Pretty big development in local politics, don’t miss this story on our front page. The Platte County Republican Central Committee has announced it will start vetting all potential Republican candidates for county office.
Who knew this was a legal thing? Not many people, apparently. Maybe not even some past central committees. Sources say Buchanan County has been doing this for the past four or five years but Platte County has never done it.
“I do not know if Jim Rooney (longtime Platte County GOP central committee chair who died a couple of years ago) realized we could do this or if he just didn’t want to deal with it. Our committee has decided we don’t want anyone on the ballot running as a Republican that hasn’t talked with us first,” says Tammy Thompson, current chair of the Platte County Republican Central Committee.
“Vetting isn’t an endorsement by the committee it is only to be able to put an R after their name,” Thompson adds. Thompson says the state statute allowing this type of vetting by political parties has been in place since 1983.
A decade or more ago when the local Democrat party began having trouble being competitive in county elections, some Republicans openly commented that it appeared some candidates who aligned more with the Democrats than the Republicans had started filing as Republicans in local elections just to get the R after their name. I have not heard this complaint in the most recent campaigns, however.
This will be interesting to follow. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that this is a process that has the potential for gamesmanship and abuse if folks on the committee use it for anything less than the best intentions.
Not to brag but I met and had a conversation with Taylor Swift backstage at Sandstone in 2005. Take that, Travis Kelce.
No Missouri Supreme Court spot for State Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer.
Sad day for Guy Speckman, Landmark columnist and the unofficial president of Team Tony. Speck was hoping to get some kind of legal immunity out of the deal.
Along with Luetkemeyer, Megan Benton, an associate circuit judge in Platte County, had also applied for the Missouri Supreme Court opening. In all, 22 had applied.
Gov. Mike Parson did not choose an applicant with Platte County ties but instead appointed Judge Kelly Broniec, age 52. Broniec had been appointed to serve on the Eastern District Court of Appeals by Parson in 2020. Before serving on the appellate bench, she served as an associate circuit judge for Montgomery County for nearly 15 years after her appointment by Gov. Matt Blunt in 2006. Prior to her appointment to the bench, Broniec served as the Montgomery County Prosecuting Attorney from 1999 to 2006.
Will all this sometimes quiet, sometimes not-so-quiet talk of moving the Platte County Courthouse away from Downtown Platte City stop now? It should. But should doesn’t mean it will.
See our front page story for the latest on this topic.
You might remember back in May when Judge Tom Fincham publicly proposed–and said he was supported by other judges–the idea of the county commission going out to buy land somewhere away from Downtown Platte City to build not only a new jail but also a new courthouse. You might recall the written reaction in this column space was summed up in three letters–lol.
Then it seemed like the judges manufactured a little support for their new courthouse idea from some folks who were appointed to serve on the committee that’s looking at jail population and allegedly coming up with solutions. The jail committee apparently expanded its discussion to the point some members at a recent meeting pushed the idea of building a new courthouse as well.
What are we thinking?
Without even seeing what the price tag might be for taxpayers, it’s my belief–and I’m not alone in this thought–that a ballot proposal seeking to construct a new courthouse while turning the current courthouse into some kind of extremely oversized juvenile justice center would be met with significant voter opposition. And an even stronger case for opposition can be made now that engineers and architects have assessed the current courthouse and publicly reported it is “sound,” there’s room within the existing building to create two more courtrooms, and the current facility could serve as a courthouse comfortably for the next generation.
To say the Platte City business community–and property owners in Downtown Platte City–would not at all be thrilled at the possibility of losing the courthouse is an understatement. Property values downtown would head south, which is quite the opposite of the direction they’ve been headed the past few years.
Having said that, from a newsman’s point of view let me say that an election campaign for a new courthouse would be a blast to cover. Easy column material for weeks upon weeks. Good times.
I hate to talk interoffice politics in the pages of the newspaper but columnist Guy Speckman is well on his way to the doghouse. In his column this week Speck used the word opulent. Opulent. What the hell? I had to Google the definition. What’s the deal with Speck displaying that kind of vocabulary? What a fancy pants, show-off move, really. Not all of us attended Plattsburg High School. Don’t rub your privilege in our faces like that.
That kind of high level wordsmithing is a direct violation of Landmark policy. We can’t be using $100 words when we’re only charging $35 for a subscription. I mean, you do the math. That’s not a winning business plan.
(Follow the new courthouse campaign with Foley via email to ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)
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