http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-878897.mp3
Kansas City, MO – A city council committee deferred to civil rights leaders yesterday, and scrapped Mayor Funkhouser's plan to create a citizens' oversight committee to look into dress code discrimination and other violations of the public accommodations ordinance.
The man who lost to Funkhouser in the last election, Alvin Brooks, led a delegation whose size was shrunk by the snowy weather.
Brooks said he represented a sizable group of civil rights, community and religious leaders, whom he named as he enumerated their organizations.
Then he said what those leaders have been saying for several weeks - there are already agencies empowered to enforce the laws, and the commission would only add another layer of bureaucracy. "They have everything in place," said Brooks, calling the commission "overkill and certainly not necessary."
The mayor still insisted that the system is "broken" and needs to be looked into. But when it came time for vote to send the plan to the full council, John Sharp couldn't even get a second for his motion.