KCRag Forum

im2kull wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:33 pm

flyingember wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 3:17 pm

DColeKC wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 1:18 pm look at how the murder rate declined while the big scary "feds" were in town.

I was skeptical but it's true

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmo/pr/op ... r-suspects

Down 22%

Maybe this shows a need to reallocate resources. It validates the idea of taking cops off of jobs that social workers could do so they can focus on violent crime.

No, it validates the idea that actually taking actions to investigate crime, arrest criminals, and prosecute said criminals is THE greatest way to curb crime... instead of tasking your PD to standby silently and pretend that no crimes are occurring while they're out filling politically driven speed ticket quotas. When criminals are locked up, instead of left roaming the streets, then crime drops. It's common sense.

The biggest difference between the United States and Europe is that in Europe cops are rarely seen out roaming for traffic offenders. They're ALL at the station running investigations, responding to crime, and hauling in criminals.

Another reason not to cut the e-tax. A replacement revenue source will be traffic and parking tickets and fining poor people for drooping gutters and chipped paint.

mean wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:06 pm

DColeKC wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 4:18 pm I'm a fan of having more social workers handle certain situations, but I don't know that means freeing up more cops because most of the time, you'd want to have a cop with the social worker for safety. If we simply fixed the homeless situation in this country, we would free up thousands of hours of police officers time.

I don't know about most of the time. Does some potential bridge-jumper really need to be confronted by a massive onslaught of lights and sirens? I am happy to admit that I haven't done any research on this and I am completely talking out of my ass, but I have a strong suspicion that the vast majority of police interactions with the public do not require armed intervention, and the reason they get armed intervention (by which I mean, they are confronted by a cop with a gun; not necessarily that violence is actually used on either side) is because 1) police are the ones responding, which is no fault of their own, and 2) police tend to view all interactions, regardless of the evidence at hand or the normal social cues one might otherwise consider, as being life-threatening to them, which is. Seems to me that #2 is a part the problem. I get why, but maybe it's bullshit. Nobody else does their job that way. Nobody flies a plane like the crash is inevitable and coming any second. Just because something happens in a tiny percent of your job description does not justify treating every time you do your job like the worst-case scenario.

Just a thought.

I get what you’re saying but we all know how it would go down. The first time a social worker is dispatched to a situation that seems non-violent and is killed, all hell breaks loose. Often times these social workers would be going into dangerous situations or areas. Once you give them a gun, it defeats the purpose of not sending cops.

I agree, if your definition of all hell breaking loose is Fox News hosts losing their minds over it because the victim wasn't instead armed and ready to shoot anyone who didn't comply with their every paranoid whim.

mean wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:34 am I agree, if your definition of all hell breaking loose is Fox News hosts losing their minds over it because the victim wasn't instead armed and ready to shoot anyone who didn't comply with their every paranoid whim.

I mean public opinions when I say all hell breaks loose. If social workers start getting hurt or killed once they start handling more calls that the police normally would handle, the entire idea gets blown up.

I doubt it would ever be a social worker alone. Instead of sending two police officers, or four, send one police officer and one social worker.

The other issue here is training and experience. A social worker hopefully would be more highly-trained with de-escalating situations. Police officers are often woefully under-trained in this area.

The other issue is scope-of-crime. There are some situations that don't really call for several police officers, or even two. Police get called out for a lot of family disputes that are essentially a couple of people screaming at each other, and disturbing neighbors' peace, or playing loud music late at night.

Someone’s being campaigning in STL a bit recently. Don’t recall them doing any campaign events here for the critically important E-Tax.

normalthings wrote: ↑Sat Apr 03, 2021 11:57 am Someone’s being campaigning in STL a bit recently. Don’t recall them doing any campaign events here for the critically important E-Tax.

In St. Louis, all the Aldermen (28+President), Mayor (Krewson), Mayor candidates (Jones and Spencer), Collector of Revenue (Daly) and other elected officials have been campaigning hard for Proposition E, which is the Earnings Tax. Out of all of them, Greg Daly has been out and about hanging door hangers that say to vote yes on Prop E. It makes up a third of the budget. I'm not really up to speed on the KC version, but if the Mayor and others are pushing for it, then that's campaigning in a way.

Kansas City voters renew the earnings tax.

https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/k ... rnings-tax

Goonies wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 8:56 pm Surprised to see this board not really on board with Lucas and with the police thing hes going to have even more enemies.

Will the next mayoral race be a close one?

I would imagine it depends on turnout and the candidate(s) that run against Lucas.

I am supportive of whoever isn’t going to continue putting up unnecessary fights against different developments in the city.

I imagine Jason Kander would easily win a mayor's race; however, he appears to be supportive of Lucas. I don't know if he has interest in political office any more.

https://twitter.com/JasonKander/status/ ... 80259?s=20

Jolie Justus might win this time, but I don't know her stance on what Lucas has proposed, or if she would challenge a fellow Democrat.

The other possibility is Alissia Canady, former council member and mayoral candidate. She hasn't made any comments on Twitter about Lucas' plan, so I don't know what her stand is.

While I'm not a Quinton cheerleader, he's done a good job doing what he said he would do in the campaign: Restore economic justice to KCMO. Outside analysis has shown that our use of incentives was out of control and is certainly unpopular with a segment of the voting public. The local control issue has very real impacts on public safety and he was brave enough to touch that third rail in his first term. He's surrounded himself with very smart people and navigated selection of a talented new city manager. I have to admit I was suspicious the Housing Trust Fund would see a dime of money beyond scooter fees, but now it has $12.5 million thanks to COVID relief.

Also, you can legitimately oppose something a candidate does and still vote for him/her. There were plenty of Sly missteps in both of his terms, but I was happy to vote for him twice.

Alissia ran a very lackluster mayoral bid the first time around (and subsequent Lt. Gov campaign was the same). I'm not sure if her tenure on the council will be regarded as memorable. Couldn't tell you what she's up to at the moment.

Pretty sure Jolie won't be returning to local politics. City Hall turned out to be more more politically unstable than the Missouri legislature, and it's a big reason why many reasonable people won't consider running for Council.

I suspect Kander will never run for local office again. If he does, I would not support him.

If Quinton runs again, he'll win handily so the only real questions IMO are does he complete a second term (vs run for Senate) or who runs to replace him in 2027.

DaveKCMO wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 11:45 am I suspect Kander will never run for local office again. If he does, I would not support him.

What is your reason for the outright opposition to him?

horizons82 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 1:18 pm

DaveKCMO wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 11:45 am I suspect Kander will never run for local office again. If he does, I would not support him.

What is your reason for the outright opposition to him?

That he pushed a woman out of the race, then dropped out later. The inside story isn't as pretty as the one his campaign projected.

Fair enough, just genuinely curious.

I'm ambivalent towards Kander, but his Twitter presence always feels extremely contrived to me (even by politician standards). To hear that there's another persona is not surprising in the slightest.

Agree on Kander. I have heard him speak and he was a good speaker. I have heard other things as well from Law school alums that some of his ancicodotes aren't exactly true or things that he heard/saw second hand but obviously would be hard/impossible to verify/fact check.

He seems happy at his current charity so that's good at least. QL has been fine as a mayor. It's a hard job, and I was never in favor of his anti-development tendancies. I thought Justus would have been a better mayor, but I would probably vote for QL again. I don't think anybody else would run that would beat him from the left or the northland "republican" votes.

I think Lucas has been fine and would vote for him again. I think the protestors bitching about the police reform stuff are probably mostly completely misinformed and/or conspiracy theorists. Unfortunately, people who are completely misinformed and/or conspiracy theorists also get to vote, but hey, democracy.

Purely out of curiosity, I'd love to see a republican mayor in KC. I know it's a long shot, but it's been 30 years since we've had a republican mayor (Berkley) and I'm curious how differently they'd run the city.

Honestly, if there's ever a time, 2023 may be it.

mean wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 7:28 pm I think Lucas has been fine and would vote for him again. I think the protestors bitching about the police reform stuff are probably mostly completely misinformed and/or conspiracy theorists. Unfortunately, people who are completely misinformed and/or conspiracy theorists also get to vote, but hey, democracy.

They're edge cases who are being mislead by people more interested in power than doing the right thing

Look at how the governor just signed a law to defund the police if they enforce certain laws. Their only job is to enforce the legal laws in this country without question.

DColeKC wrote: ↑Wed Jun 09, 2021 3:26 pm Purely out of curiosity, I'd love to see a republican mayor in KC. I know it's a long shot, but it's been 30 years since we've had a republican mayor (Berkley) and I'm curious how differently they'd run the city.

Honestly, if there's ever a time, 2023 may be it.

Funk made sure nothing like that will happen again.