Bravo!
Thumbs up to newly-minted Kansas City Star editorial page editor Steve Paul for his piece Sunday, “American Royal Needs to get Real on Kemper Issue.”
I’ve known Steve for years and in short, he’s a brainy, artsy guy who isn’t really the type to go around cornering people and spouting off about civic issues. So other than having tons of time-in-service and the fact that he’s a longtime Kansas City guy, Paul wasn’t exactly an obvious choice to leave the comfortable confines of the FYI and Arts & Entertainment sections for the Opinion or editorial section. Let alone run the whole show.
“He brings a wealth of knowledge to the role, as well as a critical eye, keen curiosity and deep appreciation for the importance of opinion work in our community,” publisher Mi-Ai Parrish said last month in a canned comment attached to the newspaper’s announcement of Paul’s promotion.
Get real, Parrish barely knows Steve Paul.
She’s spent more time fussing with decorating duties for her office and the newsroom makeover the past three years since arriving here than she has plumbing the depths of Steve’s body of work at the Star.
Yet to be honest, fun loving as Paul’s predecessor Miriam Pepper was, she was hardly a firebrand when it came to man (or woman) handling controversial local news issues. And truth be known, these days there are far more ways to get your you-know-what in a wringer at 18th and Grand than to bask in the afterglow of having dealt somebody a good ass kicking.
So again, bravo to Steve Paul for his gutsy taking on of a pair of “civic leaders” – one who doesn’t even live here – in his editorial condemning their efforts to extort tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers to tear down Kemper Arena and replace it with a 5,000 seat horse show venue.
“The American Royal’s arguments for replacing the city-owned Kemper Arena with a smaller facility and denying a developer’s proposal to reuse the historic structure make very little sense,” Paul wrote. “And they should not stand in the way of forging a larger vision that accomplishes both goals and helps spur new life in the West Bottoms.”
Ladies and gentlemen, it took guts to write that.
And now a dirty, little, behind-the-scenes secret:
I’ve spoken to some of the most esteemed businessmen and civic leaders in the city – people whose names regularly appear in the media when matters of great importance are being discussed – and virtually all believe plowing anywhere near this kind of money into the American Royal to be folly.
I’m betting Steve knows this as well.
However, those other civic leaders are mostly hiding in the shadows – off the record – because nobody wasn’t to cross swords with the titular head of the Kemper banking family let alone risk the wrath of one of the city’s hottest tempered business executives.
That aside, here’s what we all pretty much know – or believe that we know.
The American Royal is an institution whose time has come and gone.
Long gone are the days when thousands of blue-jacketed Future Farmers of America descended on the cowtown, electrifying an otherwise mundane livestock and horse show that was of minimal interest to most locals.
And the only concert of any import that will play KC between October 29th and November 1st – the dates for this year’s FFA confab – Bassnectar at the Midland. During that same time frame the FFA kids will be able to choose between country headliners, Justin Moore, Easton Corbin, Scott McCreery and Danielle Bradbery, the Four Tops and Puddle of Mudd – the latter a KC export.
No better example of how far the American Royal has fallen is that proponents of tearing down Kemper and plowing $50 million into a smaller horse and livestock showcase, is that in a front page story today one of the biggest arguments set forth by civic leaders was, “the American Royal needs more space to expand the annual barbecue contest.”
That’s a four day a year event that while in its 35th year has little to do with the American Royal itself, other than its name dating to the contests formative years when the American Royal still halfway mattered.
Truth be known, the livestock events could go completely away and the BBQ contest could be moved practically anywhere – including elsewhere in the West Bottoms – and it wouldn’t have much, if any impact on the event.
Trust me, the people who come to KC to conduct barbecue battle are not cut from the same cloth as the folks who patronize the American Royal’s horse, livestock and rodeo shows let alone its BOTAR high society ball.
I know for some of you this may hurt but rival bbq town, the Memphis World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest has been around for 37 years. That’s two years longer than KC’s, and while it had an equally humble start, its organizers tied it to a huge, three day music fest two weeks before and an annual outdoor sunset symphony the week after.
And while you can argue if you will about which city has the best BBQ – or the best BBQ contest – make not mistake, the associated Memphis music fest blows the American Royals livestock connections completely away.
This year’s headliners in Memphis included, Kid Rock, Alabama Shakes, Foster the People, Avenged Sevenfold, Pretty Lights, Snoop Dogg, String Cheese Incident, Patti LaBelle, STS9, 311, Joan Jett, Jerry Lee Lewis, Third Eye Blind, Seether, Bootsy Collins, Chick Corea,Group Love, Fitz & the Tantrums, Blues Traveler, Anthrax, Dropkick Murphys, Twenty One Pilots, Dickey Betts, Buddy Guy, Canned Heat, Dany Warhols, Tommy Castro, Ana Popovic and more than a dozen other acts and artists.
How about we worry more about amping up the American Royal BBQ Contest by pairing it with something that has killer, widespread appeal like Memphis music fest rather than plowing tens of millions of dollars into lightly attended livestock, horse and rodeo events?
Without going into quite that detail, that’s what Steve Paul seemed to imply.
“Anyone who has spent a minute in the West Bottoms knows there is plenty of ground space in the vicinity of Kemper,” Paul writes. “The barbecue contest, which spans one weekend of the year, can surely be accommodated if it needs to stretch out. As an outdoor festival, stretching it northward toward the nearby commercial district could provide the kind of neighborhood connection that everyone agrees needs to happen in the area.”
Next Paul flashes a middle finger at the civic leaders by describing their argument against a developer’s proposal to turn Kemper into a youth sports emporium as “arrogant and unconvincing.”
The Royal partisans dismiss the proposal by developer Steve Foutch to turn Kemper Arena into a mecca for youth sports as “a sketchy, underfunded pipe dream,” Paul writes.
“Yet Royal officials are guilty of much the same speculation, by suggesting they will have the (heavily government-financed) facility and the capacity to create a center for agricultural education and spinoff activities encompassing food culture.”
Paul even busted the American Royal for packing the gallery with applauding supporters – and frankly, it doesn’t take that many – to create the illusion to City Council members that the public is wildly behind their concept.
“Three or four architects and others spoke up for saving the arena on historical legacy grounds and encouraged the city to embrace a larger vision of the West Bottoms,” Paul writes. “There was not quite as much applause for those arguments. But they made a lot more sense.”
Paul even had the cojones to take on out-of-town UMB head honcho Mariner Kemper for “blurting out” that people focussed on “the arena’s architectural significance were thinking only of the ‘glass bump,’ the atrium expansion attached to architect Helmut Jahn’s original design only 18 years ago,” Paul writes. “Clearly, on this point, Kemper has no idea what he’s talking about.”
Go, Steve!
Look, it’s a heckuva lot easier at the Kansas City Star for columnists to go along to get along and/or measure their words to the point of watering down the message. Especially given the current financial environment where not pissing off advertisers or prospective ones matters like never before.
I’d say Steve gets an A plus grade for dodging that bullet and here’s to him dishing out more of the same.
If this a preview of Star editorial gutsiness to come, I say bring it!
not exactly the point of your post, hearne, but I had no fkng idea the Memphis contest was that big or that splashy. makes ours look lame by comparison in light how highly touted our contest is, even if it is a big deal in the BBQ world.
we have too many small minds and special interests in Kansas City. probably why the Riverfront never got properly developed either.
so to that point, I agree that if The Star editorial board grows a pair, maybe their editorials can have some positive impact and regain some of the influence it used to have. and maybe if that happens, people might start to care about The Star again.
Thanks for your comment, mike t.
Two things:
The KC BBQ battle gets plenty of contestants. Not sure the differential but I’ll see if I can track it later tonight. And i think the prize money is a big part of it too but I’m not sure who comes out on top of that.
Anybody wanna weigh in on that one?
As for the Star growing a pair, I’m with you. The problem is, because of its diminished readership – I know, I know, they claim a million readers a week with online or whatever but – and the other problem is they often tend to be so politically correct, naive and/or one sided that many people tend to ignore much of what they have to say.
You know, but it’s a new day maybe with Steverino!
Mike – Memphis In May is huge, you have no idea. The Royal is not even close.
Well, Kid Rock and a couple dozen acts of all stripes beats a horse show every time in my book.
When George Guastello was running the American Royal he had some decent acts for two or three years, but nothing even close to Memphis.
We’re trapped in the past because a couple of rich guys are vested in ag events that matter to but a few.
Unfortunately, politics being what it is, they might just have enough clout to pull it off. And one way or the other, the people would could care less about it will get stuck paying for it.
Who cares who tears down Kemper on their “dime?”
Especially if you think tearing it down is a crime against society and don’t want to invest in a past that has long since passed.
The last several years I’ve missed the Royal in favor of The Jack – better atmosphere and they’re far more serious about the judging.
Before I quit doing the Royal – both judge and table captaining – the contest had degraded such the event drew nowhere near the necessary certified judges; people showed up who had no idea how to judge, much less interest. It was not uncommon to look up and see judges barely nibbling on submissions before tossing the meat in gallon baggies to be placed in iced coolers. Hell, the very last time I judged there, in addition to placing us (the judges) in a room barely separated by thin pieces of plastic from their fleet of gas exhaust spouting golf carts, I returned to our table with the brisket entries to find one of my judges asleep: I suspect inebriation of some sort as his scores had been all over the place. When I informed the contest rep about this he just shrugged..
Nope, it’s Lynchburg for me.
Come to that, Arkansas’s Smoke on the Water contest is far more fun than the Royal as well.
That’s kind of scary, Nick.
However I have to confess to going to the AR BBQ contest only a very few times.
Mostly because of Guastello’s concerts.
At this stage of the game it seems like NOW is the time for the city to step back, take a close look at the competition, reevaluate things and decide how to proceed.
Frankly, they really don’t even need the American Royal name anymore IMHO.
It’s the World Series of Barbecue,
Get a couple of heavy local hitters in the mix – Boulevard and The Roasterie maybe – and come up with a plan that will make people really want to come to Kansas City,
Cerner’s Neal Patterson could set that event on total fire if he wanted to.
But first he needs to have a talk with his children and a few people that aren’t afraid to tell him what they really think – and divorce himself from a past with very little future.
He could almost single handily rescue – that may be too strong a word – an iconic Kansas City event, the BBQ contest.
And getting real about the horse shows, etc would demonstrate the kind of leadership this city needs – flexible and forward looking.
One of your best Hearne.
it would appear that Mi-ah Parrish has decided that The Star is not to be the bend-over-and-grab-your-ankles whore for the establishment that Art Brisbane turned it into. And the days of the editorial page being a home for The Star’s affirmative action babies seems to be waning also.
I’m not sure what Miriam Pepper did during her tenure at The Star. One looks in vain for anything with her byline. Certainly the page came to mirror Brisbane’s Stalinist mentality and subservience to whatever the latest establishment scam was to loot the till. One suspects she would have been all over a scheme like this since you can’t steal from something you don’t build.
But there is a growing body of evidence that The Star’s editorial page is returning at least to the glory days when Rich Hood, a former investigative reporter, and Steve Winn were running the show and at least trying to keep the kiddies in their charge somewhat focused on not embarrassing the paper anymore than possible.
It will be interesting to see if this period of letting 100 flowers blossom succeeds, or whether Paul, like Hood before him, will be terminated for having the uppitiness to give us at least a glimpse of the tawdry underbelly of the metro area’s corrupt establishment.
If the Ball of the American Royal debutantes goes away, how are a bunch of inbred horse-faced girls in 50s dresses going to get awkwardly fingered?
That’s the way it actually is, Mordecai
The debutantes and their escorts come from the upper echelon of KC society. It’s a legit event and as far as debutante balls go, second only to the Jewel Ball
HALF MEASURES AVAIL US NOTHING
As a transplanted New Yorker I worked in the West Bottoms for two years.
Was amazed that in the middle of a major city in the 21st Century there still existed so many acres of opportunity.
Below represents my interpretation of the arguments posted over the past three years by the various interested parties regarding the Kemper Arena.
Please pardon any presumptions and/or miss-representations. They are mine alone.
Currently there are two plans being proposed for how best to proceed.
*Plan 1: Repurpose Kemper Arena.
Benefit:
1. Community gets a “youth and amateur sports facility”, and keeps a 50 year old arena alive.
*Plan 2: Replace Kemper Arena.
Benefits:
1. Two new purpose driven modern facilities that maintain and increase a major festival and/or parking area.
2. A declaration by individuals who’s follow through credentials are unquestioned, to build on the American Royal’s credibility and contacts to make this area of the West Bottoms an internationally known center of gravity for 21st Century agribusiness discussions, events and meetings.
This is a significant initiative for the entire City. The single most important economic engine in Kansas City is agribusiness. And a perfect compliment to the KC Animal Health Corridor.
3. Continue to grow the very relevant mission and purpose of the American Royal in support of youth education and Midwest values.
4. Continue, and grow, the AR’s $60 million dollar a year economic impact. By the way the $60 million impact is a city agreed number.
5. Create a “youth and amateur sports facility” overseen and promoted by one of the nations premier sports organizations Sporting KC.
*Iconic:
As a New Yorker I have passed through the 5 stages of grief over the wrecking ball soon to hit Madison Square Garden, the most iconic arena on earth I say with NYC pride. There will be many tears, and a lot more beer, spilled its final night.
Some still seem stuck in the denial stage regarding the KA.
If people had cared that much about the Kemper and the urban center then a major Convention Hotel would probably have been built where Sprint Center is and Kemper would have been maintained and improved in a timely manner over the decades. But folks purposely cut off the oxygen supply to the Kemper and indeed the West Bottoms.
Sorry but this new found concern has a hollow ring to it.
*American Royal:
Sometimes one hears that the American Royal is home to special interests.
For the Bottoms to be all it can be, it will require special interests with proven track records in developing visions. People who have demonstrated the strength of character and grit to get things done.
Please Missouri and Kansas take two minutes to read the AR calendar of events and their Mission and Purpose. You will discover that you, and our cities future, have more in common with the special interests supporting the AR then not. Youth. Education. Competition. Agricultural progress for the 21st Century.
The AR is perfectly suited to become the center of gravity for all things related to farm to table. Internationally. Nationally. Locally.
*The BBQ & Parking Lots:
I love the AR BBQ and the international recognition it has attained. But somehow it has become the center of this story. That and parking lots.
This story should be focused on which of the plans submitted has a vision for the West Bottoms beyond a refurbished arena and youth sporting facility.
It isn’t about parking. It’s about a holistic vision. Not a cluster masquerading as a plan.
*So:
On one hand they can repurpose an old arena into a youth sports facility. And at the end of the day the West Bottoms has . . . a face lifted arena using concrete Botox to create a youth sports facility.
Or the West Bottoms gets the commitment of people who want it to become one of the key agricultural meeting and events centers in the country.
It gets event and facility venues for our youth under the premier guidance of Sporting KC. Certainly others can do a nice job . . . but if we have the chance to enlist SKC’s world class management team . . . This commitment alone is an investment far beyond anything the other approach offers.
These facilities will increase the influence of the AR around the country as the most important and influential place to hold the country’s largest cattle, equestrian, hog etc. competitions. And these events are not nostalgic, fun to have get togethers.
These events not only cause that $60 million plus economic impact every year, but also influence major agriculture and animal decision making nationally and internationally.
And these new facilities would be an ideal added value to offer conventions when coming to KC. The American Royal Agricultural Events Center and environs are an easy shuttle distance away for state of the art team building experiences and conferences.
PS.
By the way has anyone published ground plans of the two approaches? Would help the discussions, yes?
Bryden Becker