Sheriff Evicts Insiders - The First Victory in the Cleansing of Jackson County Legislature

First, big kudos to Sheriff Mike Sharp, who has taken a stand against the literal insiders who have used courthouse access to unfairly gain early access to getting their name first on the ballots. In prior years, incumbents would use their courthouse passes to get in and file for themselves and friends while the hopes for reform sat outside in the cold.

Finally, Mike Sharp has put an end to that odious and unfair practice. Using his role as chief of security for the courthouse, he decided to take names at the courthouse door starting at 5:00 yesterday.

I had written about the unfairness of the prior system before, when Theresa Garza Ruiz proposed a simple and fair fix to the insider game. Greg Grounds joined her in seeking to eliminate cronyism.

Heny Rizzo voted for special insider privileges.

Dan Tarwater voted for special insider privileges.

James Tindall voted for special insider privileges.

Scott Burnett voted for special insider privileges.

Dennis Waits voted for special insider privileges.

Fred Arbanas voted for special insider privileges.

Bob Spence voted for special insider privileges.

Not surprisingly, even under the new system, Henry Rizzo managed to find a way to use his position to engage in petty cheating. He loathes Theresa Garza Ruiz because she has consistently sought to bring openness and reform to the Jackson County legislature. With that in mind, he let Ruiz's opponent cut in line to get his name on the ballot before her.

Can you believe that? Most people grow out of that kind of behavior in 1st grade, but Henry Rizzo and his friend apparently did not.

Has Journalism Reached a Tipping Point?

Something really interesting and perhaps troubling happened last week. A local blog, Tony's Kansas City, made the Kansas City Star tumble into irrelevance regarding a major local story.

It all surrounded the turmoil involving the Citadel and spending city money on a project that has been festering for years. But the merits of that particular project matter less to me than the way it got handled.

In a nutshell, the KC Star was, once again, falling down on the job. While backroom manipulations were going on, the Star remained essentially silent while Tony roared to life. It was Tony, not the Star, that drew public attention to the story. It was Tony, not the Star, that got tongues wagging. I've been watching local politics for decades, and, for the first time I can recall, the backroom shenanigans of the insider aristocracy got stopped in its tracks without the Star's involvement.

Tony derailed a process that the Star was too lazy, incompetent or uncaring to write about.

Sadly, Star reporter Lynn Horsley is stamping her foot and claiming that she didn't drop the ball, rather than acknowledging that Tony did a better job than she did, and promising to be more responsive and courageous in her work.

Will this be the wave of the future? Will smart tipsters, who want to see their information have an impact, eschew the blase' and insider-cozy attitude demonstrated by the Star's fading political coverage?

I think it would be best for all concerned if the Star would show more of Tony's willingness to stick his nose into backroom business and gore a few sacred cows, so Tony could go back to being a joke blog.