Government

Shawnee Mission, Kansas – June 10th, noon, was the filing deadline for Kansans who wanted to run for office. Some 25 hopeful state legislators, U.S. representatives, even 2 U.S. Senate candidates got in just under the gun.

There are 7 candidates - 6 of them Republican - running for the 1st Congressional district in Western Kansas. 9 filed for the Senate seat vacated by Sam Brownback.

Brownback, who is running for Governor, filed just 10 days ago. His primary opponent, Joan Heffington, filed yesterday.

Kansas City – It's unclear how news of financial mismanagement at the Kansas GOP will affect the race for Secretary of State.

The Topeka Capitol Journal reported earlier this week that an FEC audit revealed the Kansas GOP inappropriately or illegally handled hundreds of thousands of dollars during 2007 and 2008.

Kris Kobach, now a candidate for Secretary of State, was the party chair during that time.

Kobach said he knew the issue is a distraction, but said he wasn't concerned it would hurt him politically.

Kansas City, MO – The Kansas City city council wouldn't go along with Mayor Funkhouser's plan for a large bond issue for infrastructure around schools, but it approved its own 90 million bond issue package Thursday.

The bonds the council allocated were approved by the voters in 2004 and 2005, but never actually sold.

Councilman Terry Riley characterized the bond package as a local economic stimulus.

Kansas City, Mo. – After months of discussion and weeks of committee hearings, Kansas City's Planning and Zoning finally sent the full city council an urban agriculture ordinance Wednesday.

The committee added a number of restrictions including a prohibition on row crops in front yards, restriction of sales to fresh produce and requiring community gardens to get approval from the Board of Zoning Adjustment.

Kansas City, Mo. – Today marked the groundbreaking for the $13.5 million Troost Bridge project. The Troost Avenue bridge will be replaced. There will be streetscape and intersection improvements. Crews will also upgrade a stretch of the storm and sanitary sewer system.

Congressman Emanuel Cleaver says despite years of delays, with help from federal stimulus funds, the project is now moving forward.

Kansas City, Mo. – Five Kansas City Councilwomen took the floor Thursday to take Mayor Mark Funkhouser to task for stripping away all of their colleague Jan Marcason's committee positions.

The women added their comments to scheduled debate on a shoo-in ordinance taking the next step toward a computer based traffic ticket and municipal court case management system.

Finance committee chair Deb Hermann briefly endorsed the ordinance, then turned the discussion to lavish praise for Marcason's ability, hard work and excellent performance.

Kansas City, MO – Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser shook up city council committees again Wednesday with the unexpected removal of councilwoman Jan Marcason from all her committee assignments.

Until this week, Jan Marcason has served on two of the most powerful city council committees: Finance and Audit and Transportation and Infrastructure.

The mayor's memo to the council and the media gave no rationale for stripping Marcason of all her committee duties, but she says she did get a terse explanation in a voicemail message.

Kansas City, Mo. – The Kansas City, Missouri city council made it formal Thursday: They endorse the idea of a regional rapid rail transit system proposed by Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders.

There was no mention of Clay Chastain's latest petition drive for a competing Kansas City only light rail plan as the council endorsed Sanders' tri-county transit system proposal. Sanders says his can be done less expensively by routing commuter rail trains along existing unused or under-used right-of-way.