The Kansas City Star, April 29
Kansas City’s streetcar system could be a big triumph - or a big failure:
Lots of people are plenty excited that Kansas City’s downtown streetcar line finally will start carrying passengers next Friday.
Many city, civic and business leaders are hailing the project as a huge game changer for the city. And the festivities surrounding the opening weekend sound great.
The system has the potential to be yet another big victory in downtown’s lumbering comeback. The core has gained thousands of new residents over the past decade, though it’s lagged badly in adding a larger workforce.
And yet .
Some pretty high expectations - even unrealistic ones - are being placed on what is, after all, only a $100 million, 2.2-mile starter system.
That investment pales, by comparison, with the funds shoveled into building the Sprint Center, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts and the Power & Light District.
All of those projects have had a hand in reinvigorating downtown, of course. Yet it seems the streetcar line has attracted more attention - and created more controversy - than other upgrades in recent years.
Part of that has to do with how the streetcar was financed through a controversial taxing district in a small part of downtown.
The project also created critics when streets were ripped up and merchants along the line complained. And when cars were towed for not parking “inside the white line,” as everyone by now should know to do.
Finally, the streetcar also has drawn scorn for not being a huge improvement in public transit in Kansas City. Bus routes already rolled down Main Street, after all.
In the last few months, Mayor Sly James and other supporters have contended that the streetcar system has helped boost interest in downtown’s redevelopment. They point to dozens of projects in the core that have been completed or are underway or planned - some even without taxpayer assistance. Imagine that.
The reality is that people were moving downtown years before the streetcar got here, and some of the added or expected housing units would have been undertaken without the streetcar. Hundreds have been built many blocks away, for instance.
The general concerns right now are basic ones: Who’s going to actually get on the streetcar, how often and why will they ride it?
Sure, surveys have shown that downtown residents and workers are excited about using the streetcar and have even promised to do so.
But will they, even though all the rides are free? Will they walk the few blocks to catch the streetcar? Will bus routes that connect to the streetcar bring any extra traffic into downtown?
Or will the streetcars be empty too often, yet another lukewarm way to boost transit in Kansas City?
As late-to-the-party supporters of the downtown line, The Star has been rooting for its success in recent months. That’s partly because we wanted public funds spent efficiently on what could be a new amenity for downtown. And it’s because proponents have put forward legitimate reasons to be excited about its opening.
In the coming days, weeks and months, the future of the streetcar will be decided by riders and developers. People will - or won’t - hop on the vehicles.
A surge of more development will - or won’t - occur.
The values of property near the streetcar will - or won’t - rise.
Kansas City’s streetcar line could be a huge triumph, and we could be talking about a massive expansion toward the Country Club Plaza by this time next year.
Or the system could turn out to be an embarrassing failure.
Perhaps caught up in the excitement of the moment, we’ll fervently hope for the former. The project was well worth pursuing and could be a catalyst for a brighter future for the crucial heart of this metropolitan area.
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St. Joseph News-Press, May 2
Kansas City airport fight all but over?
Fans of the unrivaled convenience of Kansas City International Airport won’t want to hear this, but they have lost a critical behind-the-scenes battle and the momentum to keep the current airport design.
During three years of study and review of options, the airlines serving KCI have switched sides - going from proponents of a cost-conscious overhaul of the existing terminals to rejecting all offered renovation ideas as ill-suited to their future needs.
This result has put a single-terminal airport proposal on course to be decided by Kansas City voters, likely in either in August or November.
Will a divided City Council in Kansas City advance this idea? Will voters buy it? Public sentiment has run against building new, but it’s important to understand critical elements:
- Only Kansas City, Missouri, residents will have a chance to cast a ballot. Everyone else in the region with an opinion is out of luck.
- The major airlines - Southwest, United, Delta, Frontier and American - have agreed to back the debt on a new terminal, projected to cost nearly $1 billion.
- As important, the airlines say they do not support the renovation of the existing terminals and will not help finance any other option for modernizing the airport.
“We believe the new terminal concept maximizes the dollars spent for both customer convenience and operational effectiveness,” says Steve Sisneros, Southwest Airlines’ director of airport affairs.
There is more to this discussion about convenience, including the suggestion a new terminal still could prove convenient - just not as much as the layout now that requires only 119 steps for the shortest distance from curb to gate.
This is a situation where a major public asset - a regional airport - is heavily dependent on the support of private partners. By law, the funds for any improvements or new construction must come from user fees on tickets, airline leases, parking, concessions and other airport funds.
Voters in Kansas City essentially will be asked whether they want a new airport for which they will incur little or no cost if they personally do not use it. They will be told the airlines are not suggesting they will pull out of KCI if they do not get what they want.
But voters also will be told that, without modernization, the existing 43-year-old airport will continue to fall behind others. And they will be warned a lack of new facilities will limit the airlines’ ability to expand or enhance services, including servicing the region with larger planes.
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 2
Ferguson should just get over it, drop failure-to-comply cases:
By now you’d think Ferguson’s city officials would be tired of being embarrassed. Tired of wasting money trying to recapture the bad old days, when its cops wrote tickets for whatever they wanted, knowing that the municipal court system had their backs.
The city has dropped a lot of cases, but as Stephen Deere reported in Monday’s Post-Dispatch, it’s still paying well-connected lawyers $150 an hour to prosecute shaky cases against people who were cited for failing to comply with police orders. If the judges on the Missouri Supreme Court have any remaining doubts that St. Louis County’s 81 municipal courts must become part of the St. Louis County Circuit Court, this saga should do away with them.
Dozens of old “failure to comply” cases have been transferred from the Ferguson Municipal Court to St. Louis County Circuit Court. Little-known fact: Anyone facing a charge in a municipal court can ask to have his case heard by a jury in circuit court. It’s usually not done because it’s time-consuming and can be expensive if defendants hire lawyers. On the other hand, even though Ferguson has reformed its municipal court, you don’t get a jury there and you’re not playing on the prosecutors’ home turf.
In the failure-to-comply cases, defendants are represented by lawyers from Arch City Defenders. That legal advocacy group was highlighting problems with the county’s municipal courts long before the Aug. 9, 2014, fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson brought the issue to national attention.
Some of the failure-to-comply cases date to before Brown’s death, when Ferguson police officers used charges like failure-to-comply and “manner of walking” to enforce their will - and drum up revenue for the city.
Others stemmed from the protests that followed. Harried police officers found themselves being cursed and hassled by protesters. The legal shorthand for these sorts of charges is “contempt of cop.” If it’s not more than verbal abuse, it’s not illegal. As the Justice Department’s report on Ferguson Police noted, “Just as officers reflexively resort to arrest immediately upon noncompliance with their orders, whether lawful or not, they are quick to overreact to challenges and verbal slights.”
There is some resentment among Ferguson police officers, and more broadly, among many Ferguson officials, about the blame and punishment that have been visited upon them. It’s understandable, but it doesn’t change the fact that the law was enforced unfairly.
Ferguson should move on. Drop the cases. Stop paying lawyers with money the city doesn’t have. Abide by the constitutional policing consent decree signed with the Justice Department.
And the lawyers still dining out on municipal court cases should expand their practice areas. If the Supreme Court does its job, it will stop this gravy train.
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Springfield News-Leader, April 27
Voting down SJR 39 was right move:
Rep. Elijah Haahr called the vote on a so-called religious freedom bill “the hardest” his Emerging Issues Committee has dealt with this year.
Even though Haahr elected to vote for Senate Joint Resolution 39, which would prevent the state from penalizing some organizations and people who deny services to gay couples, we’re pleased that six of his colleagues made the right decision to vote it down.
The resolution would have invited discrimination and sent some dangerous messages - including that Missouri is not open to all people and businesses.
As representatives explained their vote on the resolution, it was clear some struggled with the decision. That careful consideration is appreciated.
The 6-6 vote was barely enough to keep the bill from leaving the committee, and the fact that of the six who voted against it, three were Republicans and three were Democrats shows how this issue can cross political boundaries.
There is a route for House members to bring the bill directly to the entire body for a vote, but that appears unlikely.
Killing the bill before it gets to ballots saves Missouri a lot of heartache. While anti-LGBT legislation filed across the country takes many different forms, the results are often the same - it divides a state, makes many feel unwelcome and tells companies and organizations to take their business elsewhere.
Springfield is only a year removed from such a contentious vote - and many say the repeal of the city’s sexual orientation and gender identity ordinance still stings. Not just the fact that the law no longer exists, but that many Springfield citizens so vocally pushed for the repeal.
Across the country, these laws often pit religious freedom and LGBT equality against each other. It doesn’t have to be that way.
There are gay and transgender Springfieldians who are religious. There are many religious Springfieldians who are pro-LGBT rights. We are all learning to work and live together, no matter what groups we identify with.
More and more, we’re learning how often those groups overlap.
Wednesday’s win for Missouri was a win for Springfield.
Maybe the committee vote on SJR 39 was hard, but seeing the resolution on the ballot would have made things much worse.
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