AllThingsJoCo

JoCo Seniors sold out by Dennis Moore and Obama and AARP

2009-11-10T12:54:00.003-06:00

I happen to think Dick Morris is slimy, but I believe he nailed it with this editorial from TheHill.com on Nov. 6.
Johnson County seniors--read this! Leave AARP and go join www.americanseniors.org, like he and Eileen McGann suggest!

Dennis Moore sold us out AGAIN, just like he did with his vote for Cap & Trade, the energy bill he did not read.

OBAMACARE ENDORSEMENTS: WHAT THE BRIBE WAS

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

Published on TheHill.com on November 6, 2009

As the suicidal Democratic congressmen proceed to rubber-stamp the Obama healthcare reform despite the drubbing their party took in the '09 elections, the president trotted out the endorsements of the AMA and the AARP to stimulate support. But these -- and the other endorsements -- his package has received are all bought and paid for.

Here are the deals:

* The American Medical Association (AMA) was facing a 21 percent cut in physicians' reimbursements under the current law. Obama promised to kill the cut if they backed his bill. The cuts are the fruit of a law requiring annual 5-6 percent reductions in doctor reimbursements for treating Medicare patients. Bravely, each year Congress has rolled the cuts over, suspending them but not repealing them. So each year, the accumulated cuts threaten doctors. By now, they have risen to 21 percent. With this blackmail leverage, Obama compelled the AMA to support his bill...or else!

* The AARP got a financial windfall in return for its support of the healthcare bill. Over the past decade, the AARP has morphed from an advocacy group to an insurance company (through its subsidiary company). It is one of the main suppliers of Medi-gap insurance, a high-cost, privately purchased coverage that picks up where Medicare leaves off.

But President Bush-43 passed the Medicare Advantage program, which offered a subsidized, lower-cost alternative to Medi-gap. Under Medicare Advantage, the elderly get all the extra coverage they need plus coordinated, well-managed care, usually by the same physician. So more than 10 million seniors went with Medicare Advantage, cutting into AARP Medi-gap revenues.

Presto! Obama solved their problem. He eliminates subsidies for Medicare Advantage. The elderly will have to pay more for coverage under Medigap, but the AARP -- which supposedly represents them -- will make more money. (If this galls you, join the American Seniors Association, the alternative group; contact sbarton@americanseniors.org. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)

* The drug industry backed ObamaCare and, in return, got a 10-year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs. (A drop in the bucket of their almost $3 trillion projected cost over the next decade.) They also got administration assurances that it will continue to bar lower-cost Canadian drugs from coming into the U.S. All it had to do was put its formidable advertising budget at the disposal of the administration.

* Insurance companies got access to 40 million potential new customers. But when the Senate Finance Committee lowered the fine that would be imposed on those who don't buy insurance from $3,500 to $1,500, the insurance companies jumped ship and now oppose the bill, albeit for the worst of motives.

The only industry that refused to knuckle under was the medical device makers. They stood for principle and wouldn't go along with Obama's blackmail. So the Senate Finance Committee retaliated by imposing a tax on medical devices such as automated wheelchairs, pacemakers, arterial stents, prosthetic limbs, artificial knees and hips and other necessary accoutrements of healthcare.

So these endorsements are not freely given, but bought and paid for by an administration that is intent on passing its program at any cost.

Here's what Dennis Moore wrote me about health care today (obvious boilerplate from Pelosi)

2009-09-22T14:01:00.001-05:00

Dear Tracy:

Thank you for sharing with me your thoughts regarding and your opposition to pending health insurance reform proposals, including a competitive alternative to private health care insurance. I appreciate hearing from you.

First, let me say that I am opposed to socialized medicine, or a "single payer" system, like that of Canada, New Zealand, and many European countries. I am supportive, however, of keeping private insurance while adding to the mix a competitive public option. A public option should be available to those who cannot afford private insurance, who are unemployed, students dropped from their parents' coverage, the uninsured, or those who are not happy with their current private insurance. It would simply be another insurance option. If you are satisfied with your current insurance, like I am, there would be no reason to purchase the public option.

I agree that a public health care insurance option based on current Medicare fee-for-service reimbursement rates would not provide a level playing field for private insurance companies. For this reason, I support reforming the fee-for-service reimbursement system by which physicians, hospitals and other health care providers are paid. The fee-for-service system incentivizes physicians to give patients more tests and treatments for which the Medicare reimbursement rate is higher. Instead, we should be incentivizing good outcomes, managed care, and prevention.

Our current health care system contains a lot of inefficiencies. I support health care reform legislation that seeks to correct these problems through regulation, modernization, and restructuring the payment systems to providers. Making these changes will save billions of dollars (to both patients and the insurance providers, whether public or private), reduce medical errors, and increase the health and well-being of Americans. For example, full implementation of Health Information Technology would give patients a complete electronic file of their medical history, to which they could give their physicians access. This would reduce duplicative testing by multiple physicians because the health record indicates which tests the patient has already had, saving time, money, and hardship in the process. Not having access to a complete medical record often results in the duplication of expensive tests. The Institute of Medicine estimates that one-third of health care spending is wasted on treatments and tests that accomplish nothing.

Reform should also include incentives for hospital care management, to reduce readmittance and hospital acquired infections. It should also specifically reform the Medicare Advantage payment system, and home health payment rates, and increase rebates from pharmaceutical manufacturers to make drugs more affordable. Health care reform should also include rigorous incentives to recruit primary care physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals into the workforce, as they are in short-supply now and additional professionals will be desperately needed in order to provide care to an additional 47 million Americans.

As you may know, three House committees (Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Education and Labor) are working together in unprecedented collaboration to craft health care reform legislation. H.R. 3200, the America's Affordable Health Choices Act, offers both public and private insurance as an option, providing coverage to all Americans regardless of pre-existing conditions, providing coverage for (1) primary care and prevention; (2) prescription drugs; (3) emergency care; and (4) mental health services.

America's Affordable Health Choices Act would provide significant benefits in the Third Congressional District of Kansas: up to 18,800 small businesses could receive tax credits to provide coverage to their employees; 9,700 seniors would avoid the donut hole in Medicare Part D; 1,210 families could escape bankruptcy each year due to unaffordable health care costs; health care providers would receive payment for $55 million in uncompensated care each year; and 53,000 uninsured individuals would gain access to high-quality, affordable health insurance. H.R. 3200 would provide:

o Help for small businesses. Under the legislation, small businesses with 25 employees or less and average wages of less than $40,000 qualify for tax credits of up to 50% of the costs of providing health insurance. In addition, the Blue Dog Coalition, of which I am a member, successfully doubled the small business exemption from the requirement to provide insurance to $500,000, with a phase-in of the penalty for failing to do so to $750,000. There are up to 18,800 small businesses in the district that could qualify for these credits.

o Help for seniors with drug costs in the Part D donut hole. Each year, 9,700 seniors in the district hit the donut hole and are forced to pay their full drug costs, despite having Part D drug coverage. The legislation would provide them with immediate relief, cutting brand name drug costs in the donut hole by 50%, and ultimately eliminate the donut hole.

o Health care and financial security. There were 1,210 health care-related bankruptcies in the district in 2008, caused primarily by the health care costs not covered by insurance. The bill provides health insurance for almost every American citizen and caps annual out-of-pocket costs at $10,000 per year, ensuring that no citizen will have to face financial ruin because of high health care costs.

o Financial relief to hospitals and health care providers for uncompensated care. In 2008, health care providers in the district provided $55 million worth of uncompensated care, care that was provided to individuals who lacked insurance coverage and were unable to pay their bills. Under the legislation, these costs of uncompensated care would be virtually eliminated.

o Coverage of the uninsured. There are 75,000 uninsured individuals in the district, 10% of the district. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that nationwide, 97% of all Americans will have insurance coverage when the bill takes effect. If this benchmark is reached in the district, 53,000 people who currently do not have health insurance will receive coverage.

o No deficit spending. The cost of health care reform under the legislation is fully paid for: half through making the Medicare and Medicaid program more efficient (through the payment reforms and waste reduction previously mentioned) and half through a surtax on the income of the wealthiest individuals. This surtax would affect only 6,200 households in the district. The surtax would not affect 98.2% of taxpayers in the district.

I am quite certain that H.R. 3200 is not a perfect bill, but it provides a solid foundation for Congress to consider this year. What I do know is that inaction is not acceptable. The current health care system is bleeding us dry - families, businesses and the government alike. We have 47 million uninsured or underinsured American citizens who have no choice but to seek the most expensive health care there is - emergency care - and $1100 of each insured Kansas family's insurance premium covers that cost. In Kansas in 2007, approximately 278,000 adults and 58,000 children were uninsured (total of 336,000) and that was before the economic downturn. The situation has just gotten worse. We have college kids with chronic diseases who are dropped from their parents' plan, who can then not get insurance because of their pre-existing condition. We have 26 year old women being diagnosed with breast cancer, who just graduated and are looking for employment who find themselves caught with no insurance. In Johnson County, we have a 57 year old man, self-employed, married with 2 small children when he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He was unable to continue treatment due to being uninsured and unable to afford cost of treatment and medications. The family now has thousands of dollars in medical debt. These are our neighbors, our coworkers, and our friends. What if next week, God forbid, you lose your job or insurance coverage?

Reform will provide coverage and choice in the free market. If you like what you have - your insurance plan, your doctor, your hospital - you can keep it. Would you be upset if your premiums went down? Because that is the likely outcome of insuring everyone - it widens the risk pool to include the young and healthy and reduces those expensive emergency room visits by the uninsured because they can now see a doctor before the health problem becomes an emergency. If you don't like your insurance, reform will allow you to comparison shop among plans so you can decide what plan is best for you and your family. Reform will make more tools available to doctors so that they can provide the best care. Many insurance companies now require that patients try the cheapest treatment option first, even if it's not shown to be the best option. Reform will put an end to insurance companies rationing care, and put the decisions back into the hands of physicians and patients.

As a final note, I would like to mention that there are a number of outlandish claims being made in the media and through the internet claiming that this bill mandates euthanasia for senior citizens, will cover illegal immigrants, will mandate abortion coverage, and will force you into the public option. None of these claims are true. Please visit my website to view a complete list of "Myths vs. Facts" about the legislation: http://www.moore.house.gov/issue.asp?issue_ID=50

Please know that as the health care reform legislation moves forward, I will work with my colleagues in Congress to ensure that the health care reform legislation will improve the quality and length of life for Americans, while making citizens and the nation more financially secure.

Thank you again for contacting me. I hope you will continue to keep in touch and please feel free to let me know whenever I may be of assistance.

Very truly yours,
DENNIS MOORE
Member of Congress

P.S. Please sign up for my e-mail newsletter to receive periodic updates on federal legislation at my Web site: http://moore.house.gov/

Dennis--I don't trust you any more.

2009-09-22T13:53:00.005-05:00

In response to Dennis Moore's robo email, I wrote:

Dennis--
I just don't trust you on spending and reform any more.
You voted for that preposterous cap and trade bill, without reading it. (the last 500 pages were inserted at 3am that Friday you voted.)

You didn't read it.
You are not representing me well. You are just a mouthpiece for Nancy Pelosi. She will say ANY spending spree will create jobs. Oh, brother. Stop with that lie.

And I suspect you are done, anyway and won't run for re-election. So really, Dennis, now instead of raising money as you once described it: locked in a phone booth for 15 hours a week--now you HAVE the time to read these stupid proposed bills. Now you have the luxury of thinking before you vote. And what I want is for you to think and vote about what serves ME, not your big fatcat contributors.

I am SO disappointed in you, Dennis!

regarding health care:
Here are 2 obvious flaws in your plans:
A non-profit competitor with vastly lower costs will OBVIOUSLY drive the for-profits out of business within 5 years. That's just simple math and competition.

And where are you going to put the people who don't buy health insurance? In Sheriff Frank Denning's Jail????? Give me a break.

These arguments of yours are complete spin and blather. I don't believe anything you say. And so far, the plans will NOT give me, a single business owner, ANY comfort, security or savings.

Former Republican for Moore,
Tracy Thomas

(Note: The way to send a message to Congressman Moore is: www.moore.house.gov/contact/
You must live in his 3rd District.)

Deffenbaugh laughing as Shawnee Council plays "hard ball"

2009-09-13T10:36:00.004-05:00

I bet Deffenbaugh is laughing out loud, because IF the city doesn't
give them the exclusive, then bye bye Tidy Town for $106k per year (no
doubt $120k next year.)

And bye bye to all those free portapotty donations, for every charity
event, the Shawnee BBQ, the churches, the WonderScope, the parks dept
events.

And bye bye to Shawnee being FIRST for limb cleanup in ice storms.

And bye bye to all those non-productive ads they would place in every
stupid "program" that every non profit produces throughout the years.
If you asked, they ALWAYS bought an ad in your program.

Do people seriously think the OTHER trash haulers will pony up like
Deffenbaugh did? Of course not.

And bye bye to Tommy Coffman just biting his tongue and sending men
out for every lame complaint, ie too many bags in the trees on the way
to the landfill. Those days will be over, my friends! All incentives
will be gone.

And of course, you gotta love the City worming its way into our
budgets with their 2% skim for what amounts to a two-keystroke
"billing" --adding the trash bill to the property tax bill. At 2% x
$200 per year ($16.67 per household) x 21,000 households, that is
$84,000 in found money! An extra "tax"! It will cover about half of
our City Manager's salary.

So hey--if Deffenbaugh doesn't get the exclusive, that's no sweat off
their brow, because they are STILL gonna start billing the City for
Tidy Town cleanup the last week of April. No more freebies! The
gravy train is over.

Because the other haulers don't DO heavy pickups!! And all the stuff
ends up in the Deffenbaugh Landfill anyway, so if the other haulers DO
start collecting heavy items once a year or once a month, then
Deffenbaugh will just charge them to bring it through the gates.

Here's to RD--Ron Deffenbaugh. A poor boy from Shawnee, disrespected
by those who did not know the man. RD stayed living in modest Red Oak
Subdivision west of 435, north of Midland, long after he was a
multi-millionaire, and even after he was seriously disabled when some
ignorant untrained lab tech dropped him on his head at Shawnee Mission
Medical Center.

RD was a man who did the right things by us in Shawnee for 60 years.
Always first with cleanup, (including the creep on Nieman who set 18
washing machines out at the curb...RD (thru Tommy Coffman) just took
'em all. He didn't leave this mess on the streets and bitch to the
City. And he didn't charge him like they should and could have, for
these were the broken remnants of one man's illegal commercial repair
operation out of his basement.)

RD was the man who for 25 years, wrote campaign checks to every single
candidate who EVER asked! Period. And I mean NO EXCEPTIONS! Now
some checks were bigger than others, but every candidate, incumbent or
newbie, got SOMETHING to help cover their printing and postage bills.
All this while the other businesses in Shawnee, e.g. the Zardas, the
Pflumms, the Riekes, Bayer, etc, did not support most candidates. And
certainly not anyone challenging an incumbent who had not been taken
to the woodshed and told "how to vote if they knew what was good for
them".

And he did this not just in Shawnee, where City Council people had
some influence over regulating his business, but for every one of the
119 cities in the Metro!!! That is REMARKABLE. RD maintained his
Good Government practice because he knew that serving on a City
Council is a horrible, thankless job, and that real individual
homeowners are too stretched and too uneducated to realize they should
be writing $10 or $25 checks to support good candidates.

--
Tracy Thomas

Prediction: Trash Wars coming to Shawnee

2009-09-13T10:30:00.003-05:00

Prediction: TRASH WARS COMING TO SHAWNEE

The reason Shawnee residents, on the average, pay higher rates is--they don't have very many homes associations which pay once a year--and cover their own delinquencies. The cost of billing individual homes, and chasing down deadbeats, slow pays, bad checks and runoffs/moeveoffs is about half the cost!!!!

Now the new corporate Deffenbaugh (as opposed to when it was owned by Ron) is not stupid. They are just corporate sharks. At this time of sizemic change in their industry, with the county getting all up in their business, and then with every city doing a Pendergast-style 2% lug for putting the billing on the property tax, they are not going to slash their individual rates in Shawnee, compared to other cities--AND give away $120,000 a year doing Tidy Town heavy pickup for FREE!

Because now that Ronnie Deffenbaugh no longer owns it, Deffenbaugh Disposal Services is going to operate like a corporation, instead of the Our Gang clubhouse where RD was Spanky and Karen, (for awhile, when they ran off to Oklahoma at age 16) was Darla.

DDS is going to stand still, watch what happens, and maintain rate integrity on these one-sy two-sy hit and miss individual contracts that are a pain in the butt. ANY company loses money on small customers. Their $300,000 new non-smoke-belching ladidah trucks have to read a complicated map, drive over there—and good Lord, make sure they get the right homeowner, and not their duplex neighbor, or the one with the shared driveway.

DDS is smart. They are going to preserve their corporate rate structure with all the OTHER 118 cities in the metro. And they are also going to preserve their options to be "generous good guys" in their hometown of Shawnee, because that is still their residual culture while a few of the original management team are still working there.

Now, I don't have this confirmed from them--haven't spoken of it with them. I just know it instinctually from being a business owner myself, plus 800 phone conversations and meetings over the past 10 years with key executives there, plus about 1200 hours of training I received from the previous City Manager.

Shawnee has been spoiled.
The City government, AND the residents who have an inordinate sense of "entitlement" and a Little Guy syndrome to boot.

Let me give you an example of how Deffenbaugh's corporate culture for 60 years has been one of being "generous good guys". Some lazy schmuck puts out way too much trash, not bagged, not in a rollout or a bin, and the limbs are not bundled. This trash blows all over the street near the church and looks like hell. And nobody knows WHICH of three trash haulers had the contract, and perhaps drove past it. The rules were broken, but it makes the neighborhood look like a slum.

Does the City dispatch inspectors out in the snow, to document this, then write and mail three certified letters, then wait 60 days, then file a lawsuit and eventually fine the skofflaw? Or call 3 trash haulers, and then call them in for a public hearing? Hell, no.

City Manager Carol Gonzales has been spoiled up until now. She solves the complaint call with ONE 30 second phone call to Deffenbaugh. No debate, no whining, just the address and the request. Slam, bam, thank you ma’am. They dispatch an extra truck and two guys who go SOLVE THE PROBLEM. They don't charge extra, they are Nike, they they JUST DO IT.

All this talk about wanting choice of a contractor is grand, conceptually. Land of the free, home of the Chiefs. Except that trash truly should be a utility.

In an era when our streets are crumbling, it is stupid financially to send three overly heavy trucks down the same streets, (or six, if they send two trucks) hunting and pecking, to pick up your garbage and recyclables and yard waste. Pick one carrier and save yourself some tax money, because the City doesn't have the money to maintain your streets! You are obsessing about a 50 cent difference on somebody’s bill—but the cost to replace every residential street will be MILLIONS!!! And we the taxpayers will be stuck with that.

And if Shawnee knows what is good for them, they should dance with the hometown team, Deffenbaugh. At least until Deffenbaugh is sold, and our friends there who do favors for all our Shawnee charities and causes are retired.

The old adage is true: We would catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. (That’s not a copyrighted phrase, by the way, so I didn’t violate this board’s guidelines!)

And then NEXT year, just you wait, my pretties. Annabeth Surbaugh at the County, with her Trash Tzar, Betsy Boutros-(Boutros, by golly) plan to charge us $1 a narrow paper bag, for yard waste. You will be forced to buy the bags in advance, 20 at a time.

Now in Shawnee, the land of entitlement and skullduggery, (“Shawnee: Greed Starts Here!” c. 2009, Tracy Thomas, all rights reserved) one can only imagine how many people will try to cheat that system. They’ll be tossing trash around like it was V-E Day! They’ll be tossing bags in neighbors’ yards—or if they like their neighbors, hauling it to the NEXT street over!

It will be bedlam.

Then, absent ONE trash hauler, who just zips their lip and does the right thing and picks it all up—you’ll be treated to a mess on the streets all the time.

Then, Manager Gonzales, who ya gonna call???

TracyThomas
www.AllThingsJoCo.blogspot.com
Sept. 13, 2009

Shawnee's Mata Hari twins: Like Watergate: What did they know and when did they know it?

2009-08-31T19:06:00.005-05:00

The facts are:
1. State Rep. Owen Donohoe did not "blindside" City Manager Carol Gonzales.
2. All that is necessary to balance the budget NOW is to shake the Monticello money out of the sock hidden in Shawnee.

“You blindsided us, Owen!”
That is what Carol Gonzales claimed (rudely and defensively, I believe)when she phoned State Rep. Owen Donohoe last Friday and lectured him, chewing him out and saying she was having Mayor Jeff Meyers "send him a letter". (We are waiting to see a copy of that letter.) What is she--a school marm sending home disciplinary notes?? To a senior elected official?? Sounds pretty defensive to me. Gary Montague would NEVER have done that, nor would Jim Allen ever have signed such a letter when he was mayor.)

Before he testified to the Shawnee City Council, on Monday, Aug. 24, State Rep. Owen Donohoe from western Shawnee met personally with Shawnee Council President Dawn Kuhn, (his Council rep), and gave her a report from the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy which the KC Star called “Buried Treasure”. It listed $1.296 million in IDLE FUNDS in Topeka.

(Idle funds are either encumbered or unencumbered.)

Donohoe told me today, "I gave it to Dawn Kuhn a week before the Council meeting, and told her, "You may need to look into this." And she told Donohoe she gave it to Brian Kidney, Finance Director for the City of Shawnee, AND KUHN DISCUSSED IT WITH KIDNEY."

Donohoe did also say "I wish I had been a bit clearer. Perhaps I could have spelled it out for Dawn Kuhn in greater detail. My only intent was to suggest that PERHAPS there were idle funds that could be freed up to solve the City of Shawnee's immediate needs, and avoid taxing our residential utilities. I am just looking out for my constituents, “ Donohue said.

“It is strange and very unusual that Shawnee just passed their budget last month--without it balancing. They claim they still need to find $850,000 immediately. The purpose of my testimony was what I said: ‘I think I may have found what you are looking for, money sitting IDLE until at least 2013.’"

Donohoe added, "I learned Aug. 25, the day after the Council meeting, that the $1.296 million is CURRENTLY encumbered, for Monticello Road, though it could be released. The City of Shawnee has just refused the Johnson County $7 million CARS funds, and moved the Monticello Road project to the end of a very long list of projects, to 2013, if at all. I try to be frugal with taxpayer money," Donohoe said. “They could let we the taxpayers use that money now, and if they decide to resurrect that project, in 2013 or later, THEN they could set aside their matching funds.”

Tracy’s comments:
It appears to the public that the City Manager deceived the public and the Council, by hiding $1.296 million in an idle fund in Topeka, hoping perhaps that she could protect her secret stash for four years.

Brian Kidney, the Finance Director, embarrassed himself, when he at first could not even remember what that street that money was for, even stating for the record, “I’m sorry, I forget what city I am in.” (Kidney used to work for Gardner, and had mentioned a street project there.) (Even tho the major papers refused to report this, I have that on videotape!)

Brian Kidney set his boss, Carol Gonzales, up for embarrassment as well, because he FAILED TO SHARE DAWN KUHN’S REPORT WITH HER BEFORE THE MEETING. I think his incompetency is remarkable. If he doesn’t know where he works, Kidney should resign as Finance Director.

Council President Dawn Kuhn is either devious or does not do her job. She admitted she failed to also tell Carol Gonzales that a major state legislator was investigating idle funds that would solve Shawnee’s immediate “crisis.”

Or—perhaps she and Gonzales DID speak of it, privately, and made a calculated decision to AVOID discussing the simple solution of “releasing the hold” on that money. Because that IS the solution: instead of hiding $1.296 million for four years, where it is earning a pittance in interest, USE it, FREE IT UP now. Because Monticello Road is on the back burner, and may NEVER be done.

Perhaps Kuhn and Gonzales figured they had their five votes to break the 20 year promise and start taxing residential gas and electric bills. Just like Congress ramming through a Stimulus Bill that did not solve our problems, why not ram through a tax increase now. They had the votes. Why be distracted with alternatives.

I bet they never imagined that Owen Donahue, our western Shawnee public servant, would actually WALK INTO THE MEETING AND DELIVER THE SOLUTION.

And for the record, when Mayor Jeff Meyers browbeat Councilman Frank Goode, at least FIVE times, demanding, “What’s your solution, Frank. What do YOU want to cut?”, that was a disgraceful example of bullying. Jim Allen would NEVER have conducted the meeting in such a manner.

Or as several onlookers testified to the Council Aug. 24, “This is the most dysfunctional elected body I have ever witnessed.”

City Manager Carol Gonzales is in meltdown. She is desperate, and hiding money from the Council and the public. Her Finance Director apparently needs a GPS to find his way to work every day. We just need ONE Council member to wake up and reverse their vote to tax our gas and electric utilities. The first step is: we need a motion do what Brian Kidney admitted we could do when in an unguarded moment following his amnesia episode, he "spilled the Kidney beans!": He let it slip that council could simply "Issue a Kill Order on the Encumbrance of $1.296 million in Topeka for Monticello Road."

I also urge everyone to start reading ShawneeRay.blogspot.com. Better yet, email the blog host, Ray Erlichman to get on his email list, so every time he posts something new about Shawnee's wayward government you will receive a notice. That email is: rerlichman@kc.rr.com
(Ray is doing yeoman's work reporting on Shawnee, while holding down two jobs.)

The Gonzales/Meyers administration is eerily reminiscent of Merriam and KCK, which both crashed after they deceived the public and got greedy with our money. When governments hide money and deceive elected officials and the public, the end is nigh.

Shawnee breaks a promise, wants a Utility Welfare State

2009-08-24T15:20:00.003-05:00

Monday, August 24, 2009
Shawnee’s old version of a Tea Party protest happens tonight! Don’t miss it!

THE SHAWNEE CITY COUNCIL MEETING, 7:30 PM
11110 Johnson Drive at Nieman
www.cityofshawnee.org

Issue:
The council will debate and vote on breaking a 20 year promise and agreement with the public NOT to tax essential utilities of gas and electric bills for residents only by 5%.
(It’s called a franchise fee. But it’s a 5% tax, collected by a utility company on the bills, and then rebated to the City as revenue.)

The vote is expected to be 5 to 4 with Mayor Jeff Meyers casting the tie-breaking vote.
The other yes votes are the 4 so-called “safe seats” ie not up for re-election next year, and all held by people who have only a high school education or a GED. (Ward 1/Cheryl Scott; Ward 2/Neil Sawyer; Ward 3/Dawn Kuhn and Ward 4/Mickey Sandifer.)

I predict this Shawnee vote will be so controversial that it will be like the Waterloo watershed issued that divided the city of Merriam, Kansas a decade ago. That’s when that council voted to use eminent domain to seize private property and give it to another private entity, a car dealer. This one action led to the defeat at the ballot box of 4 council members and the mayor and the forced resignation of the city manager and the city attorney.

As a major leader in defeating tax increases, I have personally pledged to run campaigns for free, in 2 ½ years, to defeat ANY Council member who votes tonight to tax my essential residential utilities of gas and electric. That slate would override this ethical lapse, and call for a new City Manager to replace Carol Gonzales, who is obsessed with unrealistic budgets that keep up appearances and competing with her former employer, the city of Lenexa.

The same documentary film producer will be filming this Shawnee public hearing:
Philip Klein, producer of the award-winning documentary, Begging for Billionaires (www.BeggingForBillionaires.com.)

I am former president of the Shawnee City Council, (I served from 1999-2004) and I run political campaigns to defeat tax increases. I work for free.

So far, I have been successful as a campaign manager in defeating Bi-State II, (despite $3 million in campaign funds –defeating Pat Gray/Lamar Hunt/Larry Winn III and Jeff Roe, while outspent 112 to 1) and Big Soccer—defeating Larry Winn III, Annabeth Surbaugh, Mike Meadors and the entire Johnson County Commission.

In the past, I DID support several local tax increases, and I even managed Shawnee’s Parks & Pipes sales tax campaign. But that was BECAUSE the Shawnee Council kept its promises NOT to tax our essential residential utilities.

Some key points:
Whining that “we need the money” is what AIG, Chrysler, GM and M&I Bank and Bank of Blue Valley said to justify their taking bailout money.

Whining that “we need the money” does NOT justify sacrificing your integrity. Let me ask one Council member: when your daughter was arrested for passing a bad check, is that what you told Judge Linda Tritt? “She needed the money?”

The architect of this bailout is City Manager, Carol Gonzales, but she has already begun blaming others. She told me last Friday, “This is the council’s choice, not mine. I gave them alternatives, and they just don’t want to cut expenses.”

If that’s true, then: Stop the Bailout. Make the cuts. Shawnee needed the money even MORE 20 years ago, but we had INTEGRITY. We didn’t tax essentials.

Gonzales told Councilman Mickey Sandifer, who tells everyone he can: "If we don’t raise this tax, we will be as bad as Merriam.” Ironically, if she and this council DO raise this tax, Shawnee will be even more like Merriam—those six sharks will be GONE. This issue is the most memorable benchmark in the past 20 years. It’s as big as the Dog Track vote then, and it is bigger than the Deffenbaugh expansion vote, because then we really did not have a true choice. We had to do that because the Johnson County Commission secretly had the votes and was poised to expand it, without us, for 10 years longer and 50 feet higher.

This is also not a referendum on dissidents including Kevin Straub or Dan Pflumm. This is a vote to preserve our integrity and keep our proud longstanding promise to the voters who elect the Council.

This Council has only 3 college graduates. They have drunk the Koolaid of temporarily rescuing a band of needy people around them and refusing to respond to the future. Carol Gonzales is like Melanie in “Gone With the Wind”. She doesn’t get that Atlanta has burned, the economy is in shambles and not coming back soon…at least seven more years. She is living a wistful past, envious of her richer neighbors and hiding the truth to keep up appearances.

The 5 probable Yes votes who never went to college—have forgotten this is not a fraternity. And they are not appointed to a bank board of directors—because nobody around these parts has ever appointed them. They are elected, not appointed. By residents. Not businesses or the Chamber. To PROTECT THE RESIDENTS FROM BEING SACKED BY THE ENDLESS GREED OF THE CORPORATION/THE CITY OF SHAWNEE.

They are afraid of losing a few “friends”, very nice employees. They fall prey to Carol Gonzales’ fearmongering that “we will lose good people” if we don’t give them raises, or if we ask them to pay more for their substantial health care coverage. Well, they aren’t leaving; there’s nowhere to go. There are no “better” jobs in the other 4 cities of JoCo’s Big 5. And the economy will not rebound for 7 long years, so you will be forced to make cuts anyway. Cut now and leave my thermostat alone.

This year’s budget was just approved. It’s balanced. So why doesn’t the council WAIT and see about the Cap and Trade energy bill, and the promised 40% increase in gas and electric bills? Because next year is an election year! And if you think the national uproar and TEA PARTIES is a frenzy now, just wait till the average heating and cooling bill goes up $300!!

THE RISE OF THE WELFARE STATE
In the Cap & Trade bill, which Dennis Moore passed without even reading the 1500 pages, including 513 that were added at 3am that Friday when he was catching a plane, there is a provision for a welfare check to every poor person, the rest of their life, to make up for their “loss in buying power”. Not the middle class. Just the poor.

Shawnee’s plan tonight contains a similar disgusting UTILITY WELFARE provision. It will force proud struggling families to gather 24 separate bills and proof of residency AND copies of their taxes--and stand in line at city hall to BEG for their utility taxes back. It is a humiliating process, right out of the Soviet welfare state, to come up to the gossip capital of Johnson county, Shawnee, and have to ask for Utility Welfare. It’s the Grapes of Wrath all over again. Shame on you: Jeff Meyers, Cheryl Scott, Neil Sawyer, Dawn Kuhn and Mickey Sandifer.

What are you thinking?

You don’t sacrifice your integrity and break a promise of 20 years standing, just because “you need the money”. Make the cuts and live within OUR means.

Finally, let me correct Mickey Sandifer’s most recent scare tactics and lies. It is not illegal to tax some things and not others. Missouri does not tax food. It is absolutely UNTRUE, Mickey, that Surewest and Time Warner have threatened to quit collecting and rebating franchise fees on cable TV and phone service in protest. You are making up facts to scare people.

Tracy Thomas
www.AllThingsJoCo.blogspot.com
Former Shawnee Council President

Johnson County residents see thru the lies of ObamaCare

2009-07-26T13:52:00.002-05:00

Here's what one great reader added:
So what's new? It's only Democrats buying votes with our tax dollars.
Where are they going to find the doctors to provide care for an additional 40 million (?) uninsured?
Don't get an "approved" health care plan? Pay 2.5% of your income.
Keep the plan you like? Only if nothing changes. If it does, you must enroll in the public plan.
Reduce Medicare by $500 billion while more baby boomers are retiring and the rolls are increasing.
Exempts Congress and unions from the bill.

What is in the public approved plan?

Dennis Moore wants this plan. http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/19338. Why doesn't he hold real town hall meetings with his constituents instead of these one-on-one meetings?

Dennis isn't a Blue Dog. He's Pelosi's lap dog.

Why we need to fight Obama's socialized health care plan

2009-07-26T13:46:00.005-05:00

Change you never expected: Health care for illegal aliens
Border Fire Report ^ | July 25, 2009 | Frosty Wooldridge

While Obama and Congress practice “Obfuscation-101,” Obama and democratic House leaders conceal the fact that their health care bill covers unlawful immigrants.
Last week, our intrepid albeit dishonest U.S. House of Representatives unveiled their health care reform legislation entitled, "America's Affordable Health Care Act of 2009." They might have added, “America’s Affordable Health Care for 20 million unlawful Mexicans Act.”

The Federation for American Immigration Reform said, “Despite the language in section 246 of the bill that states: "nothing—shall allow Federal payments [for] individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States," the bill actually raises more questions than it resolves with respect to whether the bill will burden American taxpayers by giving health care benefits to legal and illegal aliens...

With great irony, Waxman and Miller - representatives from the overrun State of California by unlawful immigrants - lead the charge to give away your dollars. Their former muscle man governor runs a $26 billion state deficit while hosting five million illegals.

Schwarzenegger handed out $56 million in IOUs to pay his bills this month, but didn’t touch the “sacred cow” of billions in payments to criminal aliens...

Again, U.S. taxpayers open their wallets wide, “Under Section 242, ALL legal aliens will QUALIFY for the affordability credit. Subsection (d) states that the affordability credits "shall not be treated [as] a benefit provided under section 403" of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. Under Welfare Reform, legal aliens are generally required to wait five years before becoming eligible for welfare or other taxpayer funded benefits...legal aliens will become immediately eligible for this government handout — a handout that would be paid for by the American taxpayers.”

This Congress mandates a minimum of 1.2 million legal immigrants annually, or, to bring it into sharper focus, Congress crams another 138,000 fresh-off-the-boat immigrants into the USA every 30 days, month in and month out—most poor, uneducated and in need of welfare.

Georgia journalist D.A. King, www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org, said, “Welcome to one of the best kept secrets you likely will not hear about in the mainstream media.

The same out-of-control government that has refused to secure our borders in a war on terror - I mean "man-caused disaster" - may soon be in charge of your health care and most members of the party in charge want to extend that universal coverage to illegal aliens.

“According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, more than a million people were apprehended trying to enter the U.S. illegally in fiscal year 2008.

As Roy Beck, director of the respected Washington D.C. pro-immigration control organization, www.NumbersUSA.com, notes, "It is the growth among the uninsured that is helping drive the political effort to change the health care system.

Previous studies have shown that illegal aliens account for nearly all of the growth in the uninsured in recent years."

As you can see, U.S. Senator Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi of the House—both of them obfuscate and outright lie to the American people as to who pays for this national “socialized health care” nightmare.

Already, unlawful immigrants enjoy free health care through Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). It costs us billions of dollars annually. This year, 350,000 unlawful pregnant immigrants will tap into billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, of which they paid nothing. That pregnancy rate repeats annually!

The inherent fraud being foisted upon Americans as our leaders encourage unlawful workers and immigrants to this country—astounds anyone that abides by the rule of law...

PLUS, under Obama-care, criminal aliens will pay NO PENALTY for not buying insurance - YOU WILL!!!

Despite pipeline to God, Don Bell's Security Savings Bank is knock-knock-knocking on the door to Regulator Hell

2009-07-18T19:08:00.003-05:00

http://bankimplode.com/blog/2009/07/16/security-savings-bank-not-so-solid-ground/

Well, Don Bell's pipeline to God is apparently clogged.
Don Bell, who financed the election of Olathe Mayor Mike Copeland--and then put him on the board for Security Savings Bank, is finally getting investigated.
Let's hope it's before we taxpayers have to bail out old Donnie, thru FDIC guarantees.

I never liked the policies of the Nazarene Church, which controls Olathe politics to a great extent.
That's the church that loans money to favored members.
Gee, and they are tax exempt! Shouldn't that be illegal? But of course, the Star refuses to report it. I've been telling them about it for 15 years since I discovered former Shawnee State Rep. Phill Kline changed religions and found not just God, but campaign loans and eternal funding.

No wonder former Kansas AG and former Johnson County Prosecutor Phill Kline switched from Methodist to Nazarene.
Follow the money!

If you change religions after the age of 35 and it's not for a marriage, there's something suspicious goin' on.

I met Don Bell and his team years ago, even before he got into banking. I declined to pursue being the ad agency for their extended family's homebuilding business because they were SO cheesy and over the top. It was like the Elmer Gantry Homebuilder Clan. "Sit down, brother, and get close to the Lord." Even then, I didn't trust them because they were creepy. Unctuous. The only difference I could see between them and certain Mormon cults was they didn't have multiple wives. At least in public. But the women were all deferential, e.g. silent and adoring of Papa Don.

And they did have "cult hair". You either get my meaning, or you don't watch TV news when they seize those compounds and drag the kids away from their brainwashed, doe-eyed mothers.

I learned many years ago to never do business with anyone who mentions Jesus in the first meeting. Because they always turn out to be more like the thieves on the cross than the Son of God/Son of Man in the center of it all.

Don Bell's inbred clan built some seriously undersized, crummy homes--like doll houses, so men who ever played football could not navigate the narrow stairs and had to lower their heads when they went thru the doorways. Worse yet, many of the homes were notorious for flaky paint, drafty windows, and they leaked! But by golly, they had all that gingerbread trim on the eves of the houses, and little paned windows. Yeah, below the substandard roof built without any felt beneath the shingles!! And the roofers cheated out on the flashing as well.

These homes were the target of several lawsuits by groups pursuing substandard builders of brand new homes.

When I was introduced to the Great and Powerful Don Bell, he bragged that he let his wife and kids name the streets after scenes from Anne of Green Gables. Oh, it was like the early chapters of a Stephen King novel. I swear, when I walked in their offices to meet with The Family, I heard those wild Widor pipe organ concertos in the background. It was a scene from a bad movie about a haunted house. And now--old Don's on the 4th reel and the house of cards, including his bank, and the political hacks who sold their souls to him to get elected, is falling apart.

Now just in case anyone tries to sue me, remember: the truth is its own defense.

And shame on the regulators! Do they go that church as well? Geez, between Madoff and Don Bell and Goldman Sachs, there are a whole lot of preposterously naive and lazy or crooked regulators asleep at the wheel.

So tell your friends to watch their money. And you heard about it FIRST in KC on AllThingsJoco.blogspot.com

If Paul Revere had this much trouble, you wouldn't be saluting the Stars & Stripes, you'd be singing God Save the Queen.

2009-06-16T12:44:00.005-05:00

I'm not running for office, I'm just someone who watched the lyme documentary, UnderOurSkin.com and got involved.

I am a volunteer, because the lyme ladies I know can barely get out of bed for longer than an hour at a time, and are beset with foggy brains and painful arthritis and taking daily medical treatments at a cost of $150,000--because YOUR elected officials and bureaucrats refuse to admit we have a lyme disease infestation here in Johnson County.

This disease (lyme and 3 other close relatives) has spread across all 50 states for 34 years. It's deer syphilis. And since the symptoms move around the body, uneducated doctors (all but about 5 in KC) dismiss patients telling them it's all in their heads.

Well, you can't fake BLINDNESS, which is why many cases are first reported and diagnosed by opticians and ophthamologists. They spot it.

If Paul Revere had this much trouble warning the public the British were coming, you wouldn't be saluting the American flag, you'd be singing God Save the Queen.

Don't go to Shawnee Mission Park. It's dangerous, especially with this damp weather.
DEET sprays are not working. You must wear long pants tucked in, and spray one day before with Perminone (Walmart) because you can't spray it on your skin!

The Star reporter who went to do the story got bitten by 3 ticks in SM Park! He had sprayed, worn long sleeved shirt and pants, showered, had his wife inspect him after the shower--and he STILL had 3 ticks on him. Which means HE WAS BITTEN!, because if they were just on his clothes they would have fallen off, and they would also have washed off in the shower.

The arrogant CDC only allows 2 weeks of doxycycline, but it doesn't always work, so then you go from short term to late stage lyme disease. And your insurance company won't cover that. Kiss $150,000 of your money goodbye. Go fetal from the crippling pain.

Is it really worth it?

Sorry, Bambi. Time to go. Just like the 1960's timber wolf: you are endangering the public.

Ch. 41 reports on concerns over tainted deer meat being given to the poor

2009-06-16T12:31:00.005-05:00

I laud KSHB Channel 41 for at least reporting and investigating the problem with donating deer meat to the poor. I know the past president of the park board, James Azeltine, shares my concern.

I did smile when Mike Marusarz editorialized, and said I was "seething"! I'm just mildly annoyed. And frustrated at the government stonewalling about lyme disease. Mike has never seen me seething, I can assure you! Seething is what the Iranian voters are doing in Tehran. (Men just are so uncomfortable when women express emotion. Have you EVER heard a news story call a man "seething"? Of course not.)

And of course, one PETA whacko felt compelled to comment on the whiteness of my teeth and on my hat! That's what these sad, uninformed, irrational people do--ad hominem attacks, since they have abandoned facts and logic. The poor PETA people. They've given up searching for love from their own species. Now they find solace by championing other species. If you meet a PETA person on the road today, give her a much needed hug. Or one of my hats.

Anyway, be sure to read the public comments on KSHB.com's story (see link above.)

The CDC is covering up Lyme Disease and has, for 34 years. And they've never tested lyme-tainted venison. And why spend all that tax money to cure the meat and test it-it will cost thousands of dollars we do not have! And don't hire a biologist to count the deer. The PETA whackos will do that, for free.

Local MD Carol Ann Ryser says the only way to guarantee that the deer meat is safe is to incinerate it.

So, smoking it at low temps to make deer jerky COULD expose the poor to deer syphilis, aka lyme disease, and chronic arthritis that masquerades as Chronic Fatigue, MS, ALS, Alzheimers, and more. Just ONE lawsuit is needed to stop this crazy bleeding heart plan to poison the poor.

I say, make the County Commissioners eat the deer meat. And Mike Meadors, who took down the warnings at the Dog Park. Let Mikey eat it!!!

Our health dept. has no effective tests for lyme, and won't allow the one lab that IS accurate (in Palo Alto) to report lyme in people who go to Shawnee Mission park, EVEN if the tests are ordered by a local MD!

The CDC now says the rash (that only 30% of victims get) must be a 4 inch diameter, and observed by a LOCAL MD. or you can't report it, so the local health dept. doesn't have to admit that we have an infestation of 2 or more cases. It's all a game.

Read Wikipedia: Tuskegee Experiment.

Now your government is observing the effects of deer syphilis, (lyme disease) on happy poor white folk--without medical consent or testing!

Note: When good people donate blood to Community Blood Bank, they are not even ASKED about tick bites, and they do not TEST for lyme disease, since it costs $190.

The local test from the 1980's is true/false --but--it always comes up false, so that is worthless.

$2900 to haul one deer to western Ks--then it dies anyway

2009-06-11T15:35:00.004-05:00

What the PETA bleeding hearts do not understand is:
1. 75% of the deer hauled to a new location die from the shock of it.
2. Due to Mad Cow, aka Chronic Wasting Disease, which is in elk and deer in Colorado and now Western Kansas, the Ks. Department of Parks & Wildlife will not even ALLOW "relocation" of deer.
3. Making deer jerky via smoking the meat dries it but does not kill the Lyme spirochetes, so while it sounds loving to "donate the meat to the poor", what you would be doing is giving them syphilis. Not a loving act.
4. Dr. George Fox is head of KDPW and as he loves to say, "The state own all the deer in Kansas!" So whatever the Fox who is guarding the chickens and the deer says--well, he is GOD!

Here is Sullinger's Prime Buzz post June 11:

Cost is a factor in Shawnee Mission Park deer proposal
Park officials believe using sharpshooters and archers to solve Shawnee Mission Park’s deer population problem will be the quickest and most effective control method.

But they point out that it is also the most economical.

In a document call “Deer Management Options,” park officials point out the pros and cons of each lethal and non-lethal method.

(It is attached to this blog post as Attachment A)

Many people support relocating the deer somewhere else. But park officials point out that the cost would range from $400 to $2,900 per deer.

Thus, relocating approximately 200 deer would cost somewhere between $80,000 and a half a million dollars. Even with that option, from 20 to 80 percent of the deer would die in the process from stress. Also, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks currently prohibits relocation.

Repellants, the document states, wouldn’t reduce the deer herd, which everyone agrees is the goal.

Fertility control is considered expensive, costing from $200 to $1,000 per deer and could take several years to work.

Park officials also note in another document (attachment B) that deer/vehicle accidents near the park are on the rise. Data from the Kansas Department of Transportation reported 25 accidents last year compared to 21 in 2007 and 17 in 2006.

Lenexa police officials said those numbers may not tell the whole story. Deer accidents reported to the state are those with damage estimated of $1,000 or more or with injuries to people in the vehicle.

Unreported are those deer/vehicle accidents that don’t fall into those categories.

The deer “harvest” would be held sometime this fall. Deer season in Kansas begins in mid-September and run through January.

Feed would be set out and the deer would be shot when they come for the food.

Randy Knight, a park district spokesman, said the sharpshooters would work during the morning and only in certain locations where bait was set out. The park would be closed on those mornings and then reopened later in the day.

Park officials said the culling could be done a couple of mornings each week for several weeks. Knight said the park would remain open if archers were needed in the second phase. However, he said areas where they were working would be off-limits to the public.

Ken Payne of Olathe, president of Heartland Suburban Whitetail Management, said archers shoot from about 20 yards away and aim for the heart or lungs of the deer. He said most die within second of being hit. Those who don’t are tracked down until they are found.

“We go to extreme measures to find everything we shoot,” he said, adding that bow hunting is used extensively throughout the nation to cull deer populations.

Park officials hope to use non-lethal methods to keep the deer population from becoming too large in future years.

Whatever future control method is adopted will be used throughout the county park system, park officials said.

The park board will consider the deer management recommendation at 7 p.m. next Wednesday at the Lenexa National Guard Armory, 18200 W. 87th Street Parkway.

A copy of the staff’s recommendation is posted on the park district’s resource management page at www.jcprd.com.

The public is invited and will be allowed to address the board. Those who can’t attend can e-mail their comments to communityrelations@jocogov.org or mail them to JCPRD Board, 7900 Renner Road., Shawnee Mission, Kansas 66219. Comments should be sent no later than Monday.

To reach Jim Sullinger, call 816-234-7701 or send e-mail to jsullinger@kcstar.com.

Attachment Size
Deer options A.pdf 49.4 KB
Deer attachment B.pdf 152.69 KB
Submitted by Jim Sullinger on June 11, 2009 - 11:06am.

Sullinger's STAR story June 11, (Lyme expert disputes her quote in next post.)

2009-06-11T15:29:00.001-05:00

Park officials recommend that sharpshooters kill surplus deer in Shawnee Mission Park

By JIM SULLINGER
The Kansas City Star

ROBIN LOZNAK
A white-tailed deer buck stretches his neck from a field near Great Falls, Mont., Thursday, Nov. 18, 2004. The general big game hunting season continues through Nov. 28th in Montana. (AP Photo/Great Falls Tribune, Robin Loznak) ORG XMIT: MTGRE101 ORG XMIT: KOATEGR ORG XMIT: T3M0N2S
Photos | Deer problem in Shawnee Mission Park
More News
Park officials recommend that sharpshooters kill surplus deer in Shawnee Mission Park
Pallid sturgeon population of Big Muddy gets boost
School board puts off decision on maligned committee system
Should a witty blog about your job get you fired?
JCCC and UMKC sign agreement to ease credit transfers
DJ Jazzy Jeff disputes reason for early exit from P&L District concert
Three different signature numbers suggested on Funkhouser recall effort
Heavy rains bring flooding
Missouri measure would require recording of certain suspect interrogations
Man sentenced in funeral procession crash
Suspected leader of human-trafficking ring had document to allow him to flee U.S.
Bloch Cancer Care Pavilion is dedicated at KU Medical Center
City Council poised to vote on bonds to help pay for Performing Arts parking garage
Donating quilts to Marines like ‘giving them a hug’ for Kansas City woman
Babysitter who broke infant's skull gets probation
KC man sentenced in 2007 bank robbery
Nebraska doctor to do third-term abortions in Kansas
Illustrations removed from valuable books at KU library
Central Missouri family's deaths ruled homicide
Roberts' stimulus concerns gets a response
Sharpshooters and archers would be used to kill about half the deer at Shawnee Mission Park under a recommendation made Wednesday by Johnson County park officials.

Park officials want to reduce the park’s deer population to about 50 per square mile. The park covers about 3.5 square miles.

Wildlife experts have estimated that 400 deer roam the 2,230-acre park, which is said to have more deer per square mile than any other place in Kansas.

“Of all the options that have been reviewed, staff considers its proposed strategies to be the most viable for the district’s current and specific management needs,” the recommendation stated.

Nicole Matthews, a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals spokeswoman, said she was disappointed with the recommendation.

“We certainly encourage nonlethal options for keeping deer or wildlife from eating decorative shrubs or in areas where there are perceived conflicts,” she said, adding that the use of archers was inhumane.

The park staff proposal will be considered at 7 p.m. Wednesday by the Johnson County Park and Recreation District board. It was developed by the park district’s administrative staff following the creation of a wildlife management plan and a public meeting last month in which the board heard recommendations from citizens.

Park officials said other factors influencing their decision were statistics regarding deer-vehicle accidents, complaints from homeowners and commercial businesses about increased plant and landscaping damage, and concerns about diseases associated with ticks carried by deer.

Homeowners in the Parkhurst subdivision just south of the park complained much about the large deer herd.

“I’m glad they’re finally doing something,” said Bob Lillie, vice president of the homes association. “It’s for the good of the park, and the remaining deer will be much healthier. It’s unfortunate they let it get to this point.”

He said he hoped the remaining deer would have enough food to stay in the park and out of nearby neighborhoods.

Kathy White, spokeswoman for the Lyme Association of Greater Kansas City, said a much smaller deer population would reduce significantly the number of ticks and the risk of people getting Lyme disease.

“I’m sad and happy,” she said. “I hate killing the deer, but we have to do it. I know of children who missed several years of school because of tick bites.”

Park officials said a “significant herd reduction” was required. The effort would be undertaken in mid- to late fall in two phases — sharpshooters in the first phase and bow hunters in the second. Sharpshooters would be park and area police, but they would undergo training by experts first. The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks does not allow commercial sharpshooters.

Another survey of the deer population would be done after the sharpshooters finished their work.

If the population was still too high, then the second phase using specially certified bow hunters would follow. Shooting would be limited to controlled, baited sites that would lure the deer to the shooters.

Park officials said the culling could be done a couple of mornings each week for several weeks.

The park would be closed on those mornings and then reopened later in the day.

Under the plan, the meat would be processed and distributed to the homeless and needy.

To keep the herd from growing too large in the future, the recommendation suggested the use of nonlethal methods ranging from sterilization to deer repellants.

@ Go to KansasCity.com for a photo gallery.
To reach Jim Sullinger, call 816-234-7701 or send e-mail to jsullinger@kcstar.com.

Lyme Expert disputes safety of 50 deer per square mile, retracts quote in KC Star

2009-06-11T15:25:00.002-05:00

Kathy_ The park folks are using the 3.5 mile figure as the "greater park area" and I believe they are using that amount of land area to reduce the deer population to 50 per square mile. That would leave about 175 or so in the greater park area instead of the estimated 400. I don't know why they are using 50 as a goal since the normal number for Kansas is 30 per square mile. Jim

Jim Sullinger

Reporter

The Kansas City Star

816-234-7701

jsullinger@kcstar.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Kathy White [mailto:kswhite@everestkc.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 11:00 AM
To: jsullinger@kcstar.com
Subject: Park proposal and Lyme disease

Mr. Sullinger,

When I talked to you on the phone yesterday, I was under the impression that the goal of the deer management plan in Shawnee Mission Park was to get the number of deer down to 20 per square mile, which would be a total of 40 deer in the 2 square mile park. (The park department says it is a 1,250 acre park. At 640 acres in a square mile, that makes it about 2 square miles.)

I have since read the proposal. It sets a goal of 50 deer per square mile, which would make a total of 100 deer in the park. I doubt that this goal will have much impact on the number of ticks and the incidence of Lyme disease in the park. There will still be plenty of deer remaining on which the adult ticks can feed and mate. There may be slightly fewer ticks finding an opportunity to mate, but there will still be plenty of ticks in the park. Since one deer can be host to hundreds of ticks each year, and each female tick can drop off and lay 2,500 or more eggs, each remaining deer can result in the birth of several million ticks each year. With 100 deer remaining in the park, the number of ticks and the incidence of people becoming infected with tickborne diseases is likely to continue to increase rather than decrease.

I have read goals in other states of getting the deer population down to 10 to 25 per square mile. A 10-year study in Warren, Pennsylvania by the Northeastern Forestry Experimental Station found that having more than 20 deer per square mile had a significant impact on vegetation. The biologists recommended no more than 20 deer per square mile.

I'm sad that deer have to be killed. However, I have been saddened even more when I have met children and teenagers in this area who are so weak from chronic Lyme disease that they can't even sit up very long. Some have missed several years of school.

Lyme disease isn't just in Shawnee Mission Park. People are contracting it from ticks throughout Johnson County and the Greater Kansas City area, often in their yards, and also at camps, parks, lakes, and farms. Ticks are in woodsy areas, usually where there are deer. The CDC recommends repellents containing DEET on skin and Permanone (permethrin) on clothing. People can get ticks on them even when covered in DEET, so Permanone is helpful. It is an insecticide that kills ticks that crawl across it. Clothing should be sprayed with Permanone outdoors and dried, preferable the day before an outing. People need to check themselves for ticks even if they use repellent, and remove an attached tick by sliding something under it, such as a tick remover sold by the Lyme Association of Greater Kansas City. The old-fashioned ways of removing a tick (a hot match, chemicals, fingers) can inject germs into the bite site and are no longer safe. Even the CDC's recommended method of tweezers can squeeze the tick's gut and squirt germs into the bite site. For more information, people can contact the Lyme Association at 913-438-5963, www. Lymefight.info.

Kathy White

Lyme Association of Greater Kansas City

kswhite@everestkc.net

913-814-0299

Local Lyme expert says 50 deer per acre is too many for SM Park

2009-06-11T15:21:00.002-05:00

This is Kathy White's letter to Chuck Kurtz at Sun Publications today (June 11)
Chuck--
I am concerned that the goal of reducing the deer to 50 per square mile in Shawnee Mission Park is not enough. There are about 2 square miles in the park, which would leave 100 deer there. This will probably not affect the incidence of people contracting Lyme disease in the park, and it will probably not do much to slow the tremendous annual increase in the number of ticks in the park. There will be plenty of deer left on which the ticks can feed and mate. The tick population will continue to multiply greatly. Each deer can be host to several hundred ticks each year, and each female tick can drop off a deer and lay over 2,500 eggs. This means that each deer can enable the birth of several million new ticks each year. If there are fewer deer, each remaining deer will likely carry more ticks. The deer population would have to be reduced much more to make it difficult for ticks to locate a deer upon which to mate.
I am sad that deer have to be killed. However, I care even more about the people who have Lyme disease. I have met children and teenagers in this area who have been too weak to sit up very long and who have missed several years of school because of chronic Lyme disease. Some parts of our country have been able to get rid of ticks and Lyme disease by getting rid of the deer.
I hope that the venison given to the poor will be cooked thoroughly. Warning labels should be considered. Although there is no research showing that undercooked deer meat can give people tickborne diseases, it is wise to be cautious.
I think all the county parks and woodland areas should be evaluated to determine the density of the deer and tick populations. In areas where there are more than 10 or 20 deer per square mile, and in areas where residents are complaining about too many deer, the county should consider reducing the deer population. Those beautiful, graceful deer are the nation's most dangerous animal, killing and seriously injuring many more people in deer-car collisions than attacks by bears, alligators, snakes, and sharks combined. By being the primary host to adult deer ticks and lone star ticks, deer are also facilitating the increase in tickborne diseases which are disabling and even killing people.
Ticks in this area can carry at least 9 diseases: Lyme disease, STARI (identical to Lyme disease), ehrlichiosis, anaplasmosis (similar to ehrlichiosis), Rocky Mountain spotted fever, babesia (similar to malaria), bartonella, mycoplasma, and tularemia. Many ticks carry several diseases. Some are not infected. Some people become infected without getting sick. Lyme disease can lie dormant and emerge months or years later.
People are contracting Lyme disease throughout the Greater Kansas City area, primarily in woodsy areas where there are deer. People can get the disease from infected ticks at area parks, lakes, camps, farms, and even in their yards. People have contracted the disease in their yards in many Johnson County cities.
The CDC advises people to wear repellent containing DEET when they are outdoors. However, people can still get ticks on themselves when using DEET. The CDC recommends spraying Permanone (permethrin) on clothing. Clothes should be sprayed outside, the day before an outing, and allowed to dry before wearing. Permethrin is an insecticide that kills ticks that crawl across it. It should never be sprayed on skin.
People should remove an attached tick by sliding something under it, such as a tick remover sold by the Lyme Association of Greater Kansas City. Now that many ticks carry disease germs in their guts, the old methods of using a hot match, applying chemicals, or using fingers to remove a tick are no longer safe. These methods cause germs to be injected into the bite site. The CDC recommends fine-pointed tweezers, but this can squeeze the tick's gut and inject germs. People can contact the Lyme Association at 913-438-5963 or Lymefight @aol.com, or see www. Lymefight.info for more information.

Kathy White
Overland Park
kswhite@everestkc.net
913-814-0299

Lyme disease ignored by JoCoParks' Bambi Plan

2009-06-10T13:24:00.004-05:00

Reporter Jim Sullinger's video of Deer in Shawnee Mission Park:
http://videos.kansascity.com/vmix_hosted_apps/p/media?id=4420662

The Deer Plan for June 17:
http://jcprd.com/parks_facilities/pdf/6-8-09%20Staff%20Recommendations%20for%20Deer%20Management%20in%20Greater%20SMP%20Area.pdf

Mr. Devore, 83, who goes every single day, states that the first deer
he EVER spotted in Shawnee Mission Park was in 1980. Therefore, the
PETA activists' claim that the deer were there before the people were,
is false, because Mr. Devore has been to the park every morning for
over 40 years.

He has visited daily since the 60's. He states that there was a
timber wolf in Shawnee Mission Park then, and he saw it personally,
and that a park ranger admitted he shot and killed it.

Now obviously, the ranger shot the wolf to protect the public.

But since the JoCo Park & Rec Dept., the JoCo Health Dept, the Ks.
Dept. of Epidemiology, the KDWP (Ks. Dept. of Wildlife and Parks) and
the national CDC (Center for Disease Control) currently refuse to
report and acknowledge the health challenge posed by deer syphilus,
they are basing their convoluted plans on the social networking of the
Bambi Lobby.

I'm just glad the deer are not using Twitter and Facebook. Their
hooves are too big to type on those Blackberries! And they can't
count to 140 characters.

The misguided do-gooders on the JoCo Parks & Rec board have misread
the problem. We don't just have a deer overpopulation problem, we
have a disease problem. They only want to remove enough deer to
protect the shrubs and the neighbor's landscaping. They use
preposterous measures including "specified social carrying capacity"
and "social considerations". But not MEDICAL AND HEALTH PROTECTION OF
THE PUBLIC!

This cockeyed plan perpetuates the Bambi Lobby. And in fact would
raise your taxes to provide yet another employee, a "deer counter", a
biologist to count the remaining deer.

But if they ever acknowledged that the deer carry syphilus, and are
thus endangering the public, then they would just remove them all,
every year, instead of counting their white tails! Just like that
ranger in the 60's who took out the timber wolf.

You wouldn't need a taxpayer paid Counter if you solved the problem
every year with a population of zero deer carrying syphilis, aka Lyme
disease, (plus bubesia, ehrlychiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever and
the other lyme-related diseases.)

Lowering the deer population to a "specified social carrying capacity"
only breeds healthier, disease-carrying deer with syphilis.

It is as preposterous as asking an oncologist to just remove part of
your tumor instead of the whole thing. It's like the 70's when
uninformed women used to refuse breast removal from breast cancer--so
they could look cute in their bathing suits.

The Bambi Social Solution is what weak-willed well-meaning volunteers
on a Park Board do when they don't have the courage or the
intellectual curiosity to investigate a major health challenge. They
have been told quietly by the JoCo Board of County
Commissioners--those who appointed them and who actually must run for
re-election soon to just DODGE THE BULLET OF PUBLIC AND MEDICAL
SCRUTINY.

And most importantly, to NOT bring this crucial issue to the BOCC for
a public hearing!!
As long as they can hide this in their current budget, no BOCC hearing
will ever happen.

Just make a nice pleasant plan, reduce the deer population without
pissing off the uninformed public, or the bleeding heart PETA
activists. Just pretend you've solved an inconvenience.

And how about the plan to give the deer meat to the poor? Tainted
meat? Are you kidding me? Carol Ann Ryser, a local lyme-literate MD states,
"The only way to assure the public the syphilis is not still present
in the deer meat is to incinerate it."

Smoking jerky at low temps does not kill the spirochetes.
Simmering deer meat at low temperatures does not kill the spirochetes.
The CDC web site is untruthful, because they have NEVER done any testing on this, and they are not a food kitchen. In fact, they are actively working to SUPRESS reporting of Lyme Disease in the US. Twice in five years, they have upped the requirements. Now the rash (which only 30% of victims even get) must be 4 inches in diameter, not tow or three. And must be observed by a licensed MD in THAT state, not a blood lab out of state that specializes in diagnosing lyme.

EVEN IF it's a LOCAL MD IN JO CO WHO ORDERS THE TEST, THEY CANNOT REPORT IT IF THE RESULTS COME BACK POSITIVE!

THAT is how you hide a disease.

Remember it was the CDC that ignored the AIDS epidemic during the Reagan administration, because they thought it was just a "gay" disease, and thus God's Plan to eliminate homosexuals from the face of the Earth. It wasn't until it "crossed over" in the blood supply to hemophiliacs that AIDS was addressed. Well, we don't test the blood supply for Lyme Disease. It would cost $190, too much per pint.

So now this Jo Co Parks BioDiversity Plan is just as egregious as governmental experiments as the Tuskegee Experiment. (see Wikipedia.) The federal government knowingly gave 399 Negroes syphilis--and then studied them for 40 years, from 1932 to 1972, as they suffered! Medical research without consent.

Move over, Dr. Mengele. Meet your replacement, Mike Meadors, Director
of Johnson County Parks & Recreation. He removed posted warnings at
the dog park about lyme and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever--based on his
personal opinions, and NO medical research.

This time, the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners, and their
hand-picked naive Board of Parks & Recreation, is proposing to play
Russian roulette with the brains of the poor. It's their Tuskegee
Experiment for frolicking happy white folk at Shawnee Mission Park.

I say, make the Commissioners eat the tainted deer meat.
And let Mikey eat it!

I score this crazy insufficient plan: 1 for the shrubery, 0 for the
public safety.

Please attend the Wed. June 17 JoCo park board hearing at 7pm.
The meeting will begin at 7:00 p.m. and will be held in the gymnasium
of the Lenexa National Guard Armory at 18200 W. 87th Street Parkway,
just east of the 3 & 2 baseball complex. For your convenience, a copy
of staff’s recommendations will be posted on the Resource Management
page of the District’s website at www.jcprd.com.

JCCC President Terry Calaway broke the law!

2009-04-14T11:41:00.011-05:00

The more you learn about this, the madder it will make you. The President of Johnson County Community College, Terry Calaway (I call him the New Chuck, because he is as much a lying, conniving weasel as was Chuck 'The Groper' Carlsen) is still persisting in his coverup of his CLEAR VIOLATION of the Ks. Open Meetings Act (KOMA).

Calaway (and his boy, the lazy attorney Mark Ferguson)have concocted a "Speak No Evil" coverup story, a wholly novel legal maneuver, claiming that if you hand out illegal materials ie proposed budget cuts, during a closed meeting, it's OK "as long as you don't SPEAK OUT LOUD about them!"

You know, it's the cover-up that kills you. Just ask Bill Clinton.

Someone should file a FORMAL REQUEST for a legal interpretation by Steve Howe, Johnson County's District Attorney. Howe has proven himself to be a straight arrow.

I learned today that before that illegal closed session, Attorney Ferguson (who has since left Lathrop & Gage and then tried to steal that account from them--what a schmuck), called some underling in the DA's office in Olathe, AND another underling in Steve Six's Attorney General's office in Topeka. But this lazy attorney failed to do his "due diligence". He didn't request a FORMAL WRITTEN OPINION! No, he just cited a few cases, ORALLY, and said ON THE PHONE, "Whaddya think? Is the JCCC Board of Trustees covered?"

That's not what high powered overpaid attorneys are supposed to do.

Verbal OK's, as in "probably, or maybe, or conceivably, or ARGUABLY, unless somebody sues you, and who has money for that", do not constitute competent legal services. Ferguson cheated the taxpayers, and perhaps even committed a legal offense of unprofessional services. Dr. (of Nonsense) Terry Calaway cheated the taxpayers, by justifying a CLEARLY ILLEGAL ACT and then covering it up.

What's so insane and ironic--is that Ferguson could have billed us taxpayers to get a formal opinion! But he didn't. Hmmm. Wonder why not. Which leads me to surmise that he probably knew the correct legal answer already. He just concocted this approach as a lame and flimsy excuse for Terry Calaway to march into that meeting so he could secretly discuss potential budget cuts without alerting the faculty that might lose their jobs and homes. Aided by Ferguson, Calaway wanted to secretly scheme potential cuts and enable the board to form their stone wall, while not giving the faculty time to organize any opposition!

That's the whole point of our law. You want to cut a budget? With our money? Face the music and do it in public.

Then two cohorts in crime, elected JCCC Trustees Lynn Mitchellson and Shirley Brown-VanArsdale, served as Calaway's other two monkeys: Hear No Evil and See No Evil. They supported the coverup. They smeared Trustee Ben Hodge. And made up, completely made up, a story that HODGE broke confidence, when he shared the illegal document with Jim Sullinger, the Star reporter who diagnosed the document as a violation of KOMA.

Their preposterous excuse for bringing the budget cuts into the closed meeting was that it was part of Calaway's Annual Review! That does not pass the smell test. (If there were Four Monkeys, I guess it would be Smell No Evil.)

Had the Trustees had ANY training on KOMA, (like I received when I was on the Shawnee City Council for five years, thanks to our fine city attorney and former Johnson County Election Director, Marvin Rainey) they would have stopped this nonsense immediately. Mitchellson and VanArsdale are arrogant in thinking they know better than the law. Shame on them.

Someone needs to ask Mike Merriam, near Topeka, the attorney for the Kansas Press Association, what he thinks. Because Mike Merriam is the state's leading expert on open meetings.

This story is not done.

In fact, I predict this may be the beginning of the end of Dr. Terry Calaway's brief career as Henchman/President of JCCC. Stories are now circulating about how he was a bully at his LAST post.

Johnson County taxpayers deserve better. We do not need college presidents, like Calaway and Carlsen, bullying the board to hide their illegal acts. The Trustees of JCC wasted $500,000 of taxpayer money with preposterous legal coverups of Carlsen groping a middle-aged woman on the staff. We don't need Terry Calaway groping the taxpayers, especially now.

Citizen speaks out against JCCC Open Meetings violations, endorses Ben Hodge

2009-04-05T15:54:00.001-05:00

Also in the Sunday KC Star letters to the editor, April 6:
Johnson County Community College trustee Benjamin Hodge deserves support.

Perhaps like me, you haven’t followed JCCC’s Board of Trustee elections closely, and maybe you haven’t previously cast your vote with much care. This time you should. It’s more important now than ever in the 40-year history of the college for it to manage our tax dollar investment wisely. Take a look at your property tax bill to see the tax amount paid to JCCC. Now look at its financials in the latest board minutes. Like the rest of us, the college’s realized year-to- date investment and other income sources fell way short of what was budgeted, yet the expenditures year to date remain consistent.

The college’s fiscal year ends June 30. Unlike the rest of us in these tough economic times, the college has not cut back.

The fact that trustee Benjamin Hodge, as he has so adamantly been accused, “leaked” cost cuts under consideration is a good thing. What is unfortunate is that the over-reaction and very public condemnation of Hodge has taken the focus off what really needs to be asked. Why shouldn’t this institution consider, adopt and make expenditure cuts? The rest of us have.

Tammy Clem
Stilwell

We need to re-elect Ben Hodge to JCCC Board--to protect us from the New Chuck: Terry Calaway

2009-04-05T15:49:00.002-05:00

Here is Ben Hodge's letter from the KC Star editorial page, Sunday, April 5:

At February’s Johnson County Community College board meeting, leaders inappropriately justified the distribution and brief verbal discussion of typed budget items during a non-public portion because the budget barely related to the president’s private evaluation (ratings include “fiscal management”).

I must correct some statements that have since come from JCCC. Namely, that JCCC has a top-notch record regarding the Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA). No way.

The most obvious violation occurred four months ago. Only three trustees may legally meet privately to discuss government business (a “meeting” is communication by any means). A violation of KOMA occurred the moment four trustees agreed to submit a letter published by The Star. To be fair, was this a huge deal? No, but it showed a lack of understanding by all members involved, including President Terry Calaway, who instructed an employee to write the politically-oriented letter. That leads to more questions.

And two weeks ago, in a Gardner News article, Calaway and Chair Shirley Brown-Van Arsdale attempted to argue that as long as budgets are not verbally discussed, printed budget items can be distributed during closed meetings. That’s absolutely incorrect.

JCCC leaders need to learn — and then follow — the open meetings law.

Benjamin Hodge
Johnson County Community College trustee
Overland Park

Vote for two young truthtellers for JCCC: Ben Hodge and Miguel Morales--don't dilute your vote! Just 2.

2009-04-01T16:53:00.006-05:00

I am sick and tired of Terry Calaway, the "New Chuck" Carlsen at JCCC, bullying people. And his henchman on the board, Lynn Mitchellson,who had the gall to wag his finger in the face of KC Star reporter Jim Sullinger last week at a public meeting, and call Sullinger "unprofessional", for outing the board for its violation of the Ks. Open Meetings Act.

I am even more sick about Mark Ferguson, the now-independent lawyer, (who tried to steal the account when he left Lathrop & Gage--sleezy!) enabling this, by telling the board that it's not a violation if you hand out secret budget documents and then sit there with bandannas gagging your mouths. That is preposterous.

On April 6 (or now for advance voters) you can vote for up to 4 people for board of trustees of the Junion College.

Please just vote for 2. Do not dilute your vote. Vote for Ben Hodge, the incumbent who had the courage to admit the violation when Sullinger questioned him about it. (The board is so arrogant they provide NO training, or he would have known better. And he won't make that mistake again.)

And vote for Miguel Morales. Yes, I know, he's a liberal. BUT, without Miguel, who was the editor of the Student Paper at JCCC, the illegal sexual harassment of a staff member by sex-crazed Chuck Carlsen, would have been swept under the carpet by this JCCC Board.

So--the most important thing is to vote for independent people who will stand up to the bullying and the lies by the Old Guard: Mitchellson, Shirley VanArsdale and that sleezy lawyer, Mark Ferguson.

We need truth tellers, not rubber stamps. And we need people who will challenge the New Chuck/President Terry Calaway and speak truth to power. Board members are there as OVERSEERS OF THE TAXPAYERS, not ass-kissing and PR.

I hear that Calaway silenced his critics at his last job as well. We deserve better. JCCC is a jewel, but we don't need arrogant pigheaded thinking muddying it up.

The bill to kill the deer is dead, but the deer are not!

2009-03-25T16:08:00.002-05:00

Well—guess what.
The bill to kill the deer is dead, but the deer are not!!

From the JoCo BOCC Legislative report for 3/26/09:
Bills of Lower Priority—And probably dead for the this session
1. House Bill 2342—Deer Bill for Shawnee Mission Park
a. Bill heard on March 10 before the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. Bill
remains in Committee.
b. Mike Meadors from Parks and Recreation testified. Outfitters, residents, and bow hunters
supported bills. Hearing produced many questions focusing on need for legislation when authority to address the issue still resides with the County.

Once again, the Johnson County BOCC doesn’t get it! The problem is not the deer, it’s the disease, Lyme Disease or Deer Syphilis. And they have now wasted three MORE months avoiding the problem, by trying to foist the problem and the solution off on the Kansas Legislature. Which is about as lame as thinking Congressman Barney Frank will cure the banking meltdown by screaming at signholders and interrupting both Tim Geitner AND Ben Bernanke in the middle of their testimony.

The problem in Johnson County is we have a deadly epidemic, Lyme Disease, at Shawnee Mission Park, but because it’s also the 40th anniversary of the County’s vaunted Theatre in the Park, they are covering it up. Annabeth Surbaugh and the Six Dwarves refuse to talk about it or treat it. They call it the Deer Problem. That is as lame as Obama calling this recession a short-term budgetary issue that will be reversed by 2010.

And they lie to the public by pretending that culling the deer herd, in 6 months, to half its population, will address the deadly outbreak of a health emergency that is killing our residents, including a teenage girl from Olathe South.

Cutting down the population of tick-infected deer, twice a year, when ticks reproduce 4x a year, is like running a virus program on your computer—twice a year. Well, good luck.

Johnson County government was smoked out by the Ks. Legislature. They threw the problem right back into Annabeth’s ample lap. Hot potato. It always WAS in the jurisdiction of the BOCC to address the deer population. It always WAS in the jurisdiction of the County Health Dept. to tell the truth and re-post the Dog Park at Shawnee Mission Park as dangerous for a lyme-related disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. It always WAS in the jurisdiction of the JoCo Parks Dept, led by sneaky Mike Meadors, the man who secrectly doubled the cost of the proposed land for a soccer stadium for the Wizards and a few student fields. Mike Meadors will do or say ANYTHING to get his way, but good for the Kansas Legislature for saying, “Man up, Meadors and solve your OWN problems. You never needed us.”

Now it’s up to Annabeth, the six commissioners, Mike Meadors, and Gary Montague, retired Shawnee city manager now chairman of the JoCo Parks Dept. board—-to do what they should have all along: take out ALL the deer, NOW. Before more leaves pop out, get busy. Shame on you for allowing this epidemic to spread one more season to the taxpayers who pay your salaries (except for Montague, he’s a volunteer.)

And once again, I call for a Tuskegee experiment. Let’s march this gang through the dog park and the woods and across the lawn of Theatre in the Park. With their kids and grandkids. Then let’s withhold treatment beyond two weeks of doxycycline. Let them see if they get Lyme, and get disabled and lose their jobs and their lives and $150,000 apiece for unending IV infusions and pain. Let them see if the Lyme Disease goes to their brains and drives them nuts. Or maybe it will migrate, like Lyme often does, to their heart, their limbs—-painful arthritis, their liver, kidneys, etc. Organ Roulette.

THEN let them see if they can crawl painfully to their seats (where they earn $56k to $78k a year for one day a week of acting all superior) and see if they vote THEN to remove the deer, all the them. Like they could have, had the authority to do, last December when they were asked by Lyme victims.

Shame on you, Annabeth Surbaugh, you smug, uppity know-it-all who pretends to be “concerned about the deer.” But you have NOT done right by the humans who populate Johnson County. Nor the families who will naively bring their families and their picnic baskets to Theatre in the Park in two months.

STAR spanks JCCC's Terry Calaway for Open Meetings violation

2009-03-13T10:30:00.005-05:00

The following is the text of a document faxed by The Kansas City Star to the president's office at 5:15 p.m. on Thursday, March 5. It's a one-page letter from Steve Shirk, The Star's managing editor, explaining to JCCC President Dr. Terry Calaway and the 6-member JCCC Board how The Star believes the Kansas Open Meetings Act should be interpreted. The Star makes it clear that it believes JCCC violated the law.

President Calaway waited until sometime on Friday, March 6, to share the document with Board Chair Shirley Brown-VanArsdale. VanArsdale and Calaway did not share the letter with the entire board until Monday morning, March 9. They should not have waited that long.

Chair VanArsdale has made no public comment with regard to any of this.

Calaway continues to go out of his way to remind the public about how he chooses to interpret KOMA; that does a disservice to JCCC and the Board of Trustees.

In my opinion, The Star would have not likely written this letter had Dr. Calaway not dug a hole for himself and the college a couple days earlier when he wrote an Email to JCCC employees. In the March 3 Email, he implicitly did the following:

1. Calaway criticized my release of general budget-related information that was (and, most people believe, should not have been) shared originally in an executive session closed to the public. I chose to share the information with Star reporter Jim Sullinger after Sullinger had requested information regarding how JCCC would be handling its next budget.
2. Calaway called Sullinger unprofessional for the way that Sullinger's initial reporting was done. Sullinger is a 30-year veteran reporter.
3. Calaway unapologetically stated that the information was first given to board members in executive session. In doing so, he publicly justified a bad interpretation of the Kansas Open Meetings Act. That justification was a major error by Calaway. Near the very beginning of a 2008 Kansas Attorney General opinion, the following is written: "The act is interpreted liberally and exceptions narrowly construed to carry out the purpose of the law." Calaway admitted to 2,000 employees that he interprets KOMA as allowing JCCC to broadly (not narrowly) interpret the exceptions to the law.

Shortly after that is when I'm guessing that wheels started turning at The Star. The Star faxed this letter and ran a prominent story in the Sunday print edition.

At the top right is a copy of the one-page fax (click to enlarge). To my knowledge, VanArsdale and Calaway have yet not made this letter available to the public. If you would like a higher-quality copy, contact JCCC at 913-469-8500, press "0" and then ask for the president's office. When you're directed to the president's office, you may request a copy (they might charge you a small fee). You may also choose to ask why the president opts not to make the document available on the college Web site.

The text of the letter:

March 5, 2009

To: JCCC President Terry Calaway,
College Board of Trustees:

From: The Kansas City Star

Dear President and Trustees:

We at The Star were disappointed to learn that budgetary issues were addressed in an executive session of the college's Board of Trustees on Thursday, Febrary 19, 2009. Clearly, there must have been a misunderstanding of what is permissible under the Kansas Open Meetings Act.

The Kansas attorney general has stated in an interpretation of KOMA that exemptions are to be interpreted narrowly. Under the exemption for the discussion of non-elected personnel, we would remind you of the attorney general's opinion of the following section of the Act:

Personnel matters of non-elected personel
1. To discuss an individual, not groups. (AG Opins. No. 81-39; 88-25; 80-102. But sec 13 Kan.App.2d 117 (1988)). The purpose of this exception of to protect the privacy interests of individuals. Discussions of consolidation of departments or overall salary structure is not a propert topic.
2. "Personnel" means employees of the public agency.

No name of an individual was among the 50 or so possible budget reductions presented to the Board of Trustees in that closed session. The items on the list affected groups and many of these items are paid for by taxpayer dollars. We are certain that it was not JCCC's intention to keep the public from hearing the debate over how the college spends public money.

Also, the stated purpose of the executive session, which was clearly announced during the public portion of the meeting, was to evaluate the college president. No mention was made of a list of possible budget reductions.

We would hope that in the future you will adhere to the law regarding open meetings of public bodies in Kansas. Such open discussions are of vital importance to the public interest.

Thank you for your attention to this matter,

Steve Shirk
Managing Editor

ShareThis

Buzz up!vote now
Permalink | Trackbacks
CATEGORY: FEATURE
TAGS: ben hodge, board of trustees, digging a hole, jccc, jim sullinger, kansas attorney general, kansas city star, koma, Shirley Brown-VanArsdale, Steve Shirk, terry calaway

JCCC up to its old tricks: SECRET MEETINGS!

2009-03-05T11:37:00.005-06:00

Here is my response to Ben Hodge's email which is at the end of this post.
I hope the KC Star "budgets up" like the days of yore, and legally challenges the JCCC for a violation of KOMA. Because "awkward" or "let's dodge some political pressure and keep people in the dark till it's too late" are NOT any of the 19 reasons a tax-supported governmental body can go into executive session.

And shame on Mark Ferguson, the rogue attorney, for telling them they can sneak in documents at the last minute--or add agenda items while IN executive session! He should lose the contract for malfeasance. tt

Ben,
Your reasoning--and that of Jim Sullinger's, is correct.
the real NEWS is the violation of KOMA.

You need to now OPPOSE all requests to go to a closed meeting on the subject of the budget.
And call the TV stations and the Star and the Sun and other smaller papers.
And Finn Bullers' wife Ann, who edits the JCCC paper, and was the one who first outed Chuck Carlsen for his infamous sexual harrassment activities which the JCCC shamefully swept under the rug at huge expense to the taxpayers. And then Annabeth Surbaugh tried to resurrect his sad sack reputation by putting that sex-crazed schmuck on the JoCo Arts Council.

The JCCC now is making a history of operating in secret. Shame on JCCC.

Ben, your Board agenda should tell you in advance if staff and the New Chuck--the new president--are proposing an executive session.

In my experience on the Shawnee city council, that is required. (Attorney Marvin Rainey is an expert at that law: 722-6106. He was our City Attorney, and former Mayor of OP and former ED of the JoCo Election Board. He KNOWS the law frontward and backward.)

The board of JCCC can't go into executive session on the fly. They must pre-announce it, 3 days in advance, or if something comes up in the meeting, then schedule a future meeting where they "notice it up", is the legal term.

And you, Commissioner Hodge, need to REFUSE TO GO INTO CLOSED SESSIONS TO DISCUSS THE BUDGET! It's complete bull crap for the New Chuck, Dr. Terry Calaway, to assert that a budget discussion falls under the 19 rules of KOMA.

HERE IS BEN HODGE'S EMAIL:

As you know, Dr. Calaway issued a statement regarding some recent activities on the college employee “infolist” Email list. I am writing to request equal time, and that my statement below be released in the same manner to college employees. My statement can also be found on THE mARCH 4 STRING OF Prime Buzz. (KCSTAR.COM, THEN SCROLL DOWN TO THE LOWER RIGHT TO FIND PRIME BUZZ.)

Thank you,
Ben Hodge
913-424-5384

Statement follows:
Benjamin Hodge
Johnson County Community College Trustee, 2005-
hodge@jccc.edu
Wednesday, March 4, 2008

“Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor.”
-- US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the 5-4 majority in the June 2007 decision FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life (PDF), which declared unconstitutional a portion of the federal law known as “McCain-Feingold”

There is a law called the Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA). One premise for KOMA is that it is more important to protect citizens from government than it is to protect government from its citizens. If one side should be on the defensive, it should be government: government should fear its citizens, not the other way around. Another premise for KOMA is that humans are flawed and easily corruptible; we are at our best when held accountable.

The basic function of KOMA: it is almost always illegal for elected officials to gather in a private meeting to discuss government business. A closed meeting is allowed only in a few situations.

Here is information about KOMA provided by the Kansas Press Association (PDF), and here is information from the Kansas Attorney General (PDF).

What Chief Justice Roberts stated in FEC v. WRTL is that where there is uncertainty with regard to a citizen maintaining free speech rights, we will err on the side of free speech. In the same frame of mind, I believe that where there exists doubt about whether Johnson County Community College should be allowed to discuss a certain topic in a closed session – if one could “argue either way”– that the board members must err on the side of openness. The tie goes to the public, and the decision for an open meeting.

To change topics: There is a recession. As JCCC employees should know, property values have decreased in Johnson County. This will clearly impact our budget. Revenue to the college only arrives from a few places. Primarily, three sources: tuition, local taxes, and state taxes. JCCC also does have a healthy cash reserve, and I hope that the administration and the majority of board members are willing to have a full discussion about whether to access those dollars; because there has been very little discussion so far about that, I will not right now assume that accessing our reserves is likely.

The state obviously doesn’t have any money, in large part due to the 2005 Montoy decision whereby the Kansas Supreme Court illegally increased K-12 government school spending by tremendous amounts.

My expectation is that the JCCC board will approve reasonable tuition increases at rates similar to inflation rates of recent years. Inflation is a fact of life, and fees must go up. But tuition increases alone will not balance the college budget.

Two options are left: property tax increases and budget cuts.

Taxes: I have clearly stated that I am opposed to any new taxes. In November 2008, I wrote a letter to The Kansas City Star and objected that the majority of the board is willing to consider the possibility of a tax increase. In December 2008, some of my colleagues replied in a letter to The Star, stating that it was incorrect for me to write that they are willing to consider raising taxes; rather, they are still considering all options, including tax increases.

Today, as I write this, I am confident that the board will not increase taxes. It could happen, but I doubt it. A necessary path for the administration and board is cutting the budget – everybody knows this.

At the most recent board meeting, during a closed session, a five- or six-page paper was handed out to board members. The document summarizes about 50 uses of money that, if decreased or removed, would help balance our next budget. There’s really not much to say about the document. It simply lists and describes all kinds of ways to potentially decrease the budget. It makes clear what, I would think, is obvious: almost any area of the college is under consideration for a budget cut.

About a week later, I talked on the phone with Star reporter Jim Sullinger. Sullinger contacted me and asked if I could provide information with regard to how JCCC – like all area government bodies, particularly in Johnson County – will deal with tightened budgets. I said: yes; although, some information I have was handed out during a closed session. He challenged me: now, why was it given out during executive session? I thought about it: you know what, Jim, you’re right; this document could have just as easily been handed out during an open session.

I agreed with Sullinger that there is nothing legally sensitive about this document. There is not one employee name mentioned. Is the information politically sensitive to a variety of people? Sure, but that’s irrelevant. What matters is whether a reporter had a right to see the information. Can it be debated whether or not a reporter should see the information? Maybe. And that is where I will unapologetically restate my belief that when a government official or a government employee is in doubt about whether or not information should be private: the tie goes to transparency.

Sullinger wrote one article briefly covering the information. Nothing he wrote in that article was inaccurate. I could be wrong, but I think it only appeared online, on the political blog “Prime Buzz.” Not all that many people would have read it, and it would have simply been “bumped” down on the blog as new articles were posted, had there not been an overreaction to the article.

I am aware that some KNEA faculty members and Dr. Terry Calaway have been highly critical of my “leaking” the information. As is often the case with board members (who don’t experience the day-to-day environment of the college), I really do not know what the average employee thinks about all this – or whether the average employee even knows or cares.

I’ll summarize my reaction to the criticism:
· As I’ve stated, the information was general, non-sensitive. The public has a right to view the information.
· Dr. Calaway’s message on Tuesday to the college Email infolist: it did a disservice to the college. Calaway writes:
o “The reporter subsequently listed a number of items that are purportedly under consideration to be cut or reduced.” Well, the items are under consideration.
o “The blog article purports that the college has already defined a course of action.” No, it doesn’t. “Under consideration” means exactly that.
o “The irresponsible nature of this reporting…” If you’re going to pick a fight with the biggest paper in the area, make it over the right issue. The Kansas Open Meetings Act is not the right issue.
o “…had taken place as part of a board of trustees executive session…” Don’t remind us of that.
o “The reporter never called me with questions regarding possible budget reductions or to ask for comment. Unfortunately, the article on the blog leaves the reader with the assumption that he had done so.” No, I don’t think it did leave the reader with that impression. But even if it had, reporters are often going to write things that we don’t agree with. Bias exists in the media.
· That The Star article contained information that was a surprise to employees: I’m surprised that you’re surprised. Most ideas for cutting the budget are under consideration. That’s all the article said.
· Really?... KNEA faculty – you’re comfortable knowing that the board and administration interpret broadly, rather than narrowly, the exceptions permitted under KOMA (PDF)? I hear no concern.
· Here’s what I have not heard, but that I would certainly ask if I were an employee: What’s NOT on this list? Will the board really be willing to separate the wants from needs? Will the board cut back on my job, my friends’ jobs, or my department – even though they’re unwilling to cut back on these other things that are much less important?
o Bottom line: I could point out $1-2 million of spending that I view as either waste or non-vital, and that I would to cut before deciding to affect 99% of departments and employees. But I’m just one voting member of the board.

Lastly, I need to address why this document was given out during the executive session. The argument for secrecy is quite simple, and quite weak: because the document details how budget items will be cut, it therefore affects individual employees within those areas, and it’s therefore a personnel issue. Using that line of thinking, literally any discussion of taxation or budgeting could be interpreted as affecting individual employees. This type of interpretation happens all the time around local governments in Johnson County. I am not going to say right now that it violates the KOMA, but I will state that I do not support this interpretation, and I’m confident most taxpayers would not support this interpretation.

St. Rep Anthony Brown, You are my HERO!

2009-02-20T12:14:00.001-06:00

http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/17273
Bill would allow bow hunting for deer at Shawnee Mission Park
BrownRep. Anthony Brown, a Republican from Eudora, is the brains behind a bill introduced in Topeka allowing Johnson County commissioners to create a bow-hunting season for deer at Shawnee Mission Park.
House Bill 2342 was introduced Feb. 12 by the House Appropriations Committee. The next day, the proposed legislation was referred to the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, where it now sits.
It comes about after reports first published in December in The Star showed the deer population at the popular park in Shawnee and Lenexa is as much as 10 times higher than its capacity to support the animals.
Overpopulation, experts say, can be dangerous to the health of the animals, humans and the park’s entire ecosystem.
Bow-hunters say they would love a new hunting ground in an area close to home and with limited opportunities. Controlled hunts, they say, are done successfully across the region and could be used as a template for a hunt at the park.
But critics say an arrow is a cruel and inhumane way to die and plead for a less "barbaric" solution that could involve relocation, sterilization or contraception.
Deputy County Manager Hannes Zacharias informed commissioners this morning of the proposed legislation and said he would be looking into the details behind the bill’s creation and its intention.
Brown, the legislator, was not immediately available for an interview. Prime Buzz will report back when it knows more.
Here’s House Bill 2342 in its entirety:
AN ACT concerning deer; relating to the taking thereof.Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Kansas:Section 1. Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, the board of county commissioners of Johnson county shall provide for a season for archery for deer and is hereby directed to issue archery deer permits for hunting deer within the boundaries of Shawnee Mission park in accordance with state statutes and rules and regulations of the secretary of wildlife and parks, adopted in accordance with K.S.A. 32-805, and amendments thereto, concerning archery deer hunting.Sec. 2. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its publication in the statute book.
Submitted by Finn Bullers on February 19, 2009 - 3:25pm.
Johnson County | login or register to post comments | 187 reads
Finally
Submitted by OwenThursday on February 19, 2009 - 4:01pm.
let's get it done.
You called it, OT
Submitted by jeetzwillager on February 19, 2009 - 4:10pm.
Yes, get it done.
Of course there will be a follow-up Biodiversity report to finalize the results.
Then new DNR people will be hired to monitor the park for five years. They will be given a Stimulus grant of $5 million to do an environmental impact study on the changes to the park 's ecosystem.
At which that time, another Biodiversity report will conclude that indeed the population of the deer were reduced with no negative impact to the park.
Even Bambi died in the end
Submitted by 66061 on February 19, 2009 - 5:08pm.
If you substituted the word "rats" every time "deer" is referenced in these stories then this issue would have been settled a long time ago. You wouldn’t tranquilize, relocate, or provide the rats with contraceptives would you? The deer may be in a park, but it isn’t a Disney Park where you can rub its nose and let it feed from your hand. There is a problem here, deal with it.
Assuming it passes
Submitted by OwenThursday on February 20, 2009 - 7:11am.
Who knows if this has a chance, the PETA crowd will be coming out of the woodwork. KS Wildlife & Parks already has a guy that's been working w/ JoCo Parks; no need for hiring, plus the hiring freeze & all that.
The hunters will likely have to get special tags for that park, in addition to the normal tags they get. That money, though it won't be a huge amount, should be added to the parks budget, for their biodiversity plan. If I was a bowhunter, I'd apply. Wouldn't have to go so far to hunt.

Why Canadian geese don't migrate

2009-02-18T17:10:00.003-06:00

We need to change the federal law that calls these illegal immigrants an "endangered species." Canada geese are killers. Ask US Air if they want them removed. Canada geese carry ticks that harbor the deadly Lyme Disease...to Johnson County, including Shawnee Mission Park. And they befoul the ground.
Just like the deer, it's time to protect our OWN species.
Tracy Thomas

Warming Cause Air Crash?
by Dennis Avery
Issue 126 - February 18, 2009
Did global warming dump U.S. Airways flight 1549 into the Hudson River by attracting more geese to New York airports? Time Magazine says yes. Time notes a four-fold increase in airplane bird strikes since 1990, and blames global warming and destruction of wild bird habitat for the increased collisions.
Time reached the wrong conclusion. Research indicates we should blame the prosaic corn harvester—and perhaps our attempt to expand corn production for biofuels. Canada geese numbers have increased five-fold since 1970 for one overwhelming reason —farmers’ expanding use of those big corn picker-shellers. The big bright-colored harvesters now roar across the fields every autumn, picking the ears and shelling the corn kernels. With millions of tons of loose corn, some inevitably trickles to the ground, where the geese cheerfully snack it up.
Canadian researchers found the geese had switched their food supply almost entirely since 1970, from a diet of marsh plant rhizomes in winter and early spring to eating mostly corn and young grass shoots. The marshes aren’t overgrazed, because the extra geese are feeding in fields and pastures.
When I moved to the Shenandoah Valley in the late 1980s, North Carolina goose hunting guides were protesting that northern states had “stolen” their geese. However, the geese that used to travel clear to North Carolina to get marsh grazing were simply staying to pick over Northeastern corn and soybean fields.
The latest trend among the Canadas is not to move at all. Resident geese now make up two-thirds of our goose numbers, up from 18 percent in 1979. These non-migrating geese are a particular problem because they tend to flock and graze around airports (and golf courses).
The modest global warming between from 1976–1998 may have encouraged such sedentary geese. However, the earth has cooled sharply in the past two years, and NASA says the Pacific cool phase now predicts global cooling, perhaps until 2030. Don’t bet that the Canada’s will migrate back to the North with the lower temperatures, however. The winter grain is still free, and the otherwise-annoying dogs are all on leashes.
Meanwhile, farmers have been planting still more corn, on every possible corner of the eastern seaboard, to get their share of those ethanol subsidies. Corn planting expanded about 50 percent in the mid-Atlantic States from 2002–2006, according to Virginia Tech, with comparable increases in New York and Pennsylvania.
This poses an urgent need for more and better bird-strike prevention. Golf courses use trained Border Collies and Shetland Sheep dogs to annoy the Canadas. Thanks to the dogs' enthusiastic persistence, that works. But we can’t have dogs running loose across the airports. And we can’t hunt in populated areas.
Never mind wailing about global warming, it’s time for more real goose research.

DENNIS T. AVERY is an environmental economist, and a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421

Lyme Disease expert sends Ks. his condolences

2009-02-17T12:10:00.001-06:00

Hi Tracy,

Sounds like the relocation of the Plum Island lab to Manhattan is a done deal. But if you folks can use some copies of The Poison Plum to wake people up, I can provide copies at wholesale ($12.50) if ordered in case lot quantities. I'll even pay shipping.

The first Manhattan project brought forth the atomic bomb and over 220,000 dead civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

How many casulties will the second Manhattan project bring?

Good luck and may God bless your efforts.

Les Roberts
Author - The Poison Plum

www.poisonplum.com

Canada Geese carried Lyme from biological warfare lab. Now that lab moving to Ks.

2009-02-16T12:39:00.007-06:00

Lyme disease was named for the towns of Lyme and Old Lyme, CT, where the Lyme disease epidemic was first discovered. These towns are close to Plum Island.

Note sent to the JoCo Board of County Commissioners plus the city managers of Shawnee and Lenexa, where Shawnee Mission Park is located:

1. When these reports cite the likelihood of Lyme Disease (deer syphilus) being transported from Plum Island (off Long Island, NY) to Lyme, Connecticut, via WATERFOWL that means Canada geese. They carry ticks.

2. Just 2 months ago or so, the federal govt. and Homeland "Security" agreed to close Plum Island because they awarded the contract for future research into anthrax, lyme, ebola and other forms of BIOLOGICAL WARFARE to K-State in Manhattan KS! And of course with our JOHNSON COUNTY tax dollars, K-State hopes to also open a mini-lab here in Olathe, run by students, (and we all know how cautious they are) studying "important biological research" as financed with part of the neverending sales tax supporting the Research Triangle that the Johnson County Commission just passed by putting it as item 41 on the Nov. 08 ballot. Supposedly it will be limited to Hoof & Mouth disease.

They promised the public falsely that it would support "free cancer care", when it's really just using humans as guinea pigs. No surgery, no rooms, no nurses with fluffy pillows. Just chemical pill roulette. If you live, the drug companies make billions, if you die, your family gets a Hallmark sympathy card.

3. Yesterday I received a notice from my Seven Hills Homes Assn. that the state of Ks. uses TAXPAYER DOLLARS to live-trap, tag and RELOCATE Canada geese from here in Shawnee to WESTERN KANSAS! Yeah, I bet the state legislators out there love that. Canada geese (as I call them, "the illegal immigrants who won't go home") harbor ticks that harbor Lyme Disease aka deer syphilus, which is proven to spread via human blood, semen, breast milk and tears. IN OTHER WORDS, AN STD--a sexually transmitted disease. Contact is "Andy the Wildlife Biologist" at the local office of the Ks. Dept. of Wildlife and Parks, 913/894-9113.

4. You know, if you could contract an STD while sitting on a park bench in Westport, the KC STAR and the TV stations would lead with that story. But when an STD starts at Theatre in the Park, the off leash dog run or the YMCA Daycamp in Shawnee Mission Park, then they ignore it.

5. The trees are budding out. It's time to REMOVE ALL THE DEER IN SHAWNEE MISSION PARK AS WELL AS THE CANADA GEESE.

6. If you had a tumor, you would not tell your doctor to just remove half of it. And if your house was on fire, you would not tell the Shawnee Fire Dept. to just extinguish 3/4ths of the flames. You'd say, gosh, I'm sorry, but we have to remove the source of what will kill you if we ignore it.

7. Mike Meadors of the JoCo Parks & Rec. Dept. admitted Feb. 5 he had staff remove the posted warnings abt. Rocky Mtn. Spotted Fever at Shawnee Mission Park. It's "under review".

8. See the 13 min. film clip on UnderOurSkin.com, or borrow the reviewer's copy from me.

I am working as a volunteer, since I saw this documentary at the Ks. Intl. Film Festival.
Tracy Thomas

Now here are those reports:
Plum Island
Lyme disease is not new to the U.S. In 1894 a researcher from a Massachusetts museum collected and preserved white-footed mice. One hundred years later, Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria was found in their pelts. The recent increase in the deer and tick populations have helped this disease to become more prevalent in the past few years. Many people believe that biological warfare experimentation on Plum Island is responsible for triggering the rapid rise in the incidence of Lyme disease. Plum Island is very near New York, which is the state with the most reported cases of the disease. It is also very close to Lyme, CT, where the disease was first discovered.
Denise Lang said on p. 6 of her book, Coping With Lyme Disease, “John Loftus, … under President Jimmy Carter, served as a member of the newly formed Office of Special Investigations. In his book, The Belarus Secret: The Nazi Question in America, Loftus, an attorney given the highest security clearances available, recounts how he was instructed to go through long-buried and confidential war records, and how he came across documents of Nazi germ-warfare scientists who experimented with infected ticks dropped from planes to spread diseases. In an effort to combat these carrier ticks, our own military may have tested them in a secured laboratory on Plum Island, off the coast of Long Island. Recently declassified CIA memos describe a project in the 1950’s called MKNaomi, whereby various biologicals were unleashed on unsuspecting portions of the U.S. population to determine whether they were viable Cold War weapons. Although ticks were not specifically mentioned, it is possible that some escaped and were carried by waterfowl to the mainland. This theory has been supported by several Plum Island employees.”
An article titled “Report Cites Security Flaws at Plum Island,” by Daniel J. Wakin, appeared in the October 19, 2003 issue of The New York Times. This article was not about ticks but instead discussed security problems on the island. The government operates an Animal Disease Center on Plum Island which researches animal diseases, such as foot-and-mouth disease and swine fever. The article said a laptop computer disappeared from the biological containment building. Officials did not believe it was contaminated with any hazardous germs nor contained any sensitive information, but its disappearance was a matter of concern. “Think about it,” said Marty Glennon, lawyer for the union which represents the workers at the facility, “If a laptop can walk out of a biocontainment area, how about a vial of pathogens?”
The article discussed a recent federal report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) about security problems at the island. The GAO report, titled “Combating Bioterrorism: Actions Needed to Improve Security at the Plum Island Animal Center,” found: door sensors and alarms that didn’t work; poor outside lighting; armed guards didn’t have permission to use their weapons; foreign students there didn’t have background checks; some scientists had not had a background check updated for over 10 years; and 8 foreign scientists were given free reign in the biocontainment area without adequate checks.
Several legislators have expressed concern over security there. Michelle Petrovich, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which took over the facility from the Department of Agriculture in June, said “We are continually assessing, reviewing, and enhancing security measures at the Plum Island facility.” The GAO report said some improvements had already been made.
Summarized by Kathy White

Plum Island Books
By Kathy White
Reprinted from the Nov.,2007 issue of the Prime Time Lyme newsletter

There are 2 famous places in the United States known as Plum Island. One is Plum Island, Massachusetts, a beautiful resort island that has a wildlife refuge.
The other is Plum Island, New York, an island off the tip of Long Island. In 1954 the Department of Agriculture established an Animal Disease Center on the island to study diseases that could be used in biological warfare to infect animals. The army was on the island before then. The island is accessible only by ferry boat and is off-limits to the general public. It is now operated by the Department of Homeland Security.
Plum Island, NY, is just a few miles from Lyme and Old Lyme, Connecticut, where Lyme disease was first discovered in 1975. It is also close to Long Island, where the West Nile virus epidemic began in the U.S. Many people suspect that it is more than coincidence that these two diseases were first discovered so close to Plum Island. The government has admitted that Lyme disease is a biological warfare disease. The government plans to do research on the disease as a biological warfare agent at its labs in San Antonio, Texas, and in Colorado. Some people wonder why there are lone star ticks in New Jersey, a tick that was previously considered to belong in the southern states. Some people suspect these ticks might have been used in experiments on Plum Island.
Three books have been written about Plum Island. One is Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory, by Michael C. Carroll. It was published in 2004. It's a documentary about the lab at Plum Island and problems with security there. It says Lyme disease, West Nile virus, ebola, and other diseases were brought from other countries to be studied on Plum Island. The author speculates that diseases accidentally escaped the island. Some Lyme patients have found this book fascinating.
The other 2 books are novels, and it can be difficult to distinguish fact from fiction in these books. The first novel is Plum Island, by Nelson DeMille, first published in 1996. It tells of a New York City policeman who investigates the murder of two scientists on Plum Island. These scientists had been working with ebola and anthrax. The book says diseases were genetically altered on the island. Although it is 464 pages long, this book has been popular with people who like murder mysteries. It is now available in paperback at www. amazon.com for $7.99.
The other novel is The Poison Plum, by Les Roberts, published in August, 2007. It tells the story of a woman who got a job as a microbiologist at Plum Island. Shortly after moving to the area near Plum Island, her 8-year-old son became seriously ill with a mysterious disease. This novel focuses on Lyme disease and poses the questions of whether the lab was begun by a Nazi scientist working for our government, whether diseases are being genetically engineered, and whether there is a government cover-up to deny the severity of the Lyme disease epidemic.
All three of these books make interesting reading to people who are fascinated by conspiracy stories and mysteries. They may be upsetting to people who get emotional easily. They are all
available at www. amazon.com and may also be in bookstores and libraries.
Whether experiments on Plum Island have anything to do with the current Lyme disease epidemic is debatable. We know that Lyme disease has been in this country for at least 100 years. Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria, the cause of Lyme disease, have been found on mouse pelts that were stored in a Massuchetts museum in 1894. The current Lyme disease epidemic could be caused by the huge increase in the number of deer in recent years, resulting in an increase in the tick population. One deer can have several hundred ticks on it at one time, and one female tick lays several thousand eggs after feeding on a deer. The recent large increase in the number of Canadian geese in our country could also have an impact, since they can carry infected ticks throughout the nation.

What I just told the JoCo Commissioners

2009-02-13T12:38:00.002-06:00

Annabeth and gentlemen of the BOCC:
We need to remove ALL the deer, not just half of them, from Shawnee Mission Park.
It will still take 3 years to get rid of the deadly ticks.
The longer you putz around, the more you are endangering the public.
After you've been put on legal notice.
This is about disease, not "being sensitive to the deer." (or the Canada geese, those illegal immigrants who won't leave.)

NOW is the time to man up and take care of OUR species.
Let's learn something from Peanut Corporation of America. And Phillip Morris and JP Lorrilard, the tobacco companies.
Tracy

I stand corrected re Nadya Suleman qualities of the ticks!

2009-02-13T12:26:00.001-06:00

The secretary of the Lyme Assn. of Greater KC write to educate me:
Tracy,
A tick lays eggs only once during its life. The female drops off a deer and lays about 3,000 eggs. Then it dies. One deer can be host to hundreds of ticks in a year, which is why one deer can be responsible for the birth of more than a million new ticks each year. One tick doesn't lay a million eggs.
Kathy

JoCo Parks Director Meadors attempts a coverup on Lyme

2009-02-11T14:59:00.004-06:00

Last Thursday, I appeared with 3 Lyme Assn. of GKC members before the Board of County Commissioners, warning them that Theatre in the Park, the YMCA Day Camp and the offleash dog park at Shawnee Mission Park are unsafe.

In the hallway afterward, Mike Meadors, the Director of Johnson County Parks & Rec Division, approached me, and said, I quote, "If I get rid of the deer right away, will you retract your warning about Theatre in the Park?"

Of course, that would be a coverup, because it has been proven elsewhere that it takes 3 years to rid an area of lyme disease infections once ALL the deer are removed. And of course here in lofty Johnson County, they don't really want to remove ALL the deer (favorite hosts of ticks that carry lyme disease.) They just want to lower the deer population.

Now who is Mike Meadors? Well, he's the man who tried to con the public into voting for Big Soccer. He's the bureaucrat who "negotiated" for the land, with Annabeth Surbaugh's biggest campaign fundraisers, Larry Winn III of the famed development fixer law firm, Polsinelli. Mike Meadors is such a terrible negotiator that he allowed Winn to DOUBLE THE COST OF THE LAND TO THE TAXPAYERS.

In Governor Blagoovich's day, we call that kind of payoff "Pay for Play." Annabeth Surbaugh's campaigns were largely funded by Winn, John Peterson and the Polsinelli development lawyers. And Steve Rose of course. And IN RETURN THEY EXPECTED TO GET SOME BIG PROFITS FROM THE TAXPAYERS!

Were it not for Finn Bullers of the KC Star FINALLY AT THE LAST SUNDAY BEFORE THE ELECTION reporting this land cost doubling scheme, perhaps Mike Meadors would have delivered a big win for Annabeth. $8 million in double profits for rocky ground surrounding a creek, that is virtually unbuildable without vast taxpayer subsidy.

So NOW what is Mike Meadors up to at Parks & Rec? Covering up that Shawnee Mission Park is full of deadly ticks that cause lyme disease, the modern new epidemic that is far more prevalent than AIDS. And now even the short term antibiotic cure no longer works. So--the public is endangered.

Meadors wanted to hush up my testimony--because when 20,000 families with coolers and blankets hears about this, Theatre in the Park will be toast for 3 years at least.

And if you know ANYONE who takes their dogs to the off leash area, stop them! Call Ron Vanlerberg to see his photo of a deer taken in Shawnee Mission Park, black--because it is 70% covered in ticks. Note: each tick lays 1 million eggs per year. Do the math.

Last Thursday Mike Meadors admitted to the president of the Lyme Assn. of GKC, Ila Utley, that HIS STAFF REMOVED THE WARNING ABOUT ROCKY MTN. SPOTTED FEVER from the entrance to the dog park! Tore if down. "We're reviewing it," Meadors admitted. That's why we couldn't get a photo of the warning. They took it down. But that doesn't mean the danger is gone--JUST THE PUBLIC LEGAL WARNING!

JoCo Government

Lyme Activists Warn BOCC: Theatre in the Park is Dangerous!

2009-02-04T15:28:00.004-06:00

For immediate release: draft1

First event:
Lyme Disease Activists to Challenge Johnson County Commission –
Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009 from 9:30am to 9:45am.

“Shawnee Mission Park is dangerous—no longer safe for dogs or families attending Theatre in the Park. It is a haven for crippling Lyme Disease, an STD. JoCo government and the cities of Shawnee and Lenexa need to act immediately, not ‘study the problem.’ Quit placating the PETA terrorists—kick the ticks (and the deer) out of Shawnee Mission Park IMMEDIATELY before more people are crippled or disabled this summer!”

Who: Three members of the Lyme Assn. of Greater KC & Tracy Thomas, political activist

When: Thursday, Feb. 5 promptly at 9:30am,
(during the public comment section before the regular agenda commences)
About 15 minutes total at the most, since it is not on the agenda.

Where: Johnson County Admin Building, 111 S. Cherry, Olathe KS 66061
3rd floor, main commission room

Why: To go on the record, urging Johnson County govt. to act NOW—before warm weather,
to suppress the spread of Lyme Disease, and to warn families planning to sit on the
grass at Theatre in the Park or to bring their dogs to the Open Area Dog Park that they
are endangering their health.

To urge the BOCC to act immediately, instead of delays and worrying about protests
from terrorist organizations like PETA.

“We need to look out for our species first. And then our dogs. Deer are no longer our innocent friends. They are harbingers of disease, and are no longer compatible in Shawnee Mission Park. Just like US Airways learned when Canada geese sent their plane into the Hudson River, in Johnson County, it’s time for the deer to go—and to be recognized for what they have become: dangerous.” --Tracy Thomas.

Lyme Disease is a more wide-spread epidemic than HIV/AIDS.
The US government (bullied politically by right wing anti-gay zealots) ignored AIDS until it invaded America’s blood supply.
Lyme Disease is present & being caught in Johnson County, in Shawnee Mission Park.
(Some people even believe Lyme, named for a government biological laboratory in Lyme Connecticut, was the unfortunate result of an accidental release of a sexually-transmitted bio-terrorism agent.)

Now the government is dragging its feet on diagnosing or treating or addressing Lyme Disease, because of pressure and corruption from drug companies and insurance companies who are waiting for a vaccine to be developed. According to the news documentary film, Under Our Skin, (we have a film reviewer’s copy and there are movie clips on www.UnderOurSkin.com), nine of the 14 doctors writing the treatment specs for insurance companies were on the take, and thus financially induced to recommend against IV treatment, hoping for a vaccine solution that has yet to be approved.

Lyme Disease is a spirochete, similar to gonorrhea, and thus sexually transmittable. An STD. But it is transmitted to Victim 1 humans from ticks or mosquitos, like the Black Plague (typhoid fever) that wiped out one third of the population during the European Middle Ages.

The lyme bacillus spirochetes flow from the diseased tick into the host victim’s blood stream. Then after a brief flu, these spiral shaped bacteria burrow in, attacking the brain, heart, liver and other organs, etc. Memory losses, paralysis and painful crippling effects often migrate around the body, ebbing and flowing. The movie also documents the dangers to any fetus. Lyme and its affiliated brother STD’s including the Rocky Mtn. Spotted Fever that was posted at the Dog Park--can only be diagnosed by a special blood test not available here in KC, (but in Palo Alto CA) because if the blood is not freshly examined, a cloaking shield forms, preventing the observation of the spirochetes under a standard microscope. That’s why many are tested locally and sent away without a positive diagnosis or any treatment. The local test does not work. Victims are told they are hypochondriacal, or misdiagnosed with MS, ALS, Alzheimers, Parkinsons, EB or CFS.

One of the four lyme-literate MD's in greater Kansas City is Dr. Barry. His Plaza office has a one year waiting list for new patients.

Lyme and other tick and mosquito related diseases, including Rocky Mtn. Spotted Fever, is spread by ticks on deer. And now too, mosquitoes. So now your yard is not safe.

* There are 8 times too many deer in Shawnee Mission Park. (KC Star, Dec. 18) (200 per square mile instead of 25.) They have defoliated the park out of hunger. The County’s stated plan to manage this is “about a year away”.

* The Dog Park at Shawnee Mission Park was recently posted as dangerous for a related disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever—but those signs were mysteriously torn down last week. And not replaced! Was this an official act? Someone please investigate. And repost.

* We have slides of one family’s trip to that Dog Park. The dog was so infested with ticks that they treated him and the dead tick bodies filled an entire JAR.

* Lyme often is misdiagnosed as MS, ALS, Parkinsons, Alzheimers, Epstein Barr or Chronic Fatique Syndrome. These diseases are on the rise in Johnson County and the US.
And the medical community tells patients they are “untreatable”.
Whereas Late Stage Lyme Disease IS treatable! With IV drip antibiotics. But that is quite expensive, and insurance companies do not want to pay for it.

* Early onset Lyme, if caught, is often treated with a 2 week dose of antibiotics, but as a member of the Lyme Assn. of GKC will testify, her case was resistant, the doctor refused to extend her prescription, and she then developed Late Stage Lyme Disease, causing her to be disabled and lose her job as a special needs teacher in KCK.

Johnson County Government, led by Chairman Annabeth Surbaugh and the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) (www.jocogov.org) refuses to admit there is dangerous Lyme Disease in Johnson County, including the county-operated Shawnee Mission Park which is located in Shawnee and Lenexa.

When they refuse to put an issue on the agenda, (as they have with this issue), the BOCC only allows the public to speak for 5 minute turns at the beginning of their weekly board meetings.

The new chairman of the JoCo Parks & Rec Board, Gary Montague, (retired City Manager of Shawnee after a distinguished 29 year career) told the Star in December that it may take an entire YEAR to finalize a “plan” to manage the deer population.

He reported this week that the cities of Shawnee and Lenexa are “considering an ordinance” to allow a controlled hunt, by gun or bow and arrow, to cull the deer herd, but “these things take time.”

The JoCo Health Dept. also claimed (last year I believe) that a crippled teenage victim of Lyme could not possibly have contracted the disease in Johnson County and must have visited Missouri! We have at least 4 certified cases of families who contracted Lyme Disease at Shawnee Mission Park.

Earlier this month, the Cities of Shawnee and Lenexa, as well as the County of Johnson County Ks. Received official notice of what in legal circles is termed, “Notice of an Attractive Nuisance”, of deer, bearing ticks carrying Lyme Disease, on that property. That notice was sent by political activist and former Shawnee Council President Tracy Thomas. The effect of that legal notice by a citizen is that henceforth, if and when lyme disease is legally found to exist in Shawnee Mission Park, victims have stronger legal rights for filing financial claims against the county and cities that have failed to remedy a situation where they received official notice.

Many victims of Advanced Lyme Disease have spent over $150,000 on medical treatments. Some have lost their homes.

Here’s the good news:
Lyme ticks like deer more than humans. They don’t generally jump off deer, which is their host of choice, (like chocolate) to jump onto a human or a dog.

Here’s the bad news:
The tick drops off the deer onto the grass. And lays 8000 eggs!
This happens several times per year.
Those baby tick nymphs carry the lyme disease to the next host or generation.
In greater KC, next year, our trash giant, Deffenbaugh Disposal Service, will quit accepting grass clippings for free—it will cost $1 or more per bag to bag your grass.
Therefore, many more families and governments will stop bagging their grass.
Out of economic necessity, they will mulch-cut their lawns, leaving the clippings in place.
Deer like the smell of C02, so they like to hang around parks where humans sit.
Like the lawn at Theatre in the Park.
Infant ticks like to perch on top of these blades of grass. Where the audience sits.
This is how this epidemic will spread.

A small minority of obsessed people are more concerned with other species than the human one.
They are known terrorists. One of their organizations is PETA.
They disrupt government hearings and threaten elected officials.

I have been on the receiving end of their terrorism when I was on the Shawnee City Council, and we were voting to allow a controlled hunt on private property, the tree nursery on the Kaw owned by Hermes Nursery. The deer crossed the river and were eating 100 trees a night.

Notes:
The new chairman of the Johnson County Park Board, Gary Montague, has been invited to attend, and meet with the Lyme ladies afterward, even tho our testimony is not on the agenda. He lives at 6904 Cottonwood in Shawnee, 66216. Home phone 631-4097.
email: garryanddonna@everestkc.net

For more information:
Tracy Thomas
913/962-1100
tracyadv@gmail.com
www.AllThingsJoCo.blogspot.com
13022 W. 76 Ter, Shawnee KS 66216

My letter to Dennis Moore's web site today

2009-02-02T12:28:00.003-06:00

Note: never mail your Congressman. (Anthrax has slowed all mail to 2 weeks)
Use email: Ours is: moore.house.gov

Feb. 2, 2009

Congressman Dennis Moore
1727 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Congressman Moore,

I agree with that screaming guy on TV, Cramer, that this is not a true stimulus package, it is a bailout for municipalities and states.
It will not really stimulate our economy, it is just addl. debt.

You should vote no and start from a fresh screen.

Fix the housing situation, change the credit rules.
Limit all bailout takers to $400k in salary per year.
Fix the credit availability.
Do NOT fund roads, etc. The arts? stop this insanity! That is not creating NEW jobs. You would only be funding a prolongation of the failed strategies and careers of the past.

Some members of the Obama administration are calling this term "our moon shot." Well, the proposed stimulus package is really "mooning the public"! It is an insult. Hey, I run an ad agency, and I know spin when I see it. This package offends my intelligence.

Read Harry Dent Organization, talk with Rodney Johnson there as I have. This is at LEAST a 5 to 7 year depression. Fix credit, and retrain people for the NEW jobs. Building crap in 90 days, and it will be crap if you rush it, is not how we have ever built anything. Bandaging the problem is not a solution, and shame on you if you play along with this.

In the union states (not KS) all this building will just be an excuse to pay overtime to union workers as a payoff for their votes. We can't afford the luxury of this backscratching.

Blow up the Stimulus Plan and start with a new plan. And it is not the Republican "tax cut" solution either. Take your time and do it right.

Also, do not confirm Daschle. $128,000 is not a "mistake" on your taxes, it is fraud. Find someone else. Let's not toss integrity out the window.

Sincerely,

Tracy Thomas

Official warning of Attractive Nuisance: Deer in Shawnee Mission Park

2009-01-23T17:23:00.000-06:00

Jan. 23, 2009

Email to:
Mike Press, for Johnson County
Carol Gonzales for City of Shawnee
Eric Wade, for City of Lenexa
Gary Montague, for JoCo Park & Rec Board
Kansas City Lyme Association

RE: NOTICE OF ATTRACTIVE NUISANCE

You are hereby put on official written notice that the overpopulation of deer at Shawnee Mission Park should be documented as an attractive nuisance. They should be removed from the park now.

The deer population has been documented in the Kansas City Star at already 8 times the national average of the appropriate size of a herd. There are 200 deer per acre instead of the recommended 25.

Not only are they damaging the flora and fauna of Shawnee Mission Park, the true danger is that deer harbor deer ticks, which are documented to carry Lyme Disease, which causes agonizing health consequences including arthritis, fatigue, mental problems, etc.

According to the new documentary, Under Our Skin (and I have a reviewer’s copy if you would please hold a viewing), Lyme Disease is epidemic in the United States, and unless it is treated in the first two weeks, can remain dormant for many years but then present as Advanced Lyme Disease. Advanced Lyme Disease is often diagnosed as: MS, ALS, and Alzheimers Disease—all epidemic, and often left untreated, but causing terrible disabling effects on its sufferers.

I hereby request that the County and the two cities that govern Shawnee Mission Park (Shawnee and Lenexa) IMMEDIATELY TAKE ACTION TO DRAMATICALLY CULL OR ELIMINATE THE DEER POPULATION IN SHAWNEE MISSION PARK.

Please do not negotiate with terrorists, including members of PETA. And do not think that their preposterous suggestions like birth control for deer or “relocation” programs will solve the problem.

This problem will not go away. On the Appalachian Trail, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, there no deer in 1936—they had been hunted out. Thirteen deer were reintroduced to that park, and by 1998, the herd had grown to 5000. (Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods, page 139.) Deer used to just be a threat to wildlife. Now they are a threat to the families that use Shawnee Mission Park.

Ironically, it was Gary Montague as my former City manager who instructed me, in the 1990’s to document any Attractive Nuisance, because then, if there is a claim that comes in after that written notice, cities and counties are actually financially liable if they did not take action to protect the public.

Page 2 of 2, Jan. 23, 2009

We dealt with an Attractive Nuisance alert in Shawnee, when the city lovingly planted yellow daylilies and prairie grasses in the medians along Blackfish Parkway/75th Street at Richards. The median at 75th and Richards was opposite the turning lane leading to my neighborhood Seven Hills Homes development. Unfortunately, the landscaped traffic island was situated on a curve, so the plantings totally obscured the view of oncoming traffic. It was an Attractive Nuisance that was eventually going to cause an accident for drivers attempting to turn south on Richards Road.

Wisely, once he received the written notice, City Manager Montague took immediate action: he had Parks Director Neil Holman’s fine crew remove the plantings and replace them with pavers.
We lost the day lilies but our lives and those of children in our cars were spared.

It has been reported that Johnson County is taking its sweet time –up to a YEAR--with surveys, studies, meetings, negotiations and what not, trying to placate PETA/People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They cannot be placated. And every day that you allow the deer to breed, serving as hosts to Lyme Disease and Advanced Lyme Disease, is a delay that puts the taxpayers at financial risk for a claim –and the citizens at risk of exposure to a crippling disease.

Please do not delay. I urge you to move with velocity—the next 30 days while the leaves are still off the trees, so hunting is safe. You know what you need to do, and in fact you know what you INTEND to do! Pull the trigger (or the bow with the arrows) now. Please solve this health problem before the park is brimming with families this spring, needing free recreation.

Sincerely,

Tracy Thomas
Former Shawnee City Council President
Moderator of AllThingsJoCo.blogspot.com
Citizen activist and taxpayer volunteer to control reckless spending.
tracyadv@gmail.com
913/962-1100

Many novel solutions to deer overpopulation and Lyme disease

2009-01-16T18:20:00.003-06:00

Idea:
Deer are no longer our friends. Neither are the Canadian geese. They are a menace. Just ask the 156 survivors of US Airways that the geese forced into the icy waters of the Hudson River.

This article is from my favorite newspaper in the known universe, Dan's Papers in the Hamptons, on Long Island, NY.
If I could write like Dan, I would just abandon all of you here in Johnson County KS and go work for Dan Rattiner. But since I don't yet, I have dedicated this year to eradicating Lyme disease from Shawnee Mission Park here in Kansas. Remember: in America, we don't negotiate with terrorists. So that includes the PETA broads, those menopausal psycho women who think birth control for deer would work. It won't, not against Lyme disease. And relocation of a known threat is not a loving act, either.

We need our Johnson County Board of County Commissioners to wise up real fast. I have put them, plus the cities of Shawnee and Lenexa on notice: the overpopulation of deer at Shawnee Mission Park is what lawyers call: an attractive nuisance. The governmental bodies have now been warned. In writing. See how simple it is to lead?? So now, the law says if there are ANY accidents or disease outbreaks, and they have not addressed a KNOWN DANGER, now these governmental bodies can successfully be sued.

It's time to kill the deer, while the leaves are off the trees so they can be seen, while it's too cold for the public to use the park.
We don't need any stinking studies. We need elected officials and park board members to wake up and protect us from rampant exposure to crippling Lyme Disease!
Tracy

And tell those PETA women (especially the ones who are in loveless marriages, who don't shave their legs or under their arms) that I don't need any more of their threatening Hallmark notecards like I got when the Shawnee City Council harvested the deer from Hermes Nursery grounds on the river in Shawnee. One woman wrote, from Rhode Island (they're very networked, those PETA broads) --she said she hoped I would now suffer from chronic back pain and die a painful death. Now THAT is the kind of PETA terrorism I'm not gonna tolerate any longer. This time, I'll have them arrested for terrorist behavior.

tt (Not as nice as Dan Rattiner, or as clever, but I get points for determination)

Deer Dear

On Shelter Island with Deer Brushing, Ticks, Treehuggers, Hunters
By Dan Rattiner

The deer are everywhere in the Hamptons and the North Fork, but they don't know if they are coming or going. Year after year, the humans living on the same property hold meetings to determine what to do with them. And the number of different opinions seems to match the number of people who come to the meetings. The deer are a terrible nuisance. But they are cute.

There are those who want to hunt all the deer down and kill them with guns. There are those who want to catch them, dart them with sleeping medicine, put them in trucks and ship them to the Adirondacks so they can wake up wondering what the hell happened. There are those who want to castrate the boy deers. There are those who want to inject them with medicine so they cannot reproduce, there are those who want to shoot them but with bows and arrows, there are those who want to leave food out for them so they don't starve during the hard winter, there are those who want to fly overhead with infrared cameras and count them, and there are those who want them left entirely alone so they and your shrubs, flowers and trees can just fight it out, as perhaps mother nature intended.

Any and all of these things are in effect in various combinations in villages and towns throughout the East End. And now two of them have clashed.

Apparently, there is this group on Shelter Island that brushes the deer. Really. It must feel really good if you are a deer to have that done. This group builds large and elaborate but gentle traps in the woods that consist of big cages that if you are a deer you walk into if you see a little food in a bowl in the back of the trap inside.

You lean over and start munching, and behind you, the door gently shuts. Then the people begin brushing you down. It feels really good, and what they are doing is brushing you with this liquid pesticide that keeps ticks off you.

I am not making this up.

I am not exactly sure why it is they are doing this either, except that either it is because they want to calm down the deer (it is hunting season), or because they don't want the deer to get sick from the tick bites, or because they want to keep the deer from spreading the ticks to new areas in the Hamptons, where there have never been ticks before. It's one of those.

In any case, the tick brushers - they let the deer go after they brush them, of course - have come into conflict with the deer meat testers, who examine deer meat to see if there are any bad chemicals in it, a thing they do because there is this other group of people who have arranged for deer that have been shot to be butchered up, frozen and then brought to homeless shelters to be served to the less fortunate.

So they test the deer and they find there is this poison in it at a level that could be harmful to humans, if eaten. How about that?

By the way, with the current economic slowdown, there are going to be new job openings for people who would like to be hired to do yoga with the deer, set fire to the deer, tell the deer jokes, teach them to tap dance, and to listen to their problems, as long as you have a degree in psychiatry. Oh, and we also need people to teach them not to run into the road to be hit by cars. And people to teach them TO run into the roads to be hit by cars - only during hunting season, of course.

Deer and Taxes: Putting County government on notice re Pay for Play and Lyme

2009-01-15T12:39:00.005-06:00

Tracy Thomas, 13022 W. 76 Terrace, Shawnee Comments to BOCC 1/15/09

Good morning and welcome to the 2 new commissioners—especially my former colleague and mayor, you, Comm. Allen. You have arrived just in the nick of time.

I am here about 2 things. They say everything comes down to death and taxes. Well, in Johnson County, more specifically, that might mean DEER and taxes. So:
1. Shoot a majority of the deer immediately in Shawnee Mission Park.
2, And don’t raise our taxes. I’ll take them in reverse order.

On the issue of don’t raise our taxes, I stand here representing the 39% of citizens who call themselves conservatives—plus now also what I call the Nouveau Poor—those middle class families who were not blessed, as I was, with an entrepreneurial muscle—who have been lulled by our educational system into being DEPENDENT upon others for a paycheck. Which they might lose.

My home is average, the county average in fact. Around $250,000. And it lost $15,000 in value last year.

Do not raise our taxes or our fees in the next four years. The country’s leading economic forecasters will quietly admit this recession/depression will last at least 5 to 7 years.

YOUR style of spending will not bail us out of it. You do not work for the people in this building. You work for WE the people. If you raise our taxes, we will take away your cushy jobs. You need to do LESS with LESS. Cut back. Get rigorous. We don’t need 19 mapmakers. As our grandparents did, make do.

Finn Bullers’ brilliant story on the audit of the JoCo Health Department showed this well. For 12 years, the county has operated like the Church of the Wellmeaning Rescue. Secret lists of friends who get services for free. Million dollar subsidies of the state for home health inspections. For years, Johnson County has been run like Beta Sigma Phi, the sorority for gals who didn’t go to college. Annabeth Surbaugh and Johnna Lingle were world class meddlers, being heroes and rescuers to their friends and employees—but they did this using the Taxpayer’s Money. That has got to stop.

For 6 months, when Melinda Carlson was the County Administrator, that stopped. She forbid these biddy hens to cluck around the building talking secretly to department heads and undermining her authority.

Well, that Commission drove her out, and hired our ambulance EMT guy, Mike Press. Cluck cluck. As he says, “I know how to count to a majority.” And that is how he kept his job.

It’s a new day today. You 7 commissioners need to change your job description from Enabler to Auditor. We need 7 Claire McCaskills, tasking a new county manager to cut, cut, cut. Not spend, spend, spend. Do less. Spend less.

We the People will be watching you. This new Obama bailout will be scrutinized. We know who wrote the checks to elect you. And we will not tolerate any Pay for Play bailout projects here in Johnson County.

Second:
The deer in Shawnee Mission Park are as out of control as your spending is. There are 200 per acre, when the national standard is 25. You need to cull the herd NOW, not a year from now. I phoned Gary Montague and asked why he told Finn Bullers the “plan” will take a year. He was my City Manager, a brilliant man. But he hates reporters who try to bully him into commiting to a time frame. So he said next year.

Here is why YOU as commissioners need to step in and move that up.
1. The leaves are off the trees—it’s easier to shoot accurately.
2. It’s cold and our citizens are not using the park now. If you dilly dally around with hearings with the unreasonable PETA people who can never be placated, it will be summer—closing the park then for this procedure will deprive families of free recreation when they most need it.
3. The PETA women suggest impossible alternatives like birth control for deer. It won’t work.
4. Deer are no longer our friends. Bambi is now a giant rat with really gorgeous legs. Bambi carries Lyme Disease. Think of that as Bubonic Plague. Do you want to rename Shawnee Mission Park Bubonic Park?
5. If this were bubonic plague and you as a commission took a year to make a plan, you should be impeached.

Here’s your basic plan: Close the park NOW. Notify the neighbors, and also use police and bullhorns and sirens. On a school day, post the volunteer trained hunters on the perimeter and carefully shoot toward the center so you don’t hit the neighbors or their windows. Donate the meat to the poor. Reopen the park.”

According to the documentary film “Under Our Skin”,
Late stage Lyme Disease is:
a. epidemic in the US
b. a sexually transmittable disease because it is a spirochete.
c. Often misdiagnosed as ALS, Alzheimers or MS.
d. Many people believe it was a biochemical agent that escaped from the government labs at Lyme, Connecticut.
e. Late stage Lyme is here in Johnson County. My herbal therapist in Merriam has it—now she must crawl across the floor in agony.

Our Johnson County Health Department told the president of the KC Lyme Disease Foundation that her daughter in Red Oak, in Shawnee could not possibly have acquired Lyme in JOHNSON County, that she “must have gone to Missouri.” That is preposterous. That is a coverup. That is refusing to do your jobs to protect the health of our citizens.

Thank you.

Notes:
These comments were delivered this morning to the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners' meeting.

Therefore, they are officially on notice about a disease threat if they fail to act regarding the deer overpopulation at Shawnee Mission Park. And about citizen review of any potential "Pay for Play" pork bailout projects they want to submit to the Obama administration.

I have a reviewers' preview copy of the nationally acclaimed documentary, "Under Our Skin" re Lyme disease.
I have the name and number for several Lyme disease victims in Johnson County, as well as the KC area Lyme Disease association.

And I have the contact for Rodney Johnson, at HS Dent Organization, from Florida, regarding the economic forecast that this "recession" will last at least 5 to 7 years, and that 18 months is preposterously optimistic. Any government or organization that attempts to tax us short term with the false promise of a short-term rally is DECEIVING THE PUBLIC TO LINE THEIR OWN POCKETS.

That goes for Johnson County, the state of Ks or Missouri, any local city, Union Station, etc. (which is actually contemplating a ballot issue in 2009!) It is time to hunker down and mothball some behemoths, it is time to slash spending and live within our means, and that means operating ONLY with the LOWER revenues that the counties and cities and states will receive because our houses have been devalued, and salaries and sales taxes will be lower. We have NO business raising taxes to subsidize the reputations of elected officials.

The Dent organization is the one that coaches and advises the pre-eminent financial planners around the country about economic and strategic forecasting. I confirmed that not just in KC but with millionnaires in the Hamptons and in Ohio. Rodney was just speaking in KC earlier this week, through David Curry's financial services company IQSquared. They are not a client. I just mention it because I was privileged to be able to quiz Rodney Johnson personally for 2 hours this week.

Tracy Thomas
www.AllThingsJoCo.blogspot.com
Tracy Thomas Advertising, Marketing & PR
13022 W. 76 Ter.
Shawnee KS 66216
913/962-1100
www.GoWithTracy.com
tracyadv@gmail.com

How do Shawnee Mission schools rank--don't trust the homeseller

2008-12-22T10:26:00.006-06:00

Let's check out our school systems and how they rank. Monday, on the Today Show, the smart real estate lady with grey hair (not that perky young chick Jean Chatsky who never really says anything--chatsky--how aptly named) anyway, the real estate lady said that home sellers lie and always claim their home is in "the best school district". And that real estate agents lie too. Imagine that.

But now there are websites to verify. They include: www.homefair.com and www.greatschools.net.

I'm on vacation playing Auntie Mame with my nieces, going to BuildABear, so perhaps someone else can look up and compare all the districts here in Johnson County--and report back here. Shawnee Mission, Olathe, Desoto. What have I missed? Monticello? Is that a district? (Hey, I only have dogs, and I live across from a fine Catholic grade school--that is MY selling strategy!) Oh yes: ladidah: Blue Valley! I really want to see numbers for SM v. BV. BEFORE the Ks. Legislature whacks the budget.

That's what I want for Christmas! A research elf!

So thank you, elf. And may you get what you want for Christmas or Chanukkah, too.

I leave you with this:
Monday on TV they showed lighting the first candle in WDC on the federal menorrah. Gee, I didn't know we had one. Question, does the White House now also have a mezuzzah on the doorpost? I have loved mezuzzahs since my high school friend, Judy Levine, explained hers, and why she had to touch it before entering her house.
I love the idea of touching the embedded scriptures, making contact with spirit, when entering a home. It sets an intention. But I'm just sayin...I must have missed some news.

Who cares if Bailout Bob Regnier is a taxpayer pickpocket?

2008-12-22T10:17:00.003-06:00

I care. And so should the voters. Because not only is Bob Regnier el presidente for life and chairman potentate and Grand Poobah of Bank of Blue Valley (his Daddy's money.) The first local bank to take the bailout. $21.75 million of free money, or as Bob said, "That's pretty cheap capital."

And not only is Bob Regnier is chairman of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. And not only was Bob Regnier the mastermind behind the horribly deceptive ballot wording on the misguided and overreaching Research Triangle Vote here in JoCo Nov. 4.

He's also now scheming to do a second taxpayer bailout of Union Station--in 2009!!!

You see, Bob loves spending Other People's Money. He can't manage his way out of a mayonnaise jar. But he loves the accolades, he loves being praised by the kissup wannabe leaders who are publishers or who write editorials for the Star and the Sun.

It's like Watergate. Follow the money. Whatever Bob Regnier is for, he always wants the taxpayer to finance making him the hero.

Beware. Union Station Bailout II is coming. And Bob is driving the getaway car.

Did Bailout Bob Regnier profiteer last Xmas, before we gave him a tax subsidy this year?

2008-12-22T10:06:00.007-06:00

Are we rewarding blowhards for bad management practices? I want someone to check out Bank of Blue Valley, and find out if in 2007, Bailout Bob Regnier got a big fat bonus. Since he was the first KC area banker to accept a bailout this month, a whopping $21.75 million.

I'm here in Denver this week, reading the Denver Post (what a relief!) and they have an AP story that the bankers who took bailouts this month were the same fatcats who took $1.6 billion in bonusses from their struggling banks in Dec. '07.

So please, someone who can check (ie a customer? Mark Davis the banking reporter for the Star?, Chuck Kurtz at the Sun?) please find out about Bailout Bob, and post it here, please.

I phoned Mark Davis last week, and asked him to do a followup because in November, Bailout Bob was supposedly putting $6 million of Daddy's money, and his buddies, (or perhaps Daddy's money disguised as his buddie's infusion of cash) into Bank of Blue Valley to shore it up, since it has a D Minus credit rating. Then I learned that the $6 million was "on hold". I heard that, the same week they took the $21.75 million federal taxpayer-subsidized bailout.

Hmmmm. Do ya think they would cancel their own mini-bailout when they got ours?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Revenge of the Big Three.

2008-12-14T17:36:00.003-06:00

God, I love smart satire. Whoever did this, they're geniusses who even trademarked it. Or pretended to!
Excuse the language, and enjoy.
tt

In case you cannot read it:
The headline reads:
You wouldn't buy our shitty cars.
So we'll be taking your money anyway.
The bailout. Coming this January.

You probably thought it was smart to buy a foreign import of superior quality, with better mileage and resale value. Maybe you even thought that years of market share loss might prod us into rethinking our 'process' and redesigning our products with better quality in mind. But you forgot one thing. We spend a shitload of money on lobbyists. So now you're out $25 billion PLUS the cost of your Subaru. Maybe next time you'll buy American, like a real man. Either way, we're cool.

GM Chrysler Ford.
"We're the Big Three. We Don't Need to Compete. TM

What's the difference between Gov. Blago and Annabeth Surbaugh?

2008-12-13T13:27:00.006-06:00

Oh, I think she's got about 40 pounds on him.

Other than that, Pay for Play in Johnson County has been going on for years. It's just more genteel.

Developers got the zoning they wanted, because they --and their attorneys--often at Polsinelli--including John Peterson and Larry Winn--raised the money for their campaigns to keep getting them re-elected.

And now, with the passage of the JoCo Research Triangle, just watch. New players, new payers!! Especially when the Kansas Legislature is carving a billion dollars out of the budget. KU and KState psychophants will be really puckering up to the Gang of Seven.

Annabeth Surbaugh used to call herself an interior decorator. But she has no clients. Did you ever see one of her homemade contemporary paintings on canvas over cardboard, that she would frame in a Rococo Baroque Hobby Lobby frame and donate to a local charity auction? No comment needed.

So her job as Chairman of the BOCC is her sole support. Now she has gotten herself appointed to the Research Triangle Advisory Board. In Chicago, we would call that Pay for Play. Queen Annabeth led the fight to get a deliberately misleading 41st position on the November ballot. Research Triangle will enrich her biggest campaign supporters, including quite possibly Bailout Bob Regnier. And there is no doubt about it, this three-partition pork barrel will ensure that alumni and friends will have to write checks in 2 years to Annabeth AND to fellow Triangle Advisory Board member Ed Eilert when he challenges her for County Chairman of the BOCC.

In Chicago, people like Obama are "appalled" to learn that there is a quid pro quo system. It's shock and awe time under the L. Where have these people been? Under a rock? Under Iraq?

Whereas, here in JoCo, or "cupcake land" as Richard Rhodes so elegantly put it in the Atlantic Monthly over 20 years ago, it's just...business as usual, good government/hypocrit style.

So I guess one might say the difference between Chicago and JoCo, is here, they will have to serve up TWO scoops of cash!

With rare exceptions, your elected officials are puppets for their supporters, endorsed by the KC Star and Steve Rose. Because Yael Abouhalkah, Barb Shelley and Steve Rose are unelectable. But in their titular positions, they LOVE the adulation and ass-kissing that comes from being courted. Newspapers are generally obsolete, yet elected officials fawn over them at endorsement time.

So as you watch Governor Blago go down, just remember, here in JoCo we do the same thing. Just nicer.

Soccer suckers slink from JoCo to Bannister Mall

2008-12-12T17:31:00.002-06:00

Bruce Rodgers, you have done a fabulous job explaining why it is even WORSE for a local government to bail out the soccer boys at Bannister Mall--after we kicked them out of our pockets here in 2006 when the voters defeated Big Soccer's JoCo bailout.

http://www.kcactive.com/news/newscomm/index.htm

I especially loved when you reminded us that even the NFL and especially the Kansas City Chiefs are discounting THEIR tickets. I think it's down to $42 a ticket, or $30 if you're a teacher.

So--as we approach Christmas, let's raise a glass to the voters of Johnson County, who were smart enough to say no to Big Soccer and BiState II as well. If the TIF clan in KCMO is dumb enough to try to subsidize soccer at Bannister Mall, then KC truly is a mental sewer.

KC BizJournal breaking news: Bob Regnier took a $21 million federal bailout!

2008-12-09T11:16:00.003-06:00

Before you read the entire story, here's my take:
Bob Regnier is CEO of Blue Valley Ban Corp (I guess the k went into default and got repossessed???!)
He runs Bank of Blue Valley.
He has built his entire reputation using Daddy's money.

Vic Regnier was a penny-pinching son of a gun. The Scrooge of Ranchmart. Not Big Bob!

Bob is the glad-handing chairman of the GKC Chamber, Bob is part of Union Station, Bob supports Union Station coming back in 2009!!! for another taxpayer bailout, because that bunch of unemployable dogooders can't manage their way out of a paper bag. Bob also led the campaign for JoCo's Research Triangle. Again--seeking taxpayer support for things that risktakers and drug companies should finance on their own. They won by using deliberately deceptive ballot wording. They refused to tell the voters it's a forever tax and it's a bond issue.

Now Bob Regnier is the first KC area banker to take a federal bailout, and OF COURSE SAY IT IS NOT ONE!

Well, Bob. It is. Spin all you like, Bobber. It's a bailout of your risky D Minus Rated Bank, (bizrate.com).

And now I read here in the KC BizJournal story that you'll then "regift" part of that money to JP Morgan Chase.

This bailout plan is stupid. It's creepy. And it's not soloving real problems. Predatory lenders are getting bailed out, but still Johnson County homeowners are losing their homes every day.

Shame on you guys. As Paul Krugman wrote, "Heads you win, tails, the taxpayers lose." That's not a fair game, it's a swindle with a smile.

But, as you told the KC Star's Mark Davis, on Nov. 18, "It's pretty cheap capital."

Yeah, last month you and your buddies had to pour $6 million of Daddy's money into your over-extended D Minus rated bank. So this month, you took $21.75 million from your Uncle Sam. What's next? A red kettle and a bell?

Here's what I want:
I don't have the time, so people, listen up for someone who does. Let's start a web site, like they have for Sex Predators. Call it PredatoryLenders.org. I'll find someone to host it, if you can find someone to do the research and go get these guys photos as jpg files.

Let's stop making heroes out of these professional pickpockets.
Tracy Thomas

Here is the great KCBizJournals story--great scoop guys:
Blue Valley Ban Corp. received $21.75 million from the U.S. Department of the Treasury on Friday through the agency’s Capital Purchase Program.

The Kansas City-based bank holding company (OTCBB: BBBC), parent of Blue Valley Bank, sold 21,750 shares of fixed-rate cumulative perpetual preferred stock and a 10-year warrant to buy 111,083 shares of its common stock for $29.37 a share.

The preferred shares carry a 5 percent annual dividend rate, payable quarterly. The dividend rate increases to 9 percent after five years. The preferred shares have no redemption date but can’t be redeemed for three years. After that, they can be redeemed for $1,000 a share, plus accrued unpaid dividends.

The Treasury Department’s program includes a prohibition from increasing dividends or repurchasing stock without the agency’s approval. The regulations also place restrictions on executive pay.

Blue Valley Ban Corp. said in a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it will use $17.5 million of the proceeds to repay a loan from J.P. Morgan Chase and the remainder of the money “for capital enhancements into the bank as needed and general corporate purposes.”

Robert Regnier, president of Blue Valley Ban Corp., said Tuesday that he decided to participate because more capital is better in today’s economic conditions. He said the Treasury Department capital shouldn’t be considered bailout money.

“We have to repay this money, and the government is going to make a profit,” Regnier said. “But it helps healthy institutions get stronger. It will allow us to expand our assets and our geographic base and continue to lend. We’ve been lending to our customers, but this just gives us more capital and expands our lending limit, making us a stronger institution without having to give up any significant dilution.”

Blue Valley is the first locally based bank to announce participation in the federal program. Kansas City-based UMB Financial Corp. (Nasdaq: UMBF) and Topeka-based Capital Federal Financial (Nasdaq: CFFN) both opted out of the program on Nov. 3. Kansas City-based Commerce Bancshares Inc. (Nasdaq: CBSH) opted out of the program on Nov. 14.

KC Star seems to be anorexic

2008-12-04T13:41:00.004-06:00

On the Monday after Thanksgiving, the Star's metro section was six pages. Half of those were obituaries.

You know, if people don't start dying in larger numbers, and buying those big by-the-inch obits that are longer than Christmas newsletters, the B section might just disappear.

Is this the beginning of the end for the local news section? Sure feels like it. They did move the editorials to the back page.

Now I notice that they are publishing the real local JoCo news in the zone tabloids on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I know that seasoned reporters like Jim Sullinger and Finn Bullers feel that "real estate" is not as prestigious as the bigger format pages, but that is the New Reality.

As readers we are now also having to search for the real news in different sections.

Every day, the Star becomes more like People Magazine. Full page stories about Mom2Mom issues like breast feeding and ear piercing. Or Obama's necktie colors.

Sad.

I'm thinking of dropping the Star and instead paying virtually the same amount, $4.70 a week, for the New York Times weekend series. Friday, Sat, and the giant Sunday issues. I, for one, still need a paper in my hands to start my day. But it could just as easily be one newsworthy section of the NY Times.

How about you?

Research Triangle promised free cancer care, but it's not true--will we have cancer victims trampling one another like Black Friday at Walmart??

2008-12-02T19:37:00.007-06:00

Last Sunday, CBS Sunday Morning (formerly with Charles Kuralt, dear man) ran a piece on artist Peter Phelps. He was at death's door and in despair, diagnosed with cancer and losing his will to live. He got accepted to a clinical cancer trial at Sloan Kettering in Boston, and showed up all excited at their front door. He had sold everything he owned, and travelled there for treatment. During intake, they asked, "Where will you be sleeping tonight?"

And Phelps replied, "Well, here in your hospital of course!" That's when he learned the sad truth. A Cancer Trial does not give you a bed. It's a pill. You're on your own and check in periodically. It's like an outpatient methadone clinic. There's no nurse, no fluffy pillow, no cable TV.

A clinical cancer trial is for the benefit of the drug companies. The participants are just lab rats living on hope. If you survive, then Merck or Pfizer or whoever makes a billion dollars. But if you die, your survivors might get a Hallmark sympathy card.

Mr. Phelps was given a voucher for a cab to a homeless shelter. And a few bucks for a hamburger. He began making art out of salvage and trash. He taught others how to draw or occupy themselves while at the homeless shelter. But he never got a hospital bed. Or surgery. Just a few pills.

That scenario will happen here in Johnson County when the do-gooders open their clinical cancer trials in an office building in Fairway donated by Hallmark.

Expect some sad faces, because we voters were certainly deceived by Fred "Mr Johnson County" Logan, who actually defends doctors against lawsuits by dead or injured patients, and Mary "Miss Lathrop & Gage" Birch, and Bob "D Minus Rated Bank of Blue Valley" Regnier. And Barb Shelley, Finn Bullers and Jason Gertzen at the Star, and of course, Steve "I'm No Ben" Rose. Voters got 3 post cards promising FREE CANCER CARE! But it will be difficult to hold them accountable, because a scant 3 weeks after the election, they pulled down their web site of dreams.

Also never mentioned during their campaign of false hope was that Johnson County cancer patients will not get to go to the head of the line. It will be like Walmart on Black Friday--desperate people trampling one another. Seeking hope in a capsule.

Research Triangle Bait and Switch--voters were deceived, tax should be repealed ere start

2008-11-30T12:17:00.001-06:00

We don’t need to waste JoCo taxpayer dollars on lame elementary school level Science Fair experiments that were disproved 30 years ago. Aspirin does not cause ulcers. Pyloric bacteria does. Duh. What’s next? A study of leeching??!

Bait and switch!! Broken promises begin.
Research Triangle supporters cleverly deceived JoCo voters to get our tax money.
Now the promised “national” food safety program has fallen through, and it will really just be a 1950’s Mr. Wizard chemistry club for kids!

Olathe teens will be doing “original research” on how aspirin-like compounds cause ulcers.
Only—oops—that was disproved in the late 1970’s!!! Just ask Bayer. Oh, I forgot—they’re a co-sponsor.

Shame on Finn Bullers, Star reporter, who butt-kissed the Research Triangle supporters in order to sneak through another forever tax that is also a hidden bond issue that will bail out one local banker.

He refused to report both sides before election day, instead working with science reporter Jason Gertzen to produce 50 puff pieces. And –guess what, the 41st issue on the ballot snuck past busy soccer moms who thought “cancer care” and a “national food safety program” just sounded good.

On Sat. Nov. 29, Bullers stooped even further, with his puff piece on the rapid ramp-up of the Research Triangle, even though the forever tax doesn’t even begin to be collected until April 1.

In the state of Kansas, ‘bait and switch’ advertising is illegal. But that’s what the Research Triangle supporters did. False advertising, getting voters to take the bait, and then switching the delivered product to something of less value.

The JoCo Research Triangle Tax should be repealed. Already the first of three legs is hollow. With more broken promises to follow, because there is no way that KU Med from KCK will ever rival Mayo Clinic and we all know it.

Bullers writes Nov. 29 (“Work Gets Under Way”) about the K-State leg of the Research Triangle. Only now it’s just a Mr. Wizard science project, where teens will do “actual research” on aspirin. Oh, Brother. That is not what we voted on.

And now instead of it being called the National Food Safety Research site, suddenly we are back to stark reality. It’s just K-State’s Innovation Campus.

Man, when they fall, they fall hard.

Gee, did the federal government fail to name K-State as the next national food safety research site—because just as we predicted a full two months before the election, George W. Bush named a site in—Texas???????????????????????????????????????

We were tipped off in September by a staffer from Senator Pat Roberts’ office, Chad Tenpenny, who let it slip when he said, “Gosh, I hope they DON’T announce before the election!”

That’s when we knew he had insider information that once again, Kansas was going to get the short end of the stick. And of course, why not. Bush is from Texas, and he is The Decider. Of course he’s going to give the designation to San Antonio. Not Olathe. Bush isn’t stupid, you know. (Don’t answer that.)

And we told this fact, read this quote, not only to Finn Bullers, but Barb ‘MissSmugBrooksider’ Shelley and the assembled Star editorial board during the endorsement screening in September. As expected, they refused to investigate or report it. They just looked at their shoes. Because this news didn’t support their campaign narrative: “curing cancer and food poisoning for the world—with $15 million a year from Johnson County taxpayers.”

Because the Star, albeit an ineffective and biased newspaper, goosestepping its way to the grave, living on ego. They’re going out of business nearly as fast as the Power and Light District is, but until their glass block building is as empty as the Sprint Center, they’ll be endorsing 99% of all the socialist rescues and bailouts and taxes they can. That is what nobodies who want to be somebodies do. They may not have any profits, but they want to be playahs. On the taxpayers’ dime. It’s called Influence Peddling.

So—here’s the $64,000 question (I know, I’m showing my age with that reference—that was another TV show from the 50’s). Does Finn Bullers KNOW about K-State losing the designation? Did he enterprise a real news story for Thanksgiving weekend? Or did he just take what they handed him, and write this puff piece as a smokescreen? K-State is spinning their defeat by taking a page from the Big Soccer playbook with this pablum of “do it for the children”. Except, that’s not the initiative presented to voters.

We don’t need to waste JoCo taxpayer dollars on lame elementary school level Science Fair experiments that were disproved 30 years ago. Aspirin does not cause ulcers. Pyloric bacteria does. Duh. What’s next? A study of leeching??!

Question: What did the Star’s reporter know, and when did he know it?

Is it the responsibility of the reporter to ask questions and follow up? Or, is Bullers just like his colleague downtown, Kevin Collison, the Star’s so-called business reporter, aka developer hack, who merely reprints the press releases and the spin spoonfed to him from the Cordish Company?

Also missing from Bullers’ story is any mention of the BOND ISSUE! In fact, he has never even typed those words in reference to the endless Research Triangle tax. No doubt because bond issues go down to defeat.

So, Mr. Bullers—tell us please. Will the bonds go through Chairman Bob Regnier’s D Minus rated Bank of Blue Valley?? As we predicted FOUR months before the vote? Inquiring minds want to know.

Posted Nov. 30, 2008 to AllThingsJoCo.blogspot.com
Day 26 since the voters were duped into funding the JoCo Research Triangle,
Aka Wannabe Junction.
Or Mr. Wizard’s Fun Lab for Kids

(Note to younger readers: In the 1950’s, on Saturday mornings, there was a TV show called Mr. Wizard’s Laboratory. Gene Willard??? (I forget his name) was the host, and he had kids perform minor chemistry experiments like making stinky sulphur out of eggs. It was all part of America’s science rivalry with Russia. Well before America landed on the Moon, his show was mothballed. Apparently in a limestone cave somewhere near Olathe.)

Shawnee Police: Service only at THEIR Convenience

2008-11-28T18:43:00.001-06:00

DOLLARS TO DONUTS—SERVICE IN JOCO IS AT THE DISPENSER’S CONVENIENCE (EXCEPT FOR ROGER THE PLUMBER)

The Shawnee Police Department now apparently operates like the refrigerator repairman—their own convenience determines when you get service!

Earlier this month, I discovered that appliance repair companies are no longer service businesses—they operate with banker’s hours at THEIR convenience. Your fridge breaks on Friday night, they’re closed all weekend, and in fact, their machines don’t take messages. You must operate for THEIR convenience. And even when they do come to diagnose your problem, they can’t wait 10 minutes while you drive 15 blocks to pick up the part. They have 9 other calls to make that day. So it’s a full week before the part actually gets installed.

But now the Shawnee Police Department has decided to operate that way, too?

Gosh, I’m sorry I voted for their taser guns when I was on the Shawnee City Council for 5 years.
Or their new laDdah station that jacked up our property tax rates by $25 a year all in one fell swoop.

I just called the Shawnee Police with a non-emergency simple Yes/No informational question. Friday after Thanksgiving, about 4:30 pm. I did not call 911, I called the non-emergency number. Like citizens are supposed to. I identified myself as a former Council member with a simple question on behalf of a friend of a friend: if someone finds a bag of CASH and turns it into the police, if it is not claimed within a reasonable time, does the Finder get to keep the money? Or does it go into some Police fund? i.e. to buy circus tickets or vests or tasers, or whatever.

Not a tough question. Every beat officer should know the answer, and probably the dispatcher as well. It’s a no-brainer.

But would they answer my factual yes/no question? Nope! None less than the new Chief of Police, (that would be Jim Morgan) told the dispatcher they were too busy with a murder case and I must call back MONDAY! I get that. Rock Paper Murder. But why should I have to keep calling? Isn’t that why we pay people—to take messages?? So then I counter-offered: “Monday is too long to wait, could you just please take down my number and have anyone call me later this weekend? Saturday or Sunday? I was curtly told, “No, the chief wants you to call back on Monday.”

So I called a real police department, Overland Park, and got the answer to my question in 10 seconds: unclaimed found property would go back to the Finder after a reasonable time.

Now I can tell my friend who has a friend who found a bag of many thousands of dollars cash money that the right thing to do, of course, is to turn it in. Apparently the Finder wants to be a Samaritan but not a Sucker.

As for refrigerator or appliance repairmen, well, we in Johnson County are doomed. Nobody fixes anything!!! They just condemn it and make you buy new. The outfit I called has a machine that specifically says, we don’t take messages so don’t leave one. Call back when we are open. And the biggest repair service in the county outsources their appointments to Mumbai. Specificalleeee.

Man, these guys don’t operate like Roger the Plumber who has 13000 parts on each of his trucks, in bar code order. These yayhoos have zero parts on their trucks. All you need to be an appliance repairman nowadays is a hex wrench so you can remove the parts and condemn the parts, a cell phone to ask HQ to order a new part and a GPS to find your way to the next home so you can do the same. It’s kind of like driving for UPS only you don’t get to wear brown shorts in warm weather.

And as for law-abiding citizens receiving timely service from our boys in blue in Shawnee? Well, it’s not even as good as being at Baskin Robbins, where at least you get a number.

You know, when I was President of the Shawnee City Council, the staff wanted to blow $15 grand a year doing customer satisfaction surveys. I opposed it. The City Manager already receives the complaints. Someone just needs to add them up for her. Here is mine. But if her top management doesn’t care, then what’s the point??

Here's our Campaign Expense Report--where is theirs?

2008-11-18T20:55:00.002-06:00

11/18/08

Final Recap of ALL expenditures and revenues for BermudaTriangleNO,
the opposition committee to November 2008 Question #2/Research Triangle:

CD of registered voters who are voting by mail $40.00
Sorting list: no charge
Printing of 20,324 postcards, 4 color with names on
By Tangent Press $1,551.00
Gas including trips to Lawrence, Topeka, Olathe, OP, etc. $53.69
Creative and production supervision by Tracy Thomas
of 4 radio spots, one :30 TV & postcard NC

Tracy’s PR work NC
Working with Finn Bullers at KC Star Complete waste of time

TV production $515.31

Actual airtime:
NewsRadio 980 KMBZ: 48 spots, week of Oct. 20 $7,280.00

KSHB-TV41 NBC : 18 spots, incl. Meet the Press twice! $3,450.00
Time Warner Cable: Time Warner West and Olathe
Oct. 24-31, 132 spots total on
Bravo and CNBC primes (that’s 5p-mid),
CNN morning and primes,
Food Network primes
Fox News mornings and primes,
USA primes $6,110.00
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL: $19,000.00

Source of all funds:
Contributions by Phillip Klein,
11916 Windsor Drive, Leawood KS 66209
$2,000.00; plus $2,000.00 plus $15,000.00 $19,000.00

All contributions were political and thus NOT tax deductible,
and were processed through the Live Work & Grow Committee
located at 13022 W. 76 Ter, Shawnee KS 66216

______________________________________
Tracy Thomas, campaign treasurer, chairman of
Bermuda Triangle No subcommittee, and moderator of
Our free opposition blog: www.BermudaTriangleNO.blogspot.com

How the Research Triangle supporters may try to cook the books--and how they already spent the first money out of town

2008-11-18T20:52:00.002-06:00

The tax-grabbing proponents of Yes on Research Triangle will no doubt wait until the last minute to post their $200,000 expense report. It's not due until Dec. 31.

Here's the first thing that is fishy:
The TV stations and radio stations tell us that the proponent advertising that they COULD find was all mysteriously placed by Strategic Media--a firm out of Washington DC!!!! It was outsourced out of Kansas! So the owners of that ad agency or media buying firm made income back East. Not here.

So much for generating LOCAL revenues. As they purportedly promised the gullible voters.

And we predict the proponent expenditures will contain many thousands of dollars of "in kind contributions". That's because the New Fraud Strategy of these people is to pay for advertising themselves.

They report it as "in kind" contributions, then next year, may try to deduct it on their IRS filings as a 100% business expense. But IF they do that, it would be tax fraud. If you are KU Med Center, or the Bank of Blue Valley, or a law firm whose rainmaker is the secret campaign coordinator but who leaves her name off the website that is so replete with errors that the chairman, treasurer, co-chairman's names are misspelled, and you list the election date as Nov. 8 instead of 4,and IF you support a tax increase political campaign, that is a POLITICAL accounting expenditure, which is NOT deductible.

This is why it is so hard, nowadays, to raise political money. It's not deductible. Unless you are coached by the Bad Boys, who teach people how to cheat.

So here's my salute to a true Johnson County Hero: Phillip Klein of Leawood (he works at US Toy, running the Magic Shop.) Phillip puts his own money where his mouth is. He financed the opposition to BiState II, Big Soccer, and Research Triangle. And not one dime of his $19,000.00 will be reported as deductible.

Even during this American financial meltdown, Phillip wrote the checks to pay for the radio and TV. To counter the absolutely biased reporting and editorializing by the Kansas City Star. The complete dropping of the ball by reporter Finn Bullers. The 50 or more puff stories by Jason Gertzen/ (pseudo)science writer.

We were outgunned. The voters were lied to. But we got our message out to 43% of the voters anyway. And we will be watching.

Annabeth, you're such a phony kiss-up to the New Guy

2008-11-12T18:09:00.003-06:00

In the Nov. 12 issue of the Kansas City Star, reporter Finn Bullers kisses the ass of BOCC Chairman Annabeth Surbaugh, who then kisses the feet of her newest minion,
6th District Commissioner Calvin Hayden. She claims he won "because he had the COURAGE to do something people said couldn't be done."

Oh please.

He won because Toplikar screwed up and committed a crime. Or else he would not have won.

Hayden was lucky, not courageous.

Get over yourself, your Highness. Your logical skills are woefully weak. And your style of hyperbolic flattery is just so transparent.

No, Commissioner Hayden, it was NOT an act of God!

2008-11-12T17:57:00.003-06:00

Will someone tell Calvin Hayden that he did not beat John Toplikar for 6th District JoCo Commission because God intervened. In the Nov. 12 issue of the Kansas City Star, Finn Bullers quotes Hayden as saying his victory was "an act of God."

God does not endorse in district races. We all know that.

Rather, perhaps one might attribute it to one of the Seven Deadly Sins: Greed.

John Toplikar was greedy for real estate: placement of his campaign signs. He was, in fact, obsessed with it. It cost him the race. He stole Hayden's signs, he moved others, he threw others to the ground. Signs were the only thing Toplikar did to campaign.

He did not return constituent phone calls (most of them) for six years.
He did not bother to return reporters' phone calls either, I have heard.
He did not attend forums, even the ones with lots of sympathetic ears, including the Sunflower Republican Club.
And if he did pray, well, maybe God was not listening.

I detest it when electeds, even newly elected ones, get "cute with God", attributing their victories to the almighty. It's so cheesy. It's disrespectful to people of faith to pawn off the results of human actions and missteps to Divine Intervention.

Toplikar screwed up all on his own. The Devil did not "make him do it", either. Don't you just hate it when people shirk their own responsibility and blame everything on some unseen Devil? The seeds of Toplikar's defeat were sewn over the past six years. And the last straw was the theft of the campaign signs.

Let's stop blaming the Devil or praising God when it's US misbehaving.

Sniffing out who is building their reputation at JoCo taxpayer expense

2008-11-11T16:53:00.000-06:00

Welcome to our new blog, AllThingsJoCo. We will continue to track the actions of the do-gooders who are always trying to build their reputations on our dime.

First up: following up on why the TV and radio stations cannot seem to locate any contracts from the actual supporters of the Research Triangle.

Could it be tax fraud? Did the supporters use their existing business contracts to run political ads--which they will then try to deduct as "advertising"?

We will keep you posted.

Already, we notice that Mary Birch, the (former) Union Station board member and trustee, is bragging about how Research Triangle is setting up that secret $70 million bond issue. Yeah, just what we need: to build three more empty buildings in Johnson County. Oh yeah, I forgot: if you're a banker and desperately need an infusion of taxpayer-guaranteed bailout cash, then as Martha Stewart would say, this is a Good Thing!