how about that mall, eh?  Seems only two questions come up:  First, will that thing ever be redone? And second, wouldn't it be terrific if they just hadn't torn down the old one?

And finally,

4)  What on Earth would get someone--anyone--who's sane, anyway, to move 1/2 way across the country---all the way to Virginia, for pity's sake---but to STILL, after all these years, focus on our city, Kansas City, and whether or not we build light rail?  What sick, twisted disease must be running around your body or mind to make you fixate like that? It has to be a combination of outrageous egotism and OCD, don't you think?

And I refuse to mention that person's name in any way here, ever, but the surname rhymes with *ss-stain.

2 bits of good local news

I was pleased to see both these articles today in the Star. First, this one:

Appeals court turns down Chastain light-rail plan

 

 As a local Kansas Citian who's seen and heard so much of, by and about this now long-time expatriot of the city--I refuse to mention his name or put his picture here--it was great to see this case thrown out by the courts.

I've written here before about this person and issue--he no longer lives here, he hasn't lived here before, I'm all for mass transit but I think we should do and get it ourselves. I think it's clear that this person merely likes and gets attention by going on like this, on this issue.

As the writers to the Star in the letters to the Editor so repeatedly say, please, for the love of God, Mr. Chastain, freaking go away.  Please.

The other good, maybe great local news I saw today is this:

Appeals court reinstates lawsuit over Royals' hot dog toss

A Kansas man injured by a flying hot dog at a 2009 Royals game will get another bite at the sausage, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday.

John Coomer allegedly suffered a detached retina and other injuries when a foil-wrapped hot dog flung by Royals mascot Sluggerrr smacked him in the left eye. A jury ruled in March 2011 for the Royals, finding that being struck by airborne groceries was an inherent risk that Coomer assumed by buying a ticket.

The Missouri Western District Court of Appeals disagreed, however.

Ignoring the fact that I know this person to whom this happened, I feel strongly that this should have gone completely differently in the first trial, for starters. This person was at the Royals Stadium, got hit by a flying hot dog, literally, thrown by the mascot, suffered a detached retina because of it and merely wants--no, needs--his medical expenses covered but the team said no.

Not only did the team say no, they allowed it to go to trial. They preferred paying attorney fees to fight it than pay his medical expenses.

Forget that they could deduct these medical expenses as business done.

Forget that it hurts their public relations.

For David Glass, it seems, clearly, time and again, it's only about the financial "bottom line." It was and is all about costs. It's about keeping costs down and profits high, first and last.

It's disgusting.

If it weren't for being for the team, in spite of the owner, and for enjoying the game and the stadium so much, I would have no good feeling or desire for the Royals to win, year after year, season after season.

I say again, would that the Hall family would only purchase our Royals baseball team.

Links:

No More Glass

JACK: Support No-More-Glass.com's efforts to get rid of David Glass

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/01/15/4011903/appeals-court-hotdog-lawsuit.html#storylink=cpy

Progress in Kansas City: Here we go again, folks

Seeing this headline in the Star today: KC landlord sends letters to tenants opposing streetcar plan

It reminds me of when they talked, several years ago, of light rail going through town, down Broadway.

At the time, another crusty, old, rich, white man--that time it was James B. Nutter--opposed the whole idea.

Obviously he got his way.

This time it's Roger Buford who, the paper tells us, is "president of Old Town Management, Inc."

Not only is he agin' it, but check this out--he "said his company distributed letters to about 1,500 units within the proposed downtown streetcar district, warning about possible rent increases if the streetcar project moves forward."

So if you don't like something, threaten to increase the rents of all you can. That way you can be sure of generating at least that many votes against it, or more, depending how many live there and vote. It's genius.

I have to say, I've made it clear I'm no Clay Chastain supporter, far from it, but I'm for mass transit. I'm for reducing the number of cars on the roads and I'm for cutting down the pollution and CO2 emissions in the area. Heck, I want to see that nationwide.

At this rate, Kansas City will never get "off the dime" and get a starter light-rail line going. We should at least have one going from the airport to downtown and the Plaza. Then, later, we could and should expand it from there, out East and West and South.

At this rate, we'll never get there.

Link: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/30/3633656/kc-landlord-sends-letters-to-tenants.html; http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/30/3633526/once-again-rail-plans-hang-in.html

Rex Sinquefield & Clay Chastain: Just go away

I've decided Rex Sinquefield has joined Clay Chastain as yet another perennial, pain in the neck nuisances that haunt Kansas City and our environs and they both just need to go away. Mr. Chastain doesn't live here and hasn't for years, residing as he does back East but he keeps trying to drop in and give us mass transit. And while I'm all for mass transit (that's another issue), him buzzing around this city like a pesky, persistent fly at an otherwise pleasant picnic is a pain in the keister. Then there's rich man, St Louisan Rex "I have tons of money" Sinquefield who keeps coming up with ideas he can foist off on Missourians to--in his mind--"make our lives better" by screwing with our tax system, even though he's not an office holder. His latest idea, of course, is to do away with the income tax and to have a sales tax instead. He even brought in famed economist Arthur Laffer to tell "the Kansas City Star's editorial board Monday that there could be problems if Missouri trades its income tax for a sales tax -- if Kansas doesn't do something similar." (See link below).

Forget that a sales tax only is punishing to the middle and lower classes and that it benefits the wealthy greatly, sure, forget that. All that's important is that we live life as Rex "The King" Sinquefield thinks we should live it and as he would have the state be. Seriously, both of you jerkwads--go away. Leave us be. Whatever issues we'll have, we'll deal with them. Go home. Be quiet. Live your own lives and let us live ours. It's why we have government. Links: http://midwestdemocracy.com/articles/laffer-kansas-missouri-should-go-together-major-tax-reform/; http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/17/3435777/kc-chastain-argue-light-rail.html

Look who was in town over the weekend

Yeah, check that out.  The one and only self-repeating pain-in-the-neck Clay Chastain.

The "bad penny" that just won't go away.  

He was here, in the city's public library on the Plaza Saturday and Sunday both.  

Here's hoping he was doing genealogical research on his family or some such and not--decidedly not--on mass transit for our little burg.

Please, not that.  Not again.  Not some more.

Update:  No sooner did I write the above, yesterday, than I saw this:

Clay Chastain Plans New Lawsuit: Candidate Wants To Overturn Friday Residency Ruling

Hopefully he was working on that--his eligibility lawsuit--and not on mass transit for us.

Don't get me wrong, I want and think we need mass transit.  I just also think there's no way this city is going to get it with him at the helm.

Link:  http://www.kmbc.com/politics/27098346/detail.html

Clay Chastain? Back? Again?

What sick, twisted thing (things?) did Kansas City do to deserve being haunted and hounded by Clay Chastain, again and again, over the last many years?

I'm thinking it was either the racism of the city that divides us, physically, too much, even to this day, or the city sprawl that has us from Platte City to Louisburg and from Odessa to Gardner--or both.

That must be it.

Did you hear this?

Clay Chastain is back YET AGAIN to try to get signatures for another freaking campaign to get light rail? I heard it on KCUR this morning.

Holy cow.

This guy never gives up.

He has got to LOVE attention, don'tcha know? But I've thought and said that for years.

And get this--rather than him come to us for our signatures, he got the lapdog media in town to announce for him that he'll be at Union Station tomorrow so WE CAN COME TO HIM.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Man, that's good.

Yeah, right, Clay. We'll be right there.

Hold yer breath.

I think I might go down myself, with my camera, and take pictures of him standing there, all alone, waiting for people to come in.


Have a great weekend, y'all.

I know I will.

Trends toward mass transit in the US--even Kansas City?

Evidence in the form of statistics, showing America may well be absolutely ready for more mass transit even, one day soon? in Kansas City:

"The U.S. fleet has apparently peaked and started to decline. In 2009, the 14 million cars scrapped exceeded the 10 million new cars sold, shrinking the U.S. fleet by 4 million, or nearly 2 percent in one year."

We've got fewer cars due, at least in part, to the worst recession in seventy years.

More:

"With four out of five Americans now living in cities, the growth in urban car numbers at some point provides just the opposite: immobility. The Texas Transportation Institute reports that U.S. congestion costs, including fuel wasted and time lost, climbed from $17 billion in 1982 to $87 billion in 2007."

"Economic uncertainty makes some consumers reluctant to undertake the long-term debt associated with buying new cars. In tight economic circumstances, families are living with two cars instead of three, or one car instead of two. Some are dispensing with the car altogether. In Washington, D.C., with a well-developed transit system, only 63 percent of households own a car."

So the young people, the next generations of Americans, seem much more likely to share transportation. And if oil goes up as it is expected to do? All the more likely to push them to share even more trips to and from work and around town.

"Perhaps the most fundamental social trend affecting the future of the automobile is the declining interest in cars among young people. For those who grew up a half-century ago in a country that was still heavily rural, getting a driver's license and a car or a pickup was a rite of passage. Getting other teenagers into a car and driving around was a popular pastime."

"In contrast, many of today's young people living in a more urban society learn to live without cars. They socialize on the Internet and on smart phones, not in cars. Many do not even bother to get a driver's license. This helps explain why, despite the largest U.S. teenage population ever, the number of teenagers with licenses, which peaked at 12 million in 1978, is now under 10 million. If this trend continues, the number of potential young car-buyers will continue to decline."

Check this out:

"The United States is entering a new era, evolving from a car-dominated transport system to one that is much more diversified. As noted, this transition is driven by market saturation, economic trends, environmental concerns, and by a cultural shift away from cars that is most pronounced among young people. As this evolution proceeds, it will affect virtually every facet of life."

With all this, it looks much more like Clay Chastain (I loathe to even mention his name) would love this data.

God help us, we may get that clown back still more.

Someone please make him go away

Dear God, Clay Chastain has reared his ugly head yet again.

Holy cow.

What is it with this guy?

Can he not just go away?

Clearly this is the only town that will give him the attention he wants and clings to so dearly.

I think, if it weren't for the Kansas City Star and maybe local TV news stations, he might truly go away.

But here he comes again.

We need light rail, as a city and I'm all for it and it makes so much sense, even if gasoline is hovering a little over $2.00 per gallon but, geez, Clay Chastain?

It's clearly all about himself and not the rail.

Give us a break, Clay.

Go home.

Enjoy life.

Heck, get a life.

Get a hobby.

Do something but let Kansas City be Kansas City, right or wrong.

Give us a freaking break.

Take your ego and go home.

Permanently, this time.


Link:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/breaking_news/story/1508431.html