The Mayor’s Schools First failure at The Sprint Center marked one of his biggest public embarrassments so far but it didn’t go down in flames because of a lack of effort.
Mayor Funkhouser employed an interesting tactic in promoting his event that the Star claims only drew 250 people. Of course the Mayor disputes the figures but what he doesn’t mention is the old school Hollywood method he employed to get the crowd.
The Mayor put on an award show and called it a town hall meeting. And people, no matter how much they hate any public official will always consider getting a prize.
I’m willing to wage that I could generate an even bigger event in celebration of my blogging prowess if I handed out door prizes and certificates of appreciation. Seriously, I’ve seen bigger crowds at a thong contest in the earlier part of this decade.
What wasn’t fun or that admirable was that the Mayor was counting young students wanting a prize as part of his support base. The Mayor’s Schools First effort would put $100 million debt burden on their head over the years for just a tiny bit of infrastructure improvement and more cops in the vicinity of schools which not even Chief Corwin or the KCPD police board have endorsed. In short, the idea has a big price tag for little benefit but because the mayor was handing out certificates a few students didn’t mind being used as props. If history tells us anything, in the desperate hours of any campaign it’s always the children that get sent out to fight the battles of failed politicians at the very end.
The poorly attended public meeting could have been held at a Community Center for a cost far less than the $6500 the Mayor’s people claim comes directly from their budget. This last display at The Sprint Center really indicates the complete lack of support for Funkhouser and his wife. They had been planning some kind of education summit for about two years and as it finally came to fruition the only thing it revealed is that they had to con people to show up with an old Hollywood trick that didn’t seem to impress people around this town. While there was free popcorn that was quite delicious, I have a feeling they would have garnered a better crowd in this Cowtown with an open buffet.
Tony Botello
craig glazer
Its going to be very uphill for Mark to be re elected, with all the cities problems, his lack of popularity, as we see in his funds not raised to be re-elected(only l2,000). Yep, it shoulda been me or Stan…things would be better, but this is a tough job for anyone today. Too many problems, not enough money to fix them.
bojo
it was a lame trick but nobody fell for it. Take it easy T.
Rick
Funk has NO CHANCE at being reelected. He is delusional to even be running. Clearly its…. JOJO for Mayor
craig glazer
I like that Rick.
smartman
Thank God jojo lives in joco. He’d need 5 admins just to spellcheck.
Even with the current field of candidates there isn’t anyone whose got the balls and brains to get us out of the “funk” we are in.
Melba in Mission
Hey, I’ve been looking for a third person to file against Annabeth Surbaugh and Ed Eilert for Chairman of the BOCC Board of County Commissioners of Johnson County. So, Rick–you are so right…we could run Grumpy JoJo for that!! He’s so depressing, he might trigger a spate of suicides, which would cut down on the population here. Even LESS need for their stupid Mass Transit efforts.