Don’t ask me how I know but Dairy Queen is offering a $7 meal deal, all day every day. Your choice of original cheeseburger or three-piece chicken strips plus regular fries, a drink, and a DQ sundae.
The Chiefs need to find a better babysitter for Rashee Rice.
July 4 will be different in Platte City this year. Though exactly how much different remains to be seen.
The last three years the City of Platte City has sponsored a daytime Fourth of July experience for the public, with free food from select food trucks and daytime activities. The first two years it was wildly successful on Main Street. Last year it was moved to the splash park at what is known as Rising Star Park, and though it seemed to draw a good crowd it looked like the only real offering that drew much interest was the free food. At least that’s what I noticed in my drop-by, and what another observer repeated Monday night at a parks advisory committee meeting. “Everybody seemed to be standing in line at the food trucks the whole time,” was the comment.
This year, due to lack of staff available to help pull off the manpower required for such an event, the city is “stepping back” from sponsoring a daytime event. The annual nighttime fireworks at Platte County R-3 School District along Hwy. 92 is still on, however.
Platte City Chamber of Commerce officials, including director Jamie Kacz, appeared at Monday night’s parks committee meeting to offer to put together a daytime event on Main Street, perhaps from 9 a.m. to noon. They would need some funding help from the city, it was mentioned. City officials indicated a willingness to help with some funds and some promotional assistance but first the city wants some assurance that the chamber will be able to put together a large enough team of volunteers to run the event. It could take a minimum of 20, maybe closer to 25 or 30, volunteer bodies to pull it off, it was mentioned by city officials.
Kacz explained a tentative plan would be more along the lines of free hot dogs rather than free food truck offerings, which ran into quite a cost for the city in the past three years. Offerings geared toward little ones, such as bounce houses, other kids activities, ice cream treats, were mentioned.
City officials asked Kacz to try to build a roster of volunteers willing to work on July 4 and the assistance from the city could take off from there. I reached out to her on Tuesday, and Kacz told me the chamber already has 10 volunteers lined up. “Halfway to our goal!” she said.
Interested in volunteering? Call the Platte City Chamber of Commerce office at 816-858-5270 or email jamie@plattecitymo.com.
Remember last fall when The Landmark got ahold of an email that uncovered former city administrator Marji Gehr using some unusual financial incentives with tax dollars to basically buy city employees’ attention so they’d come play football at the July 4th celebration with then-mayor Tony Paolillo? And same if employees found someone to volunteer on the dunk tank?
That’s apparently how hard it was for the city to round up some help last year. The outlook wasn’t looking any better for this year, apparently.
I never liked last year’s decision to move the July 4th celebration off of Main Street and into Rising Star Park. I get that there is more shade at the park but this always seemed like an odd decision to me. July 4 is always gonna be hot, no matter where you gather. Seems like if a city is going to hold a celebration it should do it in a part of town where there is some economic benefit for your businesses. Drawing people downtown is never a bad thing. Sure, some of the shops might not be open on July 4 but any event that draws people downtown opens up the possibility that those folks are going to familiarize themselves with what’s in your downtown area and will lead to them coming back to do business there at a later time when all shops are open.
That wasn’t going to happen when the event was in a nestled park where the ‘attraction’ was getting the chance to watch the mayor and city administrator play flag football.
Added side social benefit: When the celebration was held on Main Street I remember seeing folks hanging around for some conversation on the street. Didn’t notice much of that last year at the park, where the older crowd was like “I’m just here to stand in line for free food and then I’m carrying my free food out of here.”
Hardly a shocker to those of us who were paying attention, but turns out former Platte City mayor Tony Paolillo was incorrect on this. Earlier this year, Paolillo insinuated (actually he more than insinuated) DJ Gehrt had magically pulled cost estimates out of his backside in regard to the widening of Hwy. 92 to four lanes from I-29 to Bethel Road. Paolillo seemed almost happy to announce earlier this year that the project now looked dead because MoDOT was saying the project would take $26 million and not around $18 million like originally discussed. For whatever reason, Paolillo and his friend, then-city administrator Marji Gehr, seemed almost giddy to report the planned project was falling apart. Thankfully, aldermen fired Marji and voters fired Paolillo. DJ Gehrt is back at the city on an interim basis and now the Hwy. 92 project is back to looking like a reality.
MoDOT had told Paolillo the project would take $26 million. Apparently the discrepancy came because a new set of engineers said the project included a roundabout at Hwy. 92 and Bethel. Gehrt, meanwhile, says the project never was intended to have a roundabout, and now MoDOT agrees. The roundabout would have added $7.5 million to the number Gehrt had been working with. Gehrt says MoDOT originally had approved the project without a roundabout but when a different set of engineers became involved confusion took over.
Gehrt says the project is estimated at $18 million but there will be at least $2 million in “soft costs.” Bottom line is that the city is looking to raise about another $2.5 million to cover estimated costs. Some of that $2.5 million will come from the city. Some, hopefully, will come from additional third party funding that Gehrt and the city are working hard to line up. Stay tuned. If things proceed as planned, Gehrt anticipates the state putting the project out to bid in February or March of 2025 and dirt could be moving on the project in the summer of 2025. It would take an estimated 12-15 months to complete the construction, Gehrt has indicated.
As for the previous mayor insinuating Gehrt had pulled cost estimates out of his butt just to line up third-party contributors, in a recent conversation with me Gehrt had a polite response, only saying Paolillo’s belief that Gehrt had no engineers’ estimates was not accurate: “We never would have been able to line up the other contributors without having engineer estimates.”
(You may or may not be able to find Foley in the drive-through at the local Dairy Queen. Email ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)
