Kansas City School District Superintendent John Covington is going to face his bosses on the School Board tonight to present the findings from a week's worth of community meetings about his plan to close 31 schools.

No doubt the TV vans will be parked outside 1211 McGee with their satellite antennas up. Everyone's expecting a fight.

My bet is there won't be one.

Yet.

Here's my other bet: Covington isn't going to get his way on the plan to move all the African-centered education programs into one building. I've gotten from solid sources that the board will vote that plan down.

In fact, the word I'm getting is that he's going to have a hard time passing any of this plan.

But we'll learn soon enough. Next month, in fact -- when Covington pushes for a speedy approval.

Stay tuned for March Madness.

When I moved to Kansas City ten years ago I was a loyal Democrat.

But then, after watching how the Democratic Party works at the street level, in big-city politics, I realized the old donkeys are just as bad as the Republicans, if not worse.

And the man who did more than anyone else to shatter my faith in the party was Steve Glorioso.

What Glorioso taught me is that the values that Democrats claim to hold dear -- equal rights, compassion for the poor, etc. -- are just disingenuous subterfuge to divert attention away from their true motivation: maintain the status quo. Keep the rich rich and white and the poor poor and black and brown.

I'm not going to go into the Glorioso machinations that made me realize all this, because they happened years ago when he was working for former Mayor Kay Barnes. But the emails I've unearthed have some solid evidence of the false prophesy of self-righteous Democrats.

First off, there are a couple of emails in whi... [Read More]

One of the more interesting revelations in my column this week was that City Council Member Beth Gottstein's aide Jim Giles is Steve Glorioso's main go-to guy on the 22nd floor of City Hall -- the City Council offices.

Several emails revealed that Glorioso uses Giles to distribute information for the purpose of pitting elected city officials against one another. Here's one where he has Giles distribute negative press clippings Council Member Deb Hermann to several of her colleagues. 

Glorioso also uses Giles as a source of dirt on Council members. In this email, for instance, he solicits info from Giles about Council Member Deb Hermann. Here's one [Read More]

I had to strain not to make last week's column be about Mayor Funkhouser.

It would have probably been more interesting if I had, probably, strictly from the standpoint of journalistic convention. It's a classic tale of do-gooder gone bad.

But I honestly don't want my column to become a perpetual Funk-bashing spot. I'd rather not have this blog be that either. But everything keeps coming back to him and what a pitiful failure he is, and what a horrible disappointment he is to those of us who supported him.

The upshot is this: The county, school district and library have stepped up and fought for the tax incentive reform that Funk campaigned on but has so far failed to deliver. And as they were nearing their biggest victory yet, Hizonner did all he could do (which, fortunately, wasn't much, due to his squander... [Read More]

Want to know what's funny about the Mayor's "Schools First" idea?

It's not his idea.

It's Cindy Circo's.

That's right. Back in the early days of the Funk Administration, when he was still trying to build relationships with the folks on the Council, Mark went to great lengths to praise Circo for having a great idea of fixing up the curbs and sidewalks around schools.

In fact, when I was going around with him trying to get business folks to fund his education summit, we used her idea as an example of how the city might help the school system. And we credited her for it.

This is doubly hilarious because Funk and Gloria hate Circo, and vice versa. Yet the Mayor is holding up his loathed colleague's idea as "the most exciting initiative of [his] tenure."

But you want to know what's really funny?

If the Mayor gets any traction on this idea -- and that's a big if -- he's going to be a major threat to Circo's current Big Goal: ... [Read More]

As I've pointed out here before, Mayor Funkhouser implored Kansas Citians to kick him out of office if we don't see a substantial increase in citizen satisfaction ratings by the end of his term.

Well, another quarterly survey report was released yesterday. How's he doing?

First, the good news, if you can call it that.

In the area of infrastructure maintenance -- the issue that citizens identify as the most important issue -- satisfaction is up a full five percent. And in the area that folks say is the next most important, public safety, it's up three percent, which is pretty good, I suppose.

But before Funk starts doing cartwheels, that five percent increase is to 25 percent from 19 percent. Which is basically going from horrible to awful.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that in almost every other catego... [Read More]

In my most recent column, I reported that the Mayor threatened to kick people off the Parks Board if they didn't approve a dog park in Sunnyside Park. But I didn't have room to explain why he didn't carry through on his threats.

The reason is that he has to get a majority of the City Council to vote in favor of such moves, and his relationship with the Council is so poor that it's unlikely he would have gained their support.

That said, he should have been able to kick off one member of the Parks Board:

Aggie Stackhaus.

That's because Aggie turned in a signed letter of resignation when she took the position. I was shown the letter when I worked in the Mayor's Office, ostensibly to get me to stop protesting her appointment to the board. It was explained to me that she offered this letter up front as a way of showing that she serves humbly at the mercy of the Mayor.

Well, guess what.

The Mayor apparently lost the letter.

I know this b... [Read More]

A federal grand jury was recently formed to consider evidence in an apparent corruption case regarding a failed development in southeast Kansas City.

The development, known as "The Citadel," very nearly received millions of dollars in public subsidies. It was killed at the last minute by a City Council majority earlier this year.

City Hall insiders have told me that the feds appear to be zeroing in on the purchase property to amass land for the development. These parcels were purchased with public funds from legal entities that can effectively hide the individuals who would profit from the sales.

As you can imagine, there's a lot of speculation and rumors as to who is and isn't going to get in trouble at 12th and Oak.

But, as we all know, the feds run a mighty tight ship. So we'll all have to be patient and keep our fingers crossed.

Looks like the war is on.

Earlier this week, Jackson County, the Kansas City School District and the KC Public Library threatened to sue the city for the way it runs its economic incentives program. Today they released a manifesto calling for reform.

The reform recommendations aren't surprising; I've listed them below. But first, a few choice quotes:

"The Economic Development Incentive Policy (EDIP) adopted by the Kansas City Council on September 20, 2007, the EDIP has yet to be fully implemented after more than two years since its adoption."

That's a pretty sharp stick in the Mayor's eye. Funkhouser has been bragging about that new policy since day one. Now top-level officials are coming forward and saying the emperor has no clothes.

"A significant percentage of the revenue of the Economic Development Corporation (EDC)... [Read More]

Somehow, this little gem hasn't managed to make it onto the Internet:

Back when the federal government was gearing up to spend billions as part of the national stimulus act, some Kansas City leaders got together to come up with a strategy to get some of that money. The meeting included business leaders, elected officials -- the usual suspects.

The Mayor reportedly begged to be allowed to attend.

But guess what.

He didn't show.

At the end of the meeting, when they had a list of priorities, someone asked who would serve as a spokesperson for the city. Three council members raised their hands. Then they quickly put them down. One of them said, we'll work it out.

Ahem.

The Mayor is supposed to fill that role.

But our mayor was off doing god knows what. Probably having an insufferable meeting around his dining room table with his wife and a couple of yes men.

(Just heard this story today and got it confirmed lickety split.)[Read More]