EDITOR:
As a Kansas City resident and taxpayer, I’m voting a resounding yes on Amendment 4.
Why would a citizen in Kansas City not want his elected officials to set the budget, much less have local control of the KCPD? The fact of the matter is that we do have local control, as the Board of Police Commissioners is comprised of Kansas City residents and the mayor. The board has been nominated by both Democrat and Republican governors over the years, with Democrat governors having been the majority of those. People like the last member of the board is the reason the board exists and why neither he nor the Kansas City municipal government should have independent control over the KCPD or the budget.
Mayor Quinton Lucas is a modern day Tom Pendergast. He came into the mayor’s office after using the power of the city council to suspend the voting rights of mostly minority Kansas Citians to rename the Paseo as a political favor to his benefactors with the SCLCKC to get elected. Upon being called on it, he blamed Kansas City voters for “embarrassing the city” for reclaiming those voting rights. He has sided with organizations who chained the doors of the Jackson County Courthouse shut endangering the lives of the employees and citizens inside and who have also harassed and intimidated judges and their families at their homes shepherding their ordinances through the council and into law.
Mayor Lucas has attempted to defund the KCPD, to incite rioters against the KCPD on the Plaza leading chants of “no justice, no peace” and then leading the charge to eventually pardon all of those rioters. The mayor came into office winning the support of both Democrats and Republicans through deception about his positions about working together, promising to bring down crime and murder, yet both have hit record numbers on his watch. Homelessness and addiction is out of control as well, and Quinton Lucas’s response to criticism is block and then assail the character of anyone who disagrees with him as a “hater,” “racist,” “liar” and now “toxic” when challenged on the topic.
Mayor Quinton Lucas has proven time and again he has no problem using the legal system, and the power of government to violate the rights of citizens, to benefit himself politically. He doesn’t believe the rules apply to him, be it his violations of his own COVID mandates or his trampling of basic First Amendment rights. Given his history, to think that he wouldn’t exploit the KCPD for his own political gain would require the willing suspension of disbelief. Mayor Lucas and those on the council he has referred to as his “Comrade(s)” should never be given any operational or fiscal control of the KCPD.
In the Pendergast era, Kansas City was run by the Democrat party political machine with competing factions within the party vying for control. They were called the “goats” and the “rabbits.” Pendergast used the police and prosecutors to get his way, trading deals with the political factions and weaponized the police force against the citizens of Kansas City using it for political and personal gain leading to control by a state appointed board of local residents. Today we have similar factions, though more of them and with different names, like the Urban League, Freedom Inc, BikeWalkKC, the SCLCKC and others all with their own ideas of what policing should look like, and still one party Democrat machine political rule in Kansas City. At the top of the current heap is Mayor Quinton Lucas as the power broker, Tom Pendergast who only ever briefly held office as an alderman would be jealous of the position, but certainly Mayor Lucas covets the power over the KCPD that has been kept out of his reach.
We have local non-political control, what we don’t need is political control by politicians who have political agendas and who will no doubt exploit and weaponize law enforcement on a local level against their political enemies.
--Brian Hand
Kansas City