Jul

28

Boring election stuff you should care about

July 28, 2010 by William Rockhill Nelson | 1 Comment

There is an election Tuesday, and The Star has explains two small things on the KCMO ballot that will help improve neighborhood livability.  One raises the fee on automobile tires in order to fight the scourge of illegally dumped tires.  The other imposes a fee on chronic violators of property codes -things like peeling paint, weeds, etc.

Missouri health care reform – Proposition C
This one is kindof confusing.  If you want Missouri to participate in the national health insurance reform, you have to vote “no”.  If you think covering the uninsured is a socialist/fascist/communist scheme, then you have to vote “yes”.

Categories: General

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Jul

26

TED alternatives

July 26, 2010 by William Rockhill Nelson | Leave a Comment

If you missed this morning’s mad scramble for the limited supply of TEDxKC tickets, there are a few other options available.  Other TEDx events are coming up September 30th in Tulsa, October 15th in Chicago, and October 16th in Omaha.  Or start your BIL, an alternative to TED.

Categories: General

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Jul

26

TEDxKC tickets now available

July 26, 2010 by William Rockhill Nelson | 1 Comment

Update: TEDxKC is sold out.  VML really needs to choose a bigger venue.  Giving the Social Media Clubs early access to tickets also reduced access for everyone else.

TEDxKC returns for a second year on August 12th at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

Get tickets here by navigating the calendar to August 12th.  Hurry, tickets will run out quickly.

Categories: General

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Jul

22

JoCo is a prince, but not the king

July 22, 2010 by William Rockhill Nelson | 6 Comments

It pains us to link to Yael Abouhalkah, but this week he has some data that refudieates the myth of Johnson County as the local economic king.

  • JoCo has lost the most lobs of any metro county in the Great Recession.
  • Platte  has added more jobs than any county in recent years.
  • Platte and Cass Counties are adding jobs at a faster rate than JoCo.
  • Jackson still has most jobs of any metro county, over 50,000 more than JoCo.

Obviously Johnson County is an important part of the metro economy, but they definitely have delusions of grandeur that need to be kept in check.

Categories: Business

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Jul

21

City Hall gets into social media

July 21, 2010 by William Rockhill Nelson | Leave a Comment

The City’s communications department has finally jumped onto the social media bandwagon recently.

Check out their Facebook page and follow @kcmo on Twitter.

Categories: General

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Jul

19

H&R Block going buh-bye?

July 19, 2010 by William Rockhill Nelson | 1 Comment

It looks like we could be on the verge of losing another local corporate icon with news that Liberty Tax Service may make a play for H&R Block. Although this surely isn’t a surprise since Richard Breeden took over the company in 2007.  He seems to be taking Block down the same path that he took Applebees, resulting in the takeover by IHOP and the slow dismantling of the local headquarters.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the new H&R Block headquarters building.  The City granted enormous tax breaks for the company to move from Midtown to Downtown and provide the catalyst for the Power & Light District.  Hopefully come January we won’t be greeted by day laborers in cheap Statue of Liberty costumes shouting “TAX TIME” to passers by at 12th and Main.

Categories: Business, Downtown, Tax Breaks

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Jul

18

Journalism FAIL

July 18, 2010 by William Rockhill Nelson | 3 Comments

KMBC-TV 9’s Lara Moritz just referred to last week’s NAACP convention “in St. Louis” – even though it happened right here in Kansas City.  Maybe Lara should be forgiven since her station recently moved from a building mere feet from the convention center to a remote location where it’s hard to know what’s going on in the city.

Categories: Media

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