Legoland Lampoon

Kansas City’s Legoland attraction at Crown Center has been a tremendous plus for KC area and regional tourism.  The Lego Group boasts of $5 billion in revenue with individual sites attracting 400,000 to 600,000 local citizens and tourists per year.  To put that in perspective, that is 3 to 4 times the visitors that walk in the doors of all 16 heritage tourism sites in the Independence in spite of our annual investment of $1.4 million of public money for marketing.  The Lego Group’s parent company, Danish firm Merlin Entertainments, boasts of 60 million guests per year in their international market.  As a corporate goal, they work directly with local groups to promote local attractions by re-creating in miniature local tourism sites and landmarks from Legos which is quite interesting and creative in itself.  And because a majority of its patrons are young people, this effort connects our youth to these important sites also.  History that is presented and taught to our children plays a vital role in shaping their values and beliefs.  These types of public/private partnerships, especially those connected to our youth, are valuable in supporting and sustaining local tourism programs which translates to local economic development, increased tax revenue, and community pride.  It’s a winning combination unless you are talking about Independence.  Earlier in the year, I observed at Legoland a Lego re-creation of the very ornate Victorian Truman Home pictured above situated on a very prominent corner at Truman Road and Delaware Street in the heart of the Truman National Historic Landmark District in Independence.  Unfortunately it was labeled as the “Harry S. Truman Farm Home, also known as the Soloman Young Farm, the Harry S. Truman Farm Home was the resident of the Future President from 1907-1917” which is in Grandview, Missouri.  Oh well, I guess that is close enough for the KC folks.  In the age of information technology, we have to do a better job with educating our youth and citizens about our own local and national histories.  I noticed this blunder back in July.  Now I’m wondering if it has been fixed yet.

Political Mud Slinging Highlights Local Sex Offender

Mug shots of neighborhood legend, Randy Lande, are back on the TV screen yet again.  This time they are being broadcast state wide.  It is for political ads for Josh Hawley for Missouri Attorney General.  His opponent, Cass County Prosecutor Teresa Hensley, released this dangerous sex offender, Randy Lande, back into the general population in a plea deal from a Cass County courtroom.   What the ad doesn't tell you is that he ended up being placed through Catholic Charities in an unsupervised group home on the 400 block of West Farmer in the Truman National Historic Landmark District adjacent to a faith-based child day care facility and family homeless shelter.  Randy ended up brutally raping an 8-year-old neighborhood girl and was sentenced to prison with yet another plea deal for a reduced sentence.  So of all the people that allowed Randy Lande to be set free, to have direct access to vulnerable children, and who didn’t even bother to exercise an outstanding warrant for his arrest prior to the rape, only Teresa Hensley is being held accountable through these TV ads.  Even Randy’s old landlord didn’t learn from this experience and continues to operate the same unsupervised group home in the Truman Neighborhood with tenants who need supervision and where visits by the Independence Police Department are routine.  To quote Steven Denn, “You can never make the same mistake twice because the second time you make it, it's not a mistake, it's a choice.”  There is a reason nothing improves with respect to situations such as this.  It’s a choice!  Neighborhood children deserve better!

Loan Wolves Prey on Independence

The financial services market in Old Town Independence is evolving and sinking down to the lowest common denominator.  A number of the big banks have left including Bank of America on the Square, Central Bank on West 24 Hwy, and now just recently Commerce Bank on Osage just off the Square.  Filling these voids are payday loan establishments.  What was once the financial center of national and international trade on the pioneer trails and the western territories of an expanding nation has now been reduced to floating high-interest loans between nominal paychecks and Social Security and Food Stamp distributions.  And patrons of these services are pushed deeper and deeper into holes that are difficult to climb out of.  With the exit of big banks, there are fewer financial services for small businesses while they look for other more stable business districts to set up shop and to invest in.  To put situations in further historic context, a community that hosts the “Miracle Mile” that boasted of cruising and fast-food eating establishment, now has more payday loan companies than fast-food restaurants.  One could say we need more affordable housing for our citizens so they don’t need expensive loans but currently Independence has the third lowest rental rates in the entire country, which corresponds to depressed values in real estate.  So even homeowners are knocking on the doors of payday lenders while they are left without home equity for small loans, home improvements, or just simple home repairs.   And when you are up-side-down on your home and behind on repairs, you can’t even sell your home and move on with your life.  Public investments in ice hockey, retail, guns/ammo sales, fake water fall, and PR campaigns would have been better spent on continuing well-planned neighborhood revitalization programs in both the Midtown / Truman Road Corridor and the Fairmont / Carlisle areas and investing in our greatest assets, our history.  And it is not about spending more public money but, in reality, it should be about weaning ourselves from the dependence of government subsidies.  In fact, we should enact a moratorium on subsidized housing until we can develop an appropriate comprehensive plan for community development, housing, and preservation.  Then we may actually have a chance to live up to our name, “Independence.” 

Truman Boyhood Home gets "Stoned"

One of the three Harry S Truman Boyhood Homes in Independence is at 902 North Liberty Street is getting a nip & tuck-pointed facelift.  And it is with stone.  And not just any stone.  It appears to be a faux stone panel veneer with an update in superfluous millwork.  To get an idea of what it used to look like, pull up the New York Times article from October 15, 2010 entitled “In Truman Homes, Reflections of a City” by A. G. Sulzberger and there is a feature photo of the house with owner, Tracy E. Haley.  The article certainly provides an objective perspective of how well we are doing as a community telling the story of Harry Truman, especially during his “Wonder Years” growing up in the old neighborhood.  The house featured in the article, with the photo by photographer Steve Hebert, was a typical Victorian wood-framed home with wood lapped siding, similar to the Truman Home National Historic Site a short nine blocks away, only at a bit smaller scale.  Tracy is quoted as saying that she had lived there several years before she discovered that young Harry Truman had briefly lived there.  With this level of investment, is it clear we do not need historic preservation standards in this corner of the Old Town?  Even the National Park Service left out this property and neighborhood block from the expanded National Historic Landmark District boundaries taking away opportunities for valuable tax credits to offset expensive restoration costs that comply with those standards.  Keep in mind, Liberty Street is also the predominate route for the three National Historic Trails that connect The Square with the river boat landing on the Missouri River and is federally designated.  So in the spirit of the new townhouse project also on Liberty Street between White Oak and Truman Road, which also represents neo-eclectic and enigmatic styles and materials, we offer a salute to those who have the audacity to not only invest in our historic community but also rewrite history at the same time.  To add a quote by legendary rock band, AC/DC, “For those about to ROCK, we salute you!”  Pun intended.

The "F-Word" in Real Estate Development

So what if a real estate developer makes promises and agreements in order to receive favor either through rezoning hearings, a sales agreement, receipt of public subsidies, special public financing, or to get a bye on critical upgrades or on following preservation standards, or possibly even all of the above, then renege on those agreements after receiving favor in all of his demands?   And what if he even holds the project up as a hostage in order to receive even more public subsidies because miscalculations and/or poor planning so he can further improve his profit margins for himself and his investors/stockholders?  Within the financial world, they have a name for this and it begins with the letter “F.”  And so it would then lead one to conclude that those public officials and legal counsels who allow this action to take place while being complacent, and, in some cases, even offering praise of the actions, would be considered accomplices in those actions.  And let’s say hypothetically that if the actions are, in fact, considered criminal acts, then the accomplices would be participants in those crimes and would be subject to probes or inquiries into at least ethics concerns if not corruption or worse.  And the decision-making is done with private meetings behind closed door and absent of community and national stakeholders.  Are we so desperate for redevelopment in our historic community that we would lower our standards of integrity for all who participate?  Does this sound like the community of one of the most respected US presidents who coined the phrase, “The Buck Stops Here?”  To quote Richard Whately, 19^th-century English rhetorician & author, “All frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar ... always tend to the decay of what they are devised to support.”  In other words, don’t be surprised to witness the failure of these real estate projects initiated and founded on deception.  These failures not only affect people and property, but radiate throughout our historic community.

"BREAKING NEWS - Local Truman District Too Small" - June 17th

"Despite designation as a National Historic Landmark, the Harry S Truman Historic District is rapidly losing its historic character, in part because of inadequate protection of its historic resources.  Within sight of the Truman house, several historic buildings have been replaced by parking lots and nondescript new construction.  Other threats to the historic neighborhood include changing regional economic conditions and demographics, and the contemporary problem of urban blight.  Historic homes and buildings are being demolished or collapsing because of general deterioration and neglect."

The above exert is from a press release and media campaign from the National Trust for Historic Preservation on June 17^th placing the Truman National Historic Landmark District (NHLD) in the “Top 11” list of most endangered landmarks in the country.  This campaign goes on to cite “insensitive planning policies” and “nondescript new construction” as problems negatively impacting the NHLD.  No, this “News Flash” announcement didn’t happen today.  It was on June 17^th, 1996 and, yes, it’s part of the preservation history of our community.  This news release was issued exactly 20 years ago (10:30 am to be exact) primarily because the local Truman Heritage District was alarmingly too small to protect the nationally designated Truman NHLD and its historic setting.  Exactly two decades later, the local district is not only the same small size but we now have a NHLD that three times the size it was.  So if the local district was too small in 1996, it should be even more distressing today with a much larger federal district worthy of protection.  Urban blight and economic/market pressures are also a bigger problem.  There continues to be the absence of a local not-for-profit group guiding and advocating historic preservation in Independence while City Hall has cut the Historic Preservation budget to one quarter of what it used to be.  A strong argument could be raised that situations today are even worse than in 1996.  But community leaders will not raise that concern since it would be incompatible with our recent PR campaigns, not to mention our current philosophy that, if we ignore problems, they will go away.  The hypocrisy in all this was the overwhelming support from City Hall for the expansion of the NHLD with new plaques, an open house event, and many photo-ops for politicians while we continue to ignore our national and civic responsibilities to providing real protections through local zoning and more “sensitive planning policies.”

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.