City Council Circus
When you think of Kansas City, you think of a diverse, lively, upstanding community. However, if you delve into the inner workings of Kansas City, you’ll find something more like a three ringed circus. Granted, I’ve been paying a bit of attention to our city council for a while now because I figure that if you’re going to get to liberty, you have to hit it where it’s closest to you. For me, that’s Kansas City’s city council. Watching the local politicians on our very own KCCG-2 can sometimes be amusing all by itself, however, one must really step into the arena to get the full experience. This was my witness account of my first official Kansas City city council meeting:
We did arrive a tad late, 3:20 for a meeting that was to begin at 3:00. However, the meeting still did not start for another 15-20 minutes. Once the meeting did start, a couple of Council members were still not present. Cathy Jolly couldn’t sit still. She was constantly getting up and conversing with other council members, leaving and coming back, etc. Beth Gottstein arrived late and proceeded to behave like a teenager wtih ADD; talking on her phone, texting, leaving and coming back. At one point, she was late for a vote due to her being in another room and when she came back to council, she was directed by Jan Marcason on how to vote. Melba Curls was on her phone almost more than she wasn’t and out of her seat when she was on the phone. Terry Riley was also seen with his phone on his ear for quite a while as well.
Now, this is just the little pet peeves I had. I don’t understand how you go to an official meeting and just wander about, chat, text, and not pay attention. To me it seemed disrespectful and incredibly RUDE. On top of that, it was incredibly hard to pay attention to what was going on because of all the chaos.
Now comes the whole “circus”:
I must admit that the 1st and 2nd district council members were incredibly business like and respectable. They didn’t act like children who don’t get there way even when they were in disagreement with the Mayor. The 3rd district ladies (outside of Melba Curls being on her phone) never really spoke up or had much input on the subject.
The 4th, 5th, and 6th district side of the room acted like stubborn, bratty kids who weren’t getting their way in the sandbox. Huffing and puffing, sighing and moaning and completely indignate towards the Mayor. I suppose if we want the City Council to seem like the American Idol rejects, look to those districts and that is what you get with their playing to the camera and acting over the top when they didn’t get their way. Most of the bickering was from the 4th, 5th, and 6th districts and the Mayor. However, I must say that while I don’t completely agree with the Mayor, he behaved incredibly well as opposed to the throwing of baby fits from the upper district side of the room. I would say that they were the 3 ringed side of the circus.
Now, I understand the Mayor’s position, he was going to “settle” the lawsuit but he wasn’t going to give up the fight over the new ordinance. He claims the ordinance is unconstitutional and under this wonderful Country of ours, we must uphold the Constitution. I commend Mayor Funkhouser as he swore to an oath when going into office that he would do just that. The City Council is concerned with money, power, and attention. I for one, believe that the Constitution is something that is VITALLY important to hold onto (what’s left of it these days) therefore, on the ordinance, I have to sway my vote in the way of the Mayor on this one. Let them take it to a judge and find out if that ordinance is Constitutional or not. End of story.
It’s apparent that there is tension within the City Council. I do believe that Mayor Funkhouser has been singled out in this case. The behavior displayed today from those that were completely adamant against Funkhouser was childish and choleric. He offered to settle the lawsuit but bring the ordinance back for further review, the City Council said no. Somebody’s going to have to give or take in this case, I just wonder who it’s going to be.
