Major Restoration Project on The Square, and It's a Gamble

One of the largest restoration projects is occurring right now on the Square.  No, unfortunately, it's not an investment in the abandon circa-1910 City Hall building in the Truman NHLD.  It’s Ken McClain’s brand-new Market Square Townhouses that were designed by architect Jim Gamble who was also the Project and Construction Manager.  Keep in mind Gamble had oversight of every aspect of this project.  It appears now that the entire facades on the buildings are failing before the units have even been sold.  Maybe it is good that the units have not sold after a year of marketing them.  Empty units are much easier to fix.  In spite of the fact that public assistance has gone into the project, there have been no public statements explaining the problems.  We still get the “Real People – Real Progress” spin and accolades for the development on social media.  It appears at street level that the culprit is excessive moisture intrusion after witnessing the darkened wood sheathing boards behind the building wrap.  These types of problems, if they occur, usually appear after 5 to 10 years of building occupation.  To have them occur this soon and even prior to occupation at least hints that this is very serious.  The project was plagued from the very beginning by excluding public hearings and stakeholder participation, environmental assessments typical of urban sites absent, suggestions for archaeological investigations deemed unnecessary burdens, and the mystery of missing local and state permits.  Demolition debris from the site that dated to Urban Renewal land clearance was dumped in a ravine in eastern Jackson County.  The building site had an abundance of ground water at times resulting in utility crews playing multiple scenes of the Keystone Kops.  Construction quality control issues were visible from the street with other less-visual incidences posted on social media by disgruntled workers, whatever that is worth.  All of this combined with City Hall taking a “hands off” approach, common with politically connected developers, resulted in a finished product that has already required substantial renovation.  And the question that city leaders refuse to answer, did McClain fulfill his obligation to meet schedules and receive tax credits, a prerequisite for the receiving free land with no public hearing?  We wish the McClain’s good luck in remediating the issues and hope that continued problems do not exist (as in the previous blog post).  If problems do continue, we can always follow the current trend: turn it into low-income senior housing.  And yes, with Architect Jim, what can we say?   I’m not going to take the bait with a witty pun.  Use your own imagination this time!

ISD Didn't Get Their Ducts in a Row

As one of the most blogged stories, the Palmer School debacle as received the most print.  The award-winning historic preservation project was a clear success at the time of the ceremonial ribbon-cutting because it came from a partnership between the school district and a committee of citizens that represented many aspects of the community, i.e., historic preservation, building construction, engineering, education, etc.  It was a unique process set up by Superintendent Dr. Rock to provide stakeholder involvement at every step along the way from assessment, planning, design, and financing.  The project itself was a unique adaptive reuse of a historic property in the Truman National Historic Landmark District that moved professional administrators/educators to the historic Square area within walking distance to restaurants, shops, banking, churches, and governmental offices.  Other community partners such as adjacent churches and City Parks & Rec were brought into the project for cooperative and coordinated parking arrangements that worked very well.  The ISD and the community partners appeared to have all their “ducks in a row.”  Then along came Dr. Jim Hinson.  During construction, Hinson approved a change order removing all the return air ducts on the project to cheapen the HVAC system.  Unfortunately, this led to the HVAC system pulling return air from not just ceiling plenums but also from historic pipe chases that were allegedly connected to mold in the basement/cellar and bat feces in the attic.  After operating the system for 5 years, it eventually made a lot of district employees sick including Dr. Hinson who was actually hospitalized.  But rather than admit to any mistakes made, ISD hired Ken McClain’s HFM Law Firm to threaten legal action against their own insurance company for a problem they created.  Instead of taking any settlement money and using it to clean a prominent property dedicated to our community’s youth for 150 years in the heart of the Truman National Landmark District, the contaminated building is sold for subsidized senior housing, a building Dr. Hinson claimed could never be cleaned enough for ISD employees.  Even the developer who purchased the property refused to discuss environmental clean-up or to even acknowledge environmental issues associated with the property, thus, maintaining Dr. Hinson’s secrecy/coverup over the matter, and reinforcing our assessment that no one really knows what they are doing.  Keep in mind, if senior residents complain about respiratory health, it can be written off as a symptom of, well, just getting old.  The residential facility was planned without the involvement of community stakeholders and even excluded adjacent churches with over a 200-year history in the community.  In the Pitch article (08-02-2017), referenced in the previous post, it quotes Shawnee Mission School patron and librarian, Jan Bombeck’s take on Dr. Hinson, “Something’s wrong with this man.”  And as we think hard to attempt to explain that statement, we realize it may have something to do with his time occupying space at the Palmer Building.  As you know, there may be something to the old expression, “Bat Sh*t Crazy!”

School Superintendent, Not So Super!

An interesting article appeared in the Pitch last month, August 2, 2017 (http://www.pitch.com/news/article/20971273/jim-hinson-shawnee-missions-swaggering-superintendent-vanished-after-parents-spoke-up-what-happened) outlining the misadventures of Dr. Jim Hinson as superintendent of the Shawnee Mission School District and the highest paid public school official in the state of Kansas.  Here in Independence, we know him, too, and the article was most interesting concerning his time in the Independence School District, especially regarding his special relationship with board member, Matt Mallinson.  We get some revealing information about Matt who is also a board member of the Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA).  Some might recall him as representing the “National Trails” interest in what Mayor Weir presented at a public meeting as an official endorsement of the MACO Northcreek rental duplex project also supported by the Missouri Housing Development Commission (MHDC).  Yes, most folks don’t realize this but OCTA, under Mallinson's leadership, has expanded its mission to provide design review and endorsements of publicly-subsidized housing projects.  You might also recall Mr. Mallinson as promoting the less historic trace of the old national trails on River Boulevard that grants him economic advantages in promoting his business at Gilpintown, a faux history site.  The tax payers of Independence and Sugar Creek were forced to purchase Mallinson family-owned real estate at over 6 times the county’s assessed value while Hinson gave away naming rights for the school to the Mallinson family, a tradition usually reserved for those who give to youth education, not take away.  Then we were forced to invest further in this property moving dirt and leveling the site just to make it suitable for a building.  The photo above highlights one of the most significant investments on the property as viewed from the school’s entrance near Forest & Mallinson Streets: the fill dirt.  Yes, politics has its perks.  And I almost hesitate to say that the "dirt" in local politics is literal and figurative.  During Dr. Hinson’s time in Independence and his “autocratic style,” he disposed of almost all the district’s inventory of historic buildings without consulting the district’s community-based Facilities Planning Committee.  It’s no wonder the Pitch article refers to the real estate transaction as “incestuous” while suggesting that Independence patrons and leaders are unengaged.  We elect school board members to represent all the tax payers and account for the limited resources we have for investments in our community’s youth.  We don’t elect them to represent their own financial interests or that of their family members.  Yes, it is good that Dr. Hinson has moved on, but we still end up with a management structure modeled by Hinson and a school board that’s not really interested in leading.  “Is it good for the children?”

Mistakes Made - "All in the name of Progress"

On Friday, August 25, 2017, Missouri Preservation announced its MISSOURI’S 2017 HISTORIC “PLACES IN PERIL” which included another sequel appearance of the Harry S Truman National Historic Landmark District.  It’s like the sequel for a National Lampoon’s version of “Independence Day” and “Ground Hog’s Day.”  At least this time the Mayor acknowledged the announcement and stated that “there have been mistakes made” but then followed by “all in the name of progress.”  Maybe that is why they also needed to keep reminding themselves with all those billboards proclaiming “REAL PROGRESS” so we would have visual aides to actually point to something real, a billboard (?).  So, yes, the City Council and the Mayor are successful with billboards.  The application to Missouri Preservation cites the demo of two homes near the Truman Home (blog entry 8-21-09),  Landmark District gerrymandering and confusion (blog entry 9-29-10), the neglect and abandonment of the circa 1910 City Hall (blog entries 6-17-10 and 6-20-10), poor planning processes for the brand new Market Square Townhouses (which have already suffered from poor construction and façade failures), the neglect and abandonment of the circa-1895 First Baptist Church, the mismanagement of the Palmer School by district officials (blog entries 8-10-09, 10-11-09, 5-25-11, and 11-27-13), poor planning in placing duplexes that impact the Truman District and the National Trail, poor planning and ineffective traffic control for the redevelopment of Heritage House, the continued institutional exodus from the Landmark District and Square area including the Truman Library Institute, and just the basics of lack of leadership, lack of stakeholder participation, unaccountability of developers, and dysfunctional natural nature of city government.  “Mistakes were made” seems to be the understatement of the year.  The Examiner article, which presented more questions than answers, goes on to quote the Mayor who states that solutions are already “embedded in our strategic plan and our comprehensive plan” which no one has seen yet.  So if you believe the Mayor, you can point to those billboards again and say, “That’s real progress!”  Yes, those billboards come in handy!