Paved with Good Intentions!

The road to the Temple and the Truman National Historic Landmark District is paved with brick and good intentions but it looks like h**l.  The present design was thoughtfully developed by the best professional landscape architects in Kansas City that public money could buy.  Yes, our Midtown / Truman Road Corridor (M/TRC) Neighborhood Revitalization Corporation hired those consultants and the City of Independence spent the money to give us these brick pavers.  Someone should have suggested to M/TRC way back then that having this type of landscape feature requires a little maintenance, not to mention some pride of ownership.  Ironically, this picture was taken on property owned and maintained by, you guessed it, M/TRC.  We've stated the obvious before but it deserves to be repeated again and again and again..........  The organization that is now getting public money to promote neighborhood revitalization has to lead the community and set high standards for neighborhood stewardship (their own standards), especially when making official judgments of other property owners on whether they've maintained their property good enough to keep their tax abatement.  The picture was taken the day after the Major League Baseball All-Star Game at the Harry S Truman Sports Complex when tens of thousands of visitors were in the KC area visiting tourist sites and spending money.  It is also adjacent to a triangular piece of ground that was supposed to be a beautiful landscaped park to be turned over the City.  Currently, Independence Parks & Rec does not have the budget to maintain additioinal parks due to, in part, added Parks & Rec responsibility at the Falls at Crackerneck Creek, not to mention overall city budget shortfalls for debt payments for the same development.  Under the guidance of the award-winning M/TRC Neighborhood Revitalization Plan, this block and the adjacent block bounded by Lexington, River, Maple, and Union Streets had to be clear cut of buildings to create a better view and path towards the Temple from Truman Road (not sure that goal was achieved).  It is interesting that out of all the structures (primarily historic) that were bulldozed on these two blocks, the one structure M/TRC chooses to remain is the architecturally-unappealing and marginally-maintained Convenience Store who's more recent goal was to introduce cash-and-carry hard liquor into the neighborhood.  Unfortunately, the operators of the store are not the only ones out of touch.  Good folks with good intentions are represented on the M/TRC board and staff, but it should be no surprise that they do not live near this area, and in some cases, do not even live in Independence.  The current leadership like to blame the economy and lack of money for the current state of affairs here and in many other areas of town.  From my observation, there are some very basic principles of civic pride and responsibility and, in the spirit of Harry Truman, just plain common sense that we seem to miss.  Maybe we should work on those while we sit back doing nothing hoping for the local economy to turn around.