Mar

5

Manifesto falls victim to the Dalzell fall, Pizza Bella hangs on

March 5, 2010 by William Rockhill Nelson | Leave a Comment

Manifesto, Ryan Maybee’s popular and critically-acclaimed speakeasy, has fallen victim to the collapse of the Dalzell restaurant group.  Manifesto is located in the basement of the closed 1924 Main restaurant and apparently operated under  the restaurant’s liquor license.  The bar’s Facebook page indicates they hope to reopen, but don’t know when.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, Pizza Bella is still open and is said to be changing ownership.

Categories: Arts/Entertainment, Downtown

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Mar

5

Kelly’s roof deck opening Friday

March 5, 2010 by William Rockhill Nelson | Leave a Comment

A new rooftop deck is opening Friday atop Kelly’s Westport Inn. Actually it’s on top of Joe’s Buy the Slice Pizza, just behind Kelly’s – so technically is preserves the historic integrity of the oldest standing building in Kansas City.  The 1,000 square-foot deck will hold a hundred-some people and will be partially covered.

Categories: Arts/Entertainment, Midtown/Plaza

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Mar

4

New Chamber CEO might not ease regional tensions

March 4, 2010 by William Rockhill Nelson | 1 Comment

Exchanging Leawoodie Pete Levy for Mission Hillbilly James Heeter probably won’t do much to stop the growing consensus that the City needs put itself first going forward.

News reports are making a big deal out of new Chamber of Commerce CEO James Heeter being a former KCMO City Councilmember and mayoral candidate.  However, in the 20 years since Heeter served at City Hall he has become a full-on suburbanite with a Mission Hills address.

Lately there has been much criticism of groups like the Chamber of Commerce and KC Area Development Council focusing too much on suburban growth and not enough on urban development – so much so that many are starting to call for KCMO to form its own City Chamber of Commerce. Most of our suburbs already have city chambers working for them, in addition to the allegedly regional chamber.

The One KC campaign for regional cooperation has turned out to be a giant campaign for the City to put on a happy face while the suburbs raid our businesses and jobs.  It’s done little to develop parts of the regional that weren’t already prosperous, and it has made no progress on regional issues like public transit,  abuse of tax incentives, or land use reform.

KC Star: Former KCMO Councilmember picked as new Chamber president.

Biz Journal: Kansas City could get its own chamber.

Categories: Bistate, Business

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Mar

3

City vying for super-fast Google broadband network

March 3, 2010 by William Rockhill Nelson | 1 Comment

Last week the City Council formally endorsed an application to be a test city for Google Fiber for Communities, the company’s plan to build its own high speed Internet networks around the country.  The gigabit/second speeds would be 100 times faster than most DSL and cable modem lines.

Competition will be fierce. Our suburban neighbors in Overland Park are also applying. Further afield are St. Louis, Springfield, Lawrence, and Topeka. KC does have the advantage of being at the crossroads of several national network carriers and having one of the globe’s forty private network access points. Google’s network would also be a natural compliment to the City’s Green Impact Zone, the initiative to focus green technology investments in a disadvantaged area on the East Side.

Check out the GoogleKC bid site at googlekcmo.com.

Categories: City Council, Transportation

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Mar

2

I-70 commuters screwed this year

March 2, 2010 by William Rockhill Nelson | 2 Comments

If you commute on I-70, get ready for a long year as two big construction projects will make driving very painful:

The I-70/I-435 intersection is getting completely rebuilt. Eventually there will be six full lanes under I-435, reducing one of the metro’s biggest freeway bottlenecks.

Several bridges are being rebuilt between the Loop and Van Brunt. Eastbound I-70 will be down to two lanes for most of the year, making the evening rush hour really bad.

MoDOT has all the details.  Now is a good time to get acquainted with bus routes from Eastern Jackson County, including the #170 Blue Springs Express and the #24 Independence Express.

Categories: Transportation

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Feb

27

Libertarian Show-Me Institute not good with the money

February 27, 2010 by William Rockhill Nelson | 4 Comments

Libertarian think tank The Show-Me Institute is missing hundreds of thousands of dollars that was apparently stolen by an employee taking advantage of lax internal financial controls.

The St. Louis Riverfront Times has the story.

The Show-Me Institute is highly critical of government agencies and their management of public money, especially the cities of Kansas City and St. Louis and their urban school districts.  The Institute’s founder is Rex Sinquefield, the St. Louis richie-rich who is spending millions to promote school vouchers, the elimination of the state income tax, and the KC and St. Louis earnings taxes. The current chairman of the Institute is R. Crosby Kemper III, former UMB Bank CEO, current Director of the KCMO Public Library, and resident of Lawrence, KS.

Categories: Earnings Tax, Missouri, Politics

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Feb

26

Chief Corwin dispels some Waldo/Brookside rapist rumors

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

Rumors are running wild on some of the Facebook groups organized to talk about the rapist.  The “Let’s Get This Prick” group is getting especially out of control riding the line between vigilant and vigilante.  KCPD Chief Corwin dispels some of the rumors on his blog and explains that there is a very precise method to their madness when it comes to what information is released and what is kept confidential.

Categories: Crime

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