Fairway city hall

Mike Hendricks may not have come up with a new idea about the Fairway city hall issue, but he absolutely came up with the right idea (4/12, Metro, “A fair way to help small cities”). I am a nine-year Fairway resident. It’s a terrific neighborhood, but I’ve always thought we should merge with one or more of our neighboring small cities. Thanks to Mike for pointing out so many great reasons to do so.

I bristle at the idea of a new city hall, period. Why do we need one? Why do we need a city of Fairway? Why spend millions of dollars on a building for a government facility? What does that do for residents? What possible reasons do our city leaders have for not even considering a merger?

Amen, Mike. Let’s do away with Fairway.

Chris Crabtree
Fairway

In Mike Hendricks’ April 12 column, he suggested that the communities of northeast Johnson County would be better served by merging into one super-municipality and become like the Brookside and Waldo neighborhoods of Kansas City. Hendricks cited Fairway’s current consideration of a new city hall as an illustration of this need.

As a member of the Fairway City Council, I suggest that the city hall discussion, despite being contentious at times, is exactly why Mr. Hendricks’ suggestion is a terrible idea.

In Fairway, we have an obsolete city hall that is inaccessible under the Americans With Disabilities Act. The city has committed to putting any proposal for a new city hall to a vote. Therefore, to ensure that Fairway gets a functional, handicapped-accessible city hall, it is imperative that we only put forth a plan that has broad community support.

I wonder whether this is the same process available to Waldo and Brookside residents when the municipal government of Kansas City makes important decisions that affect them.

Thurston Cromwell
City Council member, 1st Ward
Fairway

Comments

[Geoffrey Stone]

Gimme a break. Bigger does NOT make better, especially where government operations are concerned. Look at NYC or LA. Heck, look at KC - either one of them - or even Overland Parkinglot, which has been expanding south, absorbing unincorporated land and helpless small villages. Up goes the crime, up goes the crowding, up goes the traffic, and down goes the neighborhood.

The beauty of Fairway is that it is easily manageable by a police force of five, two clerks and a Code Boy. If it had any major problems, this new boy mayor, St. Clair, wouldn't have the time to be trying to hustle up a bigger "baylding"; since he and all the other city officers are not fulltime employees, or even part-time employees, but just "weekend warriors", the whining about cramped space has nothing to do with anything about Fairway, just the ego(s) of the promoters.

And, what *about* ADA noncompliance? This didn't bother anyone for the past 20 years, just comes to the fore as an adjunct to the new mayor's "baylding" mania. Didn't even bother the Code Boy, it seems. The surplus funds St. Clair and cronies want to slurp up for an architectural monument to their presences was designated by former mayor Peterson to run the power lines underground, to reduce the risk of another citywide blackout as we had during the 2002 ice storm. I suggest if St. Clair doesn't want to find himself on the losing end of a recall petition, he and the councilmen need to get back to serving the citizenry instead of themselves.