Sins of the CID Districts
Last week I took a jab at the Parkville Board of Aldermen, implying that they took themselves too seriously while conducting one of their far-too-regular closed sessions. And while my jab at the aldermen was clearly in jest, no joke, I received an e-mail from a ParkvilleLuminary.com reader in London asking for a retraction.
“I was much taken aback by your assertion that ‘druids can be such a drag,’” the e-mail reads. “As the UK’s lone reader of The Parkville Luminary, I would appreciate it tremendously if you would not lump Druids and Stonehenge into the same category as the shenanigans going on down there at the [Parkville Board of Aldermen.] A full retraction of your Druid and Stonehenge bashing, in your next editorial, would be much appreciated.”
I’m a reasonable guy, and I love to be politically correct, so I’ll grant the limey’s request: I want to start this column by apologizing to the Druids and for comparing them to aldermen. I did not mean to offend the, om, Druish community and will continue to enjoy their unknown legacy which lives on to this day.
Still, the matter led other local readers to ask if my recent screeds about the goings on at City Hall were implying support for Tom Hutsler’s mayoral bid.
Mr. Hutsler’s major campaign theme (so he tells me) is shrinking the size of Parkville’s government and attacking waste at City Hall. Well, as reported in this week’s Luminary, City Hall just posted a budget surplus and has half a million dollars in reserves. Judging Mr. Hutlser’s record downtown, I think he would be disastrous in City Hall, but I do believe he would shrink the size of local government because the entire staff up there would more than likely quit their jobs if he ever managed to trick enough people in this town into voting for him.
Mr. Hutsler is the ringleader of a small cadre of three or four downtown stakeholders who believe that all of their business ills are caused by City Hall and that in order to increase their particular store’s profits; they need to “fix” all of Parkville and funnel everything downtown. What better a way for Mr. Hutsler to achieve this than by taking over the mayor’s office?
The recently passed Community Improvement District is a perfect example of this thinking. The CID was created to improve the district, not serve solely as the taxpayer funded advertising slush fund for Mr. Hutsler and his 10-gun, brig sloop cronies. That’s right – whenever you purchase something in downtown Parkville, you are essentially paying a tax for an advertising campaign that doesn’t even come close to representing all of the business interests downtown. Every year, sales tax numbers go down but the cadre says the campaign was a great success. So what’s on tap for this year? More of the same, of course. Never mind that the CID won’t even pay for public restrooms downtown or their own trash cans. That money can and should be doing so much more for the common good.
Most of the disgruntled downtowners complain to me off the record because they don’t want to get involved with Mr. Hutsler directly. See, Mr. Hutsler has a history downtown. Many people recall the fistfight he had in the street with a former employee of the Power Plant Brewery. Others recall his public, profanity laced tirade in the middle of the street aimed at Alderman Deborah Butcher, whom he banned from entering the Power Plant Brewery after somebody called to report that his building was in disrepair. Others recall the meeting at City Hall he stormed out of a few months ago over Christmas lights. The last substantive phone call I had with him that wasn’t concerning one of his two lawsuits with downtown business owners ended with him telling me that he was banning the mayor from Christmas on the River because it would be “too political.”
And this guy wants to be mayor.
Speaking of mayors, it took a while, but the Graves re-election campaign finally got their Kay Barnes attack strategy down. This week, Graves pulled a play out of the Rove play book: attack your opponent’s strength.
Graves alleges that Barnes sold us a bill of goods in downtown Kansas City and it fits his strategy perfectly. So far, Barnes’ strategists have no defense. Steve Glorioso says Graves is attacking Kansas City businesses.
Just an observation, Mr. Glorioso: while they may be employing Kansas Citians, the majority of businesses I’ve observed in the Power and Light District are not Kansas City businesses.
The whole place is run by Baltimore’s Cordish and Los Angeles’ AEG. Famous Dave’s is from Wisconsin, and Ted’s Montana Grill is from Hanoi. (I know, I know, it’s so hard to find a barbecue or steak place in this town.)