Anyway, the column is as you might expect. She says Kansas Citians have to be careful in choosing the next mayor to ensure that we continue on all the great progress the city has made over the last eight years.
I'm not sure why they took it down, but I have a hunch it's because she wanted to add something about rats.
See, when Barnes was putting the finishing touches on her propaganda, 150 everyday Kansas Citians gathered at City Hall to talk about the kind of progress they'd like to see in Kansas City.
Highlights:
Gunshots ricocheting through neighborhoods, roaming pit bulls, crumbling tennis courts, negligent landlords and ill-prepared students were on the minds of many. Some of the most poignant comments came from residents pleading for more rodent control in the wake of a rat chewing off the nose and part of the lip of an infant this week.
That's right.
In this 21st Century American city, a rat chewed the nose and lip off of an infant's face.
What the article doesn't mention, but was reported in the Star earlier this week, is that under Mayor Barnes's administration the City recently slashed rat extermination from its budget. Quote:
The city funded a rat-control unit in the late 1990s and early this decade but closed the unit for about three years because of budget cuts
Ah yes. Progress.
A tenant-less arena. An in-the-red entertainment district downtown. A $30-million increase in tax kickbacks to well-connected developers who build projects in the richest parts of the city.
And life has never been better for rats.
Way to go, Kay.
5 comments:
!!!!!!!!!
[words escape me]
While I agree that the city should not have cut funding for rodent control, how is it the mayor's fault that a parent decides to raise a child in conditions that would allow a rat to harm the child?
Geez Joe, how can you be critical of that tenent-less arena? Don't you realize that if and when — and it's looking like more of a matter of when, according to Randy Covitz at the Star — Kansas City gets the Pittsburgh Pengins, this town will be cured of everything that ails it? We will be, after all, a major league city!
Patrick, all the news reports I saw indicated the family had a very clean home and provided excellent care for their child. The city, on the other hand, has an enormous problem with rats in its infrastructure.
Joe,
thanks for the info.
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