Sure, winter is coming and the world is kind of a COVID mess right now but at least we’ll have some hawt City of Parkville news to warm our news-loving hearts the next couple of months.
Those folks–and based on my inbox, there are many of you–who have been waiting to see if/when a DWI charge was going to be filed against Parkville Mayor Nan Johnston now have their answer, as you see on our front page. The filing of the charge came almost eight weeks to the day after her Sept. 26 arrest and now famous dash cam video, in which she initially ignored the deputy’s request to get out of the car so she could call the Parkville police chief in what seems a clear effort to influence the goings-on at the scene, and then told the deputy “I’m not going to Platte City” while demanding her cell phone as she sat handcuffed in the back of a patrol car. Which is all, um, totally normal behavior. . .
The eight week time frame is not out of line with what I’ve scene happen in other what I would consider ‘high profile’ DWI arrests. Some folks were worried that Nan had somehow put the whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa on the investigation.
Put on your radar the fact that Nan has hired Mark Ferguson as her attorney. You’ll recall the last time we saw Ferguson as the defense attorney in a high-profile local DWI, the defendant–who was the county HR director at the time–got a pretty sweetheart outcome in a felony DWI case handled by a special prosecutor.
Also, have some popcorn ready for Dec. 11. That’s the day of a court hearing in the public records lawsuit of Jason Maki vs. City of Parkville. On that day, Maki is asking the judge to hold the Parkville mayor, aldermen and city administrator in contempt of court for their alleged failure to produce a meaningful response to a court-approved subpoena which sought the private server communications (relevant city business emails from their private accounts, text messages, etc.) among those officials.
Fascinating stuff happening right here in river city.
Maki mentioned in court recently that he can prove the City of Parkville does not in good faith respond to Sunshine requests, saying he has specific documents provided to him through other sources that were not–and should have been–provided to him by the city when he submitted a Sunshine request on certain topics.
He’s not wrong on this. Let’s just say I can tell you that with confidence.
On a cold day this week, office manager Cindy Rinehart was wearing a long blanket-like pullover thingamajig. I wanted to show off my fashion knowledge and also wanted to pretend like I have a vast vocabulary, so I dialed it up.
“Nice serape,” I said.
“Huh?” she said.
“Huh?” I answered.
“What?” she said.
“Wut?” I answered.
“What did you say?” she said.
“Nice serape,” I repeated.
“It’s a shawl,” she said.
“That’s what I said,” I said.
And that’s often how conversations go inside The Landmark office.
Not wanting to end up sideways with The Landmark’s by-the-book HR department, I then thought I better prove to her that serape is a real word and a real thing, like a shawl. So I went to Google. But I wasn’t sure how to spell it. So awkward drama continued for a few more minutes. Finally I found it, and I learned that in Mexico they spell it sarape. Since we’re not in Mexico, I’m spelling it serape.
Best of luck to the Platte County Pirates in the Class 5 state championship game. The Pirates will battle Jackson on Saturday. When you say “Jackson” it sounds like the Pirates are playing just one dude, so I like their chances. Unless Jackson is bringing 10 of his friends or unless the Jackson is Bo, in which case it’ll be game on.
We don’t typically give too much premium space to high school sports, but I think it was Joe Biden who once said playing for a state title is big darn deal, so The Landmark is pumped. So pumped, in fact, that we’ll have two photographers working for us at Saturday’s game. The two include our local shutterbug Zach Pixler, who shot several Pirate contests for us last year. Also on the coverage for us will be my newest buddy in journalism, a professional photographer from western Illinois whose work has appeared in publications such as Sports Illustrated.
It’s the latest in ‘go big or go home,’ Landmark style.
What about the Christmas movie filmed in downtown Weston in August? Is it going to be on your television screen anytime soon?
I posed that question to the Weston Chamber of Commerce this week. “The last we heard, it was still waiting to be picked up by a network,” was the chamber’s response.
The movie had a working title of ‘Christmas on Display’ and the hope was the movie would likely find a home on Amazon, Netflix, Hallmark Channel, maybe Lifetime. In a search of Christmas movies planned on those networks this year, I can find nothing that resembles the Weston flick. Maybe next year?
(You can talk fashion and stuff using fancy words with Foley via email to ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)