I couldn’t help but notice that Barley & Vine, the upscale wine bar and brewery in Downtown Platte City, has added more televisions to its impressive interior decor, just in time for Chiefs football season. There are now television screens on both floors of the popular downtown attraction.
“We just upped the game with four TVs at our bar. Get ready to kick off the Chiefs football season in style,” Barley & Vine posted on its social media offerings. “Join us at our wine bar in Platte City for the ultimate Opening Day Watch Party!”
Very cool. If you’re planning ahead, opening game for Taylor Swift’s boyfriend and the rest of the Chiefs this season is Thursday night, Sept. 5 at home against the Baltimore Ravens at 7:20 p.m.
Also, as always I will remind you that when you’re in Barley & Vine be sure to try a Landmark Lager. We’re honored to have the Barley & Vine-brewed lager named after this newspaper. And by the way, I can confirm it is a tasty offering.
Downtown Platte City’s Hot Summer Night was a success. I was impressed with the crowd size both for the daytime water fun and for the later activities, which included a pyro show. The pyro show, featuring dance performers from the group known as Pyro Flow, started about 9:15 or so and was a unique addition to the celebration that seemed to be a mesmerizing hit to those who gathered around a section of the 200 block of Main Street. Good stuff. We posted a short video of part of the pyro performance on our Platte County Landmark Facebook page. Give it a watch.
The slip and slide didn’t go exactly as planned but the water was still enjoyed by attendees. It seems the slide on top of the hot pavement was not as slippery as hoped. But the Central Platte Fire Department came to the rescue by spraying water from its aerial ladder truck onto the slide. “We had big hopes for the slip and slide, but alas, our plans didn’t quite come to fruition. We just wanted a way for people to cool off while having fun. Thank goodness Central Platte Fire helped out,” said Sarah Rudis, president of the Downtown Platte City Association. There was brief talk of pouring baby oil on the slide to help create a more slippery effect, but it didn’t materialize. “We were strongly advised against it by the chief of police. The oil could be a hazard on the road. We completely agree,” Rudis added.
“Overall it was a great event. No major hiccups and the community really showed up. Our goal is to get people downtown to see what we have to offer outside of the corporate store fronts. A few of the stores stayed open late and we hope that helped bring awareness to what is offered downtown. We’re looking forward to more events downtown,” Rudis remarked. Also a great event downtown this past Saturday was the Firehouse Market, which featured vendors inside the Central Platte Fire station. It was a big day downtown.
With that in mind, time to note on your calendars that the Platte City Chamber of Commerce has a Main Street Festival event coming up Thursday, Sept. 26 from 5-8 p.m.
Check out some of these quotes I found in other media recently. Pop quiz: Which Platte County commissioner said these strange and blustery remarks in advance of the recent $408 million jail tax election?
•“The forces on the left and their willing accomplices want to stop Platte County from putting criminals behind bars.”
•“Liberals wants to see a revolving door at the jail and are willing to go to extreme measures to stop the jail from being expanded.”
•“As a commissioner, I stand against the forces trying to stop us from expanding the Platte County Jail.”
•“We will know on Aug. 6 if the people of Platte County want to keep our community safe or if they are willing to watch our county start the slide to the crime ridden life seen in Jackson County and other large, liberal cities in America.”
Wow. Those are some dramatic whoppers. For starters, whoever said these things doesn’t know how to read the political climate. According to these remarks, a lot of invisible “forces on the left” and “liberals” were working against the county commission’s bloated jail tax proposal. Lol. What? Sorry, but 62% of voters in Platte County are not “liberals.” And remember, there was no organized opposition. No one was going to “extreme measures,” other than showing up to vote against it. The opposition was overwhelming and coming from the grassroots level in each political party, didn’t matter ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative.’ Defeat of the jail tax proposal was due to alert, financially savvy Platte Countians seeing it as an over-the-top money grab. They wisely saw that the tax was too much for too long; they identified a 471-bed proposal as a major overbuild; they recognized the proposal was double taxation because many of the proposed expenses (up to $144 million by one professional’s analysis) were items that are already being paid for by existing taxes, and so on and so on.
So is the answer: A. Scott Fricker. B. Dagmar Wood. or C. Joe Vanover? Correct answer provided later in this column.
How about the Platte County Republican Central Committee’s choice to share some of Presiding Commissioner Scott Fricker’s online temper tantrums about the jail tax as if he were giving some kind of influential award-winning speeches? What a bad decision. Fricker wasn’t exactly delivering Ronald Reagan-style prose in his attacks on folks who opposed his $408 million tax proposal. It was clear to see Fricker’s outbursts and decision to go personal against those who opposed the proposal were hurting his cause more than helping, and the Republican Central Committee leadership was pumping him up and sharing his emotional meltdowns. Instead of privately trying to calm him down and offering some adult guidance, they shared his posts and further displayed his lack of emotional maturity.
As one local Republican told me: “He (Fricker) doesn’t have the behavior for the position, nor the experience. The guy just plain blew it. Joe (Vanover) takes equal blame.”
County commissioners were shocked their proposal was defeated. It didn’t just get beat, it got trounced. That’s proof that the county commissioners, and apparently the central committee leadership, operate in an echo chamber. They don’t exactly have their finger on the pulse of the community. 62% of the voters just called them out.
Answer to the quiz is C. Joe Vanover. And Joe is the guy who is widely viewed as the most level-headed of the three commissioners. Unfortunately, he was anything but reasonable and realistic about this jail tax proposal. Vanover is fortunate that his re-election opponent did not campaign on a platform of opposing the wildly unpopular jail tax proposal.
(You can find Foley on the hunt for overly dramatic political statements. Email ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)
