KC Confidential

“It’s like this, guys. You gotta bunk in the old place.”

Keep this under you hat, but Bill Self‘s $17.5 million luxury apartments complex just got whacked…

What, you didn’t read any news stories about it either? The first mention of the whacking – from $17.5 million down to $10 million or less – came in the form of an editorial in Sunday’s Lawrence Journal World.

Which is kinda funny, cause when KU’s athletics department wanted to wipe the egg off its face after getting embarrassed by the Kansas Legislature recently, it put out enough press releases to get coverage about a “lead donor” being found for the Fieldhouse Apartments that it was even mentioned in the Washington Post.

But now that they’re going halfsies on the deal, mum’s the word..now here’s why.

Forget about women’s sports and Title IX insuring that “no person be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

The reason KU athletics is running quiet is they’re running scared. Continue reading →

The Eloi

Because a truly forward-thinking, progressive city needs a serious, take no prisoners news organization to help lead the way. To inform and inspire the citizenry. Which even given its many flaws, the Star does.

You think KC Confidential or Tony’s Kansas City can deliver those goods? Please.

Absent the above, you risk living in a town like Lawrence, Kansas.

Don’t get me wrong, Lawrence is a charming, little burg, bustling with college kids and profs, a sprinkling of aging hippies and beatniks, the odd local oddball and a hard working, hard partying core population.

It’s also a rudderless town of 95,000 and change, populated by people who remind me of the Eloi in the 1960’s sci fi movie The Time Machine. Continue reading →

Maybe former Chiefs quarterback Steve Bono was right after all…

There are so many goofy surveys out there and year-after-year we fall for ’em. Best city to party, retire, bike or find romance in. The fittest, fattest, funnest – there’s no shortage of topics. And usually it’s a magazine or website hardly anybody really reads that puts these local media magnets out in an effort to garner attention and try and remain relevant.

Long ago pretty much everybody figured out one of the best ways to make a splash is to put out a list that purports to bestow awards (however dubious) on as many different cities and towns as they can. Knowing that the local media will pounce on said surveys and act like they actually matter. You know, that we really are the best, worst or fattest. Continue reading →

Blarney, anybody?

Just spin, baby…

What to do on the heels of the Kansas legislature’s embarrassing snub of the KU Athletics Department after it shot down a request to fund KU’s lavish $17.5 million luxury apartments for basketball recruits…

Especially with KU  basketball deity Bill Self poised to clinch his 10th Big 12 title. After all, Self had shinnied out on a limb shilling for the pricey project, telling basketball devotees it was necessary to keep up with college powerhouses like Kentucky.

And trust me, nobody at the University of Kansas (or in Lawrence) dares disappoint Bill Self. Could cause him to eyeball one of those king-sized NBA paychecks lurking in the shadows.

What was the athletics department to do? Continue reading →

Curiouser and curiouser…

On the heels of not hearing back for several days from a jeweler rumored to be under investigation by authorities, intrepid reporter Paul Wilson was dispatched this afternoon to the offices of said jeweler in an to attempt to set the record straight…one way or another.

Here’s what Wilson found.

“I went by the building the jeweler occupies,” Wilson says. “And there was a sign on the window of the office suite door apologizing for being closed and saying they’ll be back Monday.”

There’s more. Continue reading →

The temperature seems to be rising on the scion of a legendary KC jeweler…

Rapidly. And while – as we’ve explored here – anything’s possible as far as a bust timetable is concerned should stories making the rounds prove true – increasingly the feeling is that this thing may be about to burst wide open…one way or another. There are just too many people in the local news media who’ve begun sniffing about for this story.

And still the jeweler in question is not returning my calls nor answering his telephone.

Meanwhile area police and justice department officials appear to be under increasing media pressure to make a move if there’s one to be made and release the story.

One local jeweler says he’s heard it involves “Internet drug purchases and previously missing pieces of jewelry from prominent local families.” Continue reading →

Not so fast, Sherlock…

The odds of a Kansas City jeweler getting off the hook by cutting a deal with the Feds with no publicity whatsoever: in a word, slim.

So says two-time convicted felon and former special agent to the Kansas attorney general Craig Glazer, who as they say, has been there, done that. Even were the jeweler in question a first time offender, he’s still almost certain to spend some slam time along with a heaping helping of local news headlines to wash it down with, Glazer says.

Here’s how it works. Continue reading →