Funk Wins!

Bring on da noise, bring on da Funk!

Kansas City went to the polls today and selected a new mayor. It was a tough choice, and a close election, and Kansas City could not go wrong with either candidate. Both who cleared the primary were fabulous candidates, but ultimately I supported former city auditor Mark Funkhouser. In fact, I called for him to be drafted by the citizens of this city on November 12, before he announced his candidacy.

He - well, Gloria - ran a solid, true-blue, honest-to-pete, grass-roots campaign. She did one hell of a job. It was a clean campaign, they stuck to the issues, and Kansas City ultimately chose the auditor over the orator. He has a strong asset there, and I would like to see the Doublewide stay open as a community outreach center. She has a keen sense of what the citizens in this town respond to - but it probably has something to do with the fact that she is a real person, and she is married to a workhorse, and she conveyed the message. She spoke directly to voters with emails and updates and they went places where no candidate had gone for years - like to meet-ups in bars at 25th and Prospect.

And they listened.

Of course, Gloria had a pretty damned good product she was selling. This guy is solid as a rock, he's smart and capable and able to do the technical work of government successfully. You know, the part that most people are baffled by once they get where they thought they wanted to go.

Don't get me wrong - Alvin Brooks is a great guy. I have witnessed him with the families of crime victims with my own eyes when I was a part of the trauma team at Research. Al Brooks has served this community for half a century and he will continue to do so. He ran a clean campaign and he stuck to the issues, and never once lost sight of the fact that it's about the citizens, not the candidates. Al Brooks has never lost sight of that fact in his entire life and he wasn't about to start. In fact, I kinda hope Funk asks Al to stay on in his current position as Mayor Pro Tem.

Kansas City is a city on the move. We truly stand on a precipice and the decisions that are made during the upcoming mayoral term will set the timbre for the next half century. It is that important. We are getting into dangerous territory with TIF. Funk will rein that in and still encourage development. And the people who are poking fun at his citizen surveys simply have never taken a Statistics course at the college level, or they would understand that he knows what the hell he is talking about, and that they are a damned good idea. If you schlepped through even one semester of Stats, that's a no-brainer.

The challenges that face Kansas City are great - but the possibilities are grand.

Both of the men we voted for have a place in that vision. But right now, I just think that we need Mark Funkhouser's particular skill set in the Mayor's office.

You did good today Kansas City. You did real good.

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Vote Today, Kansas City

It's time for Kansas City to winnow the field to two in the Mayoral primary tomorrow. We sure have no shortage of candidates - twelve people are vying for one of the two slots on the ballot in the general, that will be held in six weeks. I can only take three of them seriously, and of those three, any one would do a good job, but I'm backing Funkhouser because he is the sanest person in the race where TIF is concerned. He could be stronger on getting us light rail, and he could stake out a bit more territory on fixing the problems with the Municipal Courts. But on balance, Mark is my guy. Eighteen years as city auditor has given him an end-users perspective on the inner workings of city government - and what things actually cost - that the rest of the candidates just can't match, no matter how many terms they spent on the City Council or as County Executive.

Besides - how often do you get a chance to vote for a guy who answers to "Funk" and had his biggest fundraiser to date in a real live down-n-dirty blues bar?


The other two candidates worthy of consideration are Jim Glover and Alvin Brooks. Since our incumbent Mayor, the Absolutely Fabulous Kay Barnes has expressed disgust with the negative campaigning that burst ont he scene about the same time as Missouri's white-trash, poor-man's Karl Rove got picked up as a campaign staffer by one of the more desperate contenders...I will just say nothing about the rest of the field. Some I don't know enough about to attack, but a couple of them...I'll just abstain.

Now that that is taken care of -

You need to go over to Gone Mild and read Dan's rant about the idiocy of closing 20% of the polling places less than a week before the most contested mayoral primary in the post-Pendergast era!

My State Senator is doing a fine job of taking care of her constituents - if you go to her site you will see that she has the links up and the top of the page is dedicated to polling update information. For those too lazy to click the link, here's her PSA:

Dude Where's My Polling Place?

Thanks to Dan for the heads up on polling place changes for Tuesday's city elections. If you get confused -- you can always vote at the Election Board -- 1828 Walnut.

I have been pretty busy lately, and remiss in my duties - but cruise her site and see that she is by golly doing the job we elected her to do, and I look forward to selecting Jolie Justus on my ballot for years into the future, based on what I've seen so far. (This is where I take a flight-of-fancy 10 years down the road to a contest for Missouri's Class III Senate seat...I am a hopeless political junkie. Research to help those similarly afflicted is ongoing.)

Senator Justus. I just like how that sounds, you know?

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