Upgrades at Truman Boyhood Home

The Truman Boyhood Home at South Crysler added a new concrete parking lot to the front lawn area to supplement the gravel parking area to the north side.  This should go a long way to support the 7 mailboxes on this once single-family home on this very visible corner and entrance into our historic community.  This property was actually highlighted in a New York Times article published October 15, 2010 entitled "In Truman Homes, Reflections of a City" written by A.G. Sulzberger, the Times Associate Editor, referring to Independence as the "hardscrabble suburb" that "struggled in recent decades to confront the many faces of urban blight."  The article goes on to describe this property as "decaying" and having the "reputation as a drug house" in a community where our most prominent citizen was referred to as our "less favorite son."  Keep in mind the NY Times reaches hundreds of millions of readers world-wide through its newsprint and website.  Our local reaction to this publication was either ignorance of the article or dismissing it as bad journalism from a writer who just doesn't understand us.  This reaction is typical of the negative press Independence receives.  Rather than providing leadership and investments in active and successful revitalization and historic preservation programs, we prefer to throw public funds into multiple PR and "rebranding" campaigns.  We "pass the buck" for preserving and interpreting the story of Harry S Truman to two federal agencies with our only local responsibility to preserve and protect Truman's neighborhood and local sites.  How are we doing with that?  You could ask City Hall but you would get the same response for their assessment for everything they do.  It's better to get the objective opinion of an outsider representing one of the most respected media companies in the world.