Sad story in KCK

[trailerkid]

From the Star...

Oh, Christmas Tree, Mayor's Christmas Tree...this year you may be moving

By MARK WIEBE
Columnist

Maybe I've read A Christmas Carol one too many times. Whatever the reason, I can't seem to repress a wistful sigh over the prospect of the Mayor's Christmas Tree moving from City Hall to Village West, from a decidedly non-commercial setting to the city's new economic powerhouse.

You heard right. The holiday's center of gravity, the place where Kansas City, Kan., symbolically locates Christmas, could be shifting. The mayor's office confirmed last week that the decades-old tradition of erecting a giant tree on the City Hall plaza has probably breathed its last. A meeting today with Village West retailers should make it official.

Kathy Wolfe Moore, the mayor's assistant, told me Thursday that Marinovich had long considered moving the tree once enough Village West stores had opened. With cash registers furiously ringing at Cabela's, Nebraska Furniture Mart, Great Wolf Lodge and the like, that time has apparently come.

"It's probably going to go out there," Moore said. "We just haven't figured out the logistics of it."

In years to come, the tree would probably be placed somewhere in the Legends Shopping Center, which won't be open this Christmas. Eventually, though, RED Development, the Legends' owner, would select the tree and put it up, saving public employees the time they spend picking a tree (which has traditionally come from the yard of a local resident) and erecting it on the plaza.

But cost wasn't the most compelling reason for moving the tree. Simply put, Village West has shoppers. City Hall and the surrounding downtown area do not.

"Not many people have an occasion to be at City Hall," Moore said.

Or, for that matter, downtown, whose sorry state I won't dwell on other than to note how the lights and decorations that adorn Minnesota Avenue every holiday season provide a kind of empty cheer, illuminating little more than empty sidewalks.

So I can accept the fact that the tree will serve as a more festive accent to the bustling at Village West. And, as Moore also stressed, a larger crowd will likely show up for the tree-lighting ceremony. In recent years, she noted, the event drew rather small numbers. Better to display the tree in a commercial area bound to attract thousands, such as Crown Center, where the Kansas City mayor puts his or her tree, than to leave it standing on a barren and lonely plaza.

Which reminds me of that great philosophical conundrum: If a tree lights up in downtown Kansas City, Kan., and no one sees it, does it really shine?

Of course it does. No matter how bleak downtown may be at night, no matter how much it depresses us to think that it no longer teems with retail activity, it deserves a little bit of light. Especially during the holidays.

To be sure, Minnesota Avenue will still have its lights and its lighting ceremony. And some downtown activists say they're trying to find another tree, a substitute, if you will, to go somewhere downtown. But it wouldn't be the mayor's.

By moving the tree, the mayor is basically telling us what is patently obvious: downtown doesn't have what it takes to make a Christmas celebration successful. The trouble is, a concession like that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If downtown isn't worthy of its most prominent Christmas symbol, is it worthy of much else?

Also, don't forget, if the mayor's tree moves, so does its purpose. No longer would it be the people's tree, a symbol of the season that sits on publicly owned ground free from the commercial freight that taints so many other Christmas celebrations. It would become, instead, just another prop in the commercial frenzy that has compromised what otherwise is a great holiday.

Clarification

Last week's column about record-setting building permits in Kansas City, Kan., contained a somewhat misleading number. The Unified Government reported that it had issued 341 single-family building permits through September. That number, however, included 33 permits for rebuilding homes destroyed by the May 4 tornado. If you take those permits away from the record-setting number, the city has yet to surpass the 325 permits it issued in 1967. The good news is the city is still on pace to surpass that record.

To reach Mark Wiebe, a Wyandotte County reporter and columnist, call (816) 234-5995 or send e-mail to mwiebe@kcstar.com

[QueSi2Opie]

Christmas is a commercial holiday because most of us are really not celebrating Christ. I feel sorry for all the inner-city people and homeless that actually looked up at the tree with joy and hope around the holiday season. One can't help to be both disappointed with the city's decision, and at the same time, understand exactly where they're coming from.

Now all the poor hispanic catholics in the area won't have a tree to admire (and remember, many cannot even afford a tree of their own), but instead it will be out where the hicks and weekend warriors can glance at it as they buy their next shotgun and camoflauge outfit....so they can kill themselves some holiday dinner and mount their new antlered wall decoration.

[ShowME]

I didn't know Christ believed in capitalism....

[KCPowercat]

Does Marinovich just want to burn everything inside the 435 loop and start over?