Ding Dong, Cauthen's Gone!

Facebook is lame. I'm friends with family, distant family, vague acquaintances from grade school through college and so on. The crowd is too diverse and if I post anything the least bit divisive, it turns into a 30+ comment argument. No thanks! I prefer the comfort and quietness of my own little blog. So it is here that I can wax visceral and really let my hair down. Er... if I had any, that is.

Today at 3PM a KC City Council document, signed by six council members and the mayor, was put into effect, to immediately terminate the employment contract with the City Manager. Wayne... Wayne Cauthen... Oh how I hate his name! May his name be listed in KC infamy and obscurity. May it be remembered along with Pendergast and Lynn Elliot, if it be remembered at all.

Now I realize it may not seem fair to judge him so. After all, he had a difficult job. I won't pretend that all my reasons for disliking are firmly grounded in objectivity and reason. Some of them are, some are not. Some are subjective and some are just my "impression". However unfair, I shouldn't let that stop me from articulating my distaste for the man!

First off, he's an outsider. He came from Denver, with a poor track record there, to show Kansas City how to be a "world class" city. I never cared for his pretention or for Mayor Barnes, who seemed to be obsessed with the phrase "world class". The whole notion that we aren't classy enough is based on a loathing of Kansas City's quiet simplicity and familial environment. I loathe their loathing.

Wayne acted like a teenage kid with his dad's credit card. He bartered the City's future with every TIFF and bond issue. He was all about spending money that doesn't exist, to build a brighter future. This mindset put some big ticket items on the map, but to what avail? He brought in contractors and management companies from outside of KC to tend to the P&L district. He forced through the Sprint center, which still doesn't have an anchor. He set up one area after another that, through TIFF's, encouraged existing businesses to move into the tax friendly zones or were driven out of business altogether. The immediate result has been a net loss of jobs (from what I can recall from articles I've read but can't cite). I believe the long term impact is that the City will be saddled with expensive maintenance of assets which aren't able to cover their own costs. In short, he has screwed Kansas City.

Wayne did a lot of damage to the internal operations of the City as well. How much money has been wasted by CIMO consultants? Yeah, they got some stuff done- but at triple the price! How much Water Dept revenues have been raped to pay for bloated IT initiatives (PeopleSoft) or providing basic services that should be funded by taxes (street sweeping, household hazardous waste)? He has hired numerous cronies from Denver who have had their own best interest at heart as well.

He has been rampant about consolidation. From CIMO to the action center, he has, without any proper thought or setting of benchmarks, reorganized City business. He has forced all citizen calls through the 311 Action Center, but didn't provide any increased staff. Never mind that they took on the work of over 30 customer service reps from the Water Dept alone. He thought their already overwhelmed staff of 17 was up for the task.

Now to get a bit personal, one such crony is the IT Director. His motto is "centralization is better". He's been marking his territory (and buffering his budget) by centralizing any and everything that looks like IT. This is done without analysis or benchmarks. There are no goals, no business metrics or any type of process analysis done. There is no way they can show that things indeed are more efficient and they're not interested in that. He just wants the money and is generally confident that centralizing things always makes life better. His effect on my dept has been very negative. It now takes us much longer, and with much more bureaucracy, to get the same things done. Hopefully he'll be out the door right behind his boy, lil' Wayne!

Now to get really personal. Hubris. I could withstand a lot of the other crap, but when he was rude to our secretary- all condescending and blowing her off at a City event- that was intolerable. It doesn't matter how low the City employee was on the ladder, or how high he was, that type of arrogance is totally unbearable.

And last of all, he had really soft hands and a weak shake. Yeah, that's right: soft hands. I'm a friggin programmer but I have calluses like a gorilla. This is from working on the house and other stuff, and from lifting weights. I'm no construction worker, but this guy's flaccid handshake was like holding a bunch of flower petals. That tells me he doesn't do anything. I already didn't respect him as a manager but that experience caused me to lose basic respect for him as a man. Maybe he's hoping to be Lady Wayne?

So long, lil' Wayne. Go back to Denver. Go cash in all those kickbacks I am reasonably sure you've been storing up whilst raping and pillaging the good people of Kansas City. This City deserves better.

TIF'd off

This is an excellent article on the failure of TIF's in KC. I don't usually agree with this guy, certainly not on big picture issues, but on this issue we are in absolute agreement. Of course I've been ranting against the TIF's for a while. I never believed they would drive a true downtown renaissance, or sustainable progress anywhere else. I have detested that most of these are awarded to out of state, much less non-local, companies. And just as was suspected, as City revenues are falling, the City is giving it's money away to enable private developers who are in turn are getting a competetive edge against local companies and driving them out. TIF's are just a small-scale, localized version of the massive Federal bailouts and wrong for all the same reasons.

It would have been far more equitable and sustainable to simply lower sales tax rates. This would have placed money in the hands of consumers instead of developers, and encouraged suburban consumers to shop in KC, instead of the other way around. Increasing the desire to buy in KC would mean that smart businesses would seek to enhance their edge by moving to KC, instead of away from it, especially the small to mid sized businesses that make life- and shopping- much more interesting (the way the Plaza used to be and the Crossroads district is). More shoppers and more buying would have meant more revenues and, on top of all this, happier citizens. We could have been happy about the flourishing of local businesses, instead of suspicious of corruption and "outsiders" coming to push out local guys and we could have been happy about a better economic position. We also could have been happy with- heck, even proud of- our local government. But far be it from our City Council members (and I use the term 'member' in the lowest sense of the word) to make a right decision when there's good money to be made in making the wrong one. Bastards.

And as a post script, these miserably implemented TIF's happen because a private developer comes along with a plan. In this plan they boast a grand picture of economic development: so many jobs will be created, so much revenue will be generated and the face of the City will be given a lift. The Ephors at the Council buy into this and move to grant special favors to the developer. But there is no follow-up and no accountability for these claims. There is very little questioning of the assumptions that go into the grandiose claims and no research on the actual impact. The developers can and will say whatever they want to seduce the self-indulgent politicos into their bed. In short, they get away with it.

A child shall lead them...

The situation at City Hall is becoming ever more reminiscient of the 2000 presidential elections. Once again, the courts will decide our fate.

The Mayor had until today to either sign or veto the illegal ordinance passed by the Council last week. On advice from the City's law department, he opted to do neither. So now the ordinance is in effect. But on Tuesday, the mayor pro tem (aka- vice mayor) councilman Skaggs filed a suit against the City in Jackson County court for violating the City charter and State constitution. The City Attorney had already written an opinion that sided with the Mayor's interpretation of the charter so he is sort of defacto disqualified from representing the City. Instead. two private lawyers will duke it out in front of a County judge to decide if Funk is right or wrong. There are enough liberal judges at the local level that I really don't have confidence this will go right. A loss here would probably require an appeal at the state level and I doubt there is the political will to press the issue that far.

"Oligarchy is a form of government where political power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society" (thx Wiki!) If the county validates the Council then that is what we have. The Charter becomes a suggestion and the will of the people and rule of law is subverted. The interests of the highly vocal and racists minority will become the law. According to some commenters on the Star, someone is even trying to get Jesse Jackson in KC this Feb (assumably in time for black history month). The NAACP was the first group to threaten a lawsuit against the mayor and the most vocal civic "leaders" were all black pastors from the City. Yet this is somehow not about race.

"Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." -Lord Acton

Something stinks at City Hall...

If you've been following local politics in KC (and as bad as the Cheifs were again this year, who hasn't!) then you may know the this week the Mayor announced he would rid us of the ever-corrupt, self important, law ignoring fat head from Denver. But the City council had other plans and now the gloves are off. Apparently so is the Council abiding by the charter. The KC Star merely hints at the illegality by soft pedalling the undisputable fact the Council can not do what they did. Ugh... what hope is there for this City? Only Christ can save it!

Since I found out all of the latest news at about 4PM yesterday, I spent the entire evening fuming in anger. I couldn't concentrate on anything around me- I had to take action! So about midnight I whipped up this little note and emailed it to the Mayor and the 6th District, law-breaking council members that I voted for...

Mr. Mayor-
I would like to thank you for taking the stand you have and sticking to your guns. When my wife and I voted for you, we were voting for change. My personal hopes were specifically that those changes would include removing Cauthen and hiring a competent and law-abiding professional who viewed themselves as a true servant. Those traits are all counter to what we have now and I thank you for taking action to make a change! I hope also that those changes would include close scrutiny of Council members to make sure that the numerous rumors of corruption are not true and to prosecute the ones that are true.
To my council members- shame on you! If the City charter states that only the Mayor can propose a contract for the position of City Manager then the council has broken the law and you have been a party to it. We voted for both of you because we felt you would truly take action to make improvements to the south-land after we have suffered from the incompetence of Brooks and Eddy (and them botching the Bass Pro deal) but we also expected that this would be according to the law and by good decision making. Making improvements by any means necessary is not the right way and they will not be blessed, they will not last. Improvements made by sacrificing the future will not do any real good and future generations will only curse you heaping up piles of debt (as Cauthen has already done) and being otherwise fiscally irresponsible. Government leaders who break the law in the exercise of government are no more than petty despots.
This is truly ridiculous. This is not student council- it’s grown up time, so act like it. This City cannot begin healing (http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/403246-p2.html) without following it’s own law. If the governors do not follow the laws set by the people, why should the people follow those governors? How do you explain this hypocrisy to urban youth when trying to encourage them to stay in school and otherwise follow the law? If you are not familiar with our charter, here is the section relevant for this topic:
http://www.municode.com/resources/gateway.asp?sid=25&pid=10156
Part I: Charter of the City of Kansas City, Missouri: Article II: Division 2: Part 3: City Manager: Sec 218- City Manager
(b) Appointment. The Mayor and Council shall jointly conduct a search or recruitment for a City Manager upon terms agreed upon by the Mayor and Council. Upon completion of this process the Mayor shall be responsible for submitting a resolution to the Council for the appointment of a City Manager. If an appointment is not approved, the Mayor may submit another person for consideration, or may ask that a search or recruitment process begin anew.
That seems pretty simple to me. It is the Mayor’s job to submit this resolution, not Ed Ford’s or yours. It is your job to follow the law. Whether you support Cauthen or not, you should have publicly and sharply rebuked Mr. Ford for his contempt of the people.
I am so incensed by this violation that I am also contacting my state Representative and Senators. I do not know who the City is answerable to but I want to find out and make sure that someone is watching over all this. I will also be sending my opinion to as many citizens as I know and encouraging them to contact you.
Mr. Mayor- You have my support. If there is anything I can do as a citizen to support you in this please let me know!