Wow. Things are looking not so Royal blue at the moment (Wednesday morning). Our favorite baseball team needs the Heimlich maneuver.
After seemingly having a playoff spot wrapped up a couple of weeks ago, the Kansas City Royals have forgotten how to hit and how to win games. Finally on Tuesday night, the Royals ended a seven game losing skid with kind of a fluky 1-0 win in 10 innings over Washington. So as of this writing, five games remain in the regular season: Wednesday and Thursday against the Washington Nationals and Friday through Sunday at the Atlanta Braves.
If they can remember how to find home plate, the Royals will be in a playoff series beginning next Tuesday, Oct. 1. If they don’t, they’ll be laughed at and labeled “same old Royals” for choking away a great shot at what should have been some rare October baseball for KC fans who haven’t had anything to cheer for since the championship season of 2015.
One way or another, we’ll talk about this topic again in next week’s column. Let’s suffer or celebrate together over these next few days, shall we?
Longtime readers know that fall is the favorite season here in Between the Lines. This year we’ve put our crack research team in touch with some nature experts to give us a fall color forecast. Actually that’s not true, but I did find a fall color forecast in an email group called KC Today. Here’s what the experts are saying to expect in our area this fall.
*Expect peak colors from mid-October to early November
*The first yellow leaves may be spotted as soon as Sunday, Oct. 6 through Thursday, Oct. 10.
*Orange and red leaves are expected to appear around Friday, Oct. 25 through Monday, Oct. 28.
*From Sunday, Nov. 3 through Saturday, Nov. 9, expect to see red and brown, as the trees prepare for winter.
Mother Nature does reserve the right to change her mind on this schedule, I presume.
I want to do a bit of follow-up on our piece last week in regard to Dagmar Wood’s campaign for assessor. As reported last week, Wood’s election campaign committee had received $98,692 in contributions. But she spent “only” $66,925, leaving more than $30,000 on the table. By now she may regret not spending more, as she lost her election effort by just 72 votes to Marcus Farr, who is a certified appraiser already working in the assessor’s office.
As noted last week, Dagmar’s 30-day after election campaign committee report was filed as a “committee termination statement.” I speculated that this could be a sign she is done with campaigning for any county office. But, alas, that is not necessarily the case. Election laws, I found out, require an unsuccessful candidate committee that has more money on hand than debt, which was the situation in Dagmar’s case, to “terminate within 30 days after the election.” So the termination filing doesn’t mean Dagmar is feeling one way or another about any future political campaigns. If you’re a Dagmar fan holding out hope for a political comeback, I guess you have that going for you.
Unsuccessful candidate committees must :
*Appropriately distribute remaining funds.
*Close the committee bank account.
*File a full disclosure report and a termination statement.
Within 30 days of termination, Dagmar’s committee must return any excess funds to the original contributors or turn the money over to the state treasurer. Either way a full disclosure report must be filed.
In her closing out of funds, Dagmar lists the campaign paying back a loan that Dagmar apparently had made to Dagmar’s campaign. The amount of that repayment is listed at $21,300.
Miscellaneous disbursements listed on Dagmar’s final report include a charity donation to Hillcrest of Platte County in the amount of $2,000; a charity donation to the Parkville Women’s Clinic in the amount of $6,783; and a charity donation to Veterans Community Project, 8900 Troost Ave., Kansas City, in the amount of $3,000.
The Platte County Citizens for Public Safety campaign committee that was formed to promote the passage of the recent Platte County jail tax questions on your August ballot spent $13,265 for its ‘vote yes’ efforts. The committee had $14,050 in its campaign account, meaning it spent all but about $800.
Now, this $14,000 should not be confused with the additional $84,000 in taxpayer money that the county commission committed to spend on an “educational campaign” on the jail questions. The $14,000 was private money that could without question be spent to say “vote yes.”
As you know, the jail sales tax question was overwhelmingly defeated, with 62% of voters saying no, and some of those verbally saying “not just no, but hell no.”
Expenses listed by the Platte County Citizens for Public Safety consisted of only two items. Both expense items were paid to Victory Enterprises of Davenport, Iowa. One of the listings is $12,790 for “mailers” and the other is $470.02 for “signs.”
As we previously reported, the mailing address for the Platte County Citizens for Public Safety was the home address of Scott Fricker, presiding county commissioner. The committee’s $14,000 in funding consisted of a $1,000 donation from Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council; a $500 donation from The Builders’ Association; $2,500 from JE Dunn Construction Company; and $10,000 from something called Trails West, Inc., a non-profit corporation that lists an address of 1100 Main Street, Kansas City. That’s the same address listed for the Graves Garrett Grimes law firm. The name Matthew Mueller appears on articles of incorporation for Trails West, Inc. on file at the Missouri Secretary of State’s office. Matthew Mueller is also the name of an associate attorney with the Graves Garrett Grimes firm.
(Ivan Foley can be found shaking his head at the Royals’ late season swoon. Console him via email to ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)
