Well, last night the city held its informational meeting at the Shawnee Civic Centre. Approximately 100 people attended. My first gripe has to do with the fact that the meeting was planned to have 45 minutes of info and only 15 minutes of Q & A (for 100 people???)
Now, I am going to make some statements here about the meeting itself. You don't have to take my word for it. The Shawnee Mission Post ran an article about it, and, they had a video recording
So, what are my first comments? Both groups (for and against) were pretty well represented. The city did their usual dog and pony show with some twisted info. Let's leave it at that.
If you go to the video and at about the 45 or 46 minute mark is where the Q & A started. At around 52 minutes is where I started. The attitude of Asst. City Manager Caitlin Gard was totally out of order. Extremely rude and unprofessional. Don't take my word for it. Watch the video. Others approached me after the meeting and were stunned. This young lady needs to learn how to interact with her employers (the citizens of Shawnee). I believe she started to approach the microphone to say something to the individual who followed me but was stopped by the Asst Parks Director, Tonya Lecuru, probably the only staff member there last night who acted in a civil, appropriate manner. What about Tonya's boss? Parks Director Neil Holman, who sat there the whole night like a king on a throne overseeing what his subordinate was doing. If he didn't want to get involved he needed to stay home.
Now, let's talk about our MIA City Manager, Nolan Sunderman. Where was he last night? This is one of three major projects going on, Belmont Promenade and Westbrooke Green. He was down the hall giving a Shawnee 101 class to three, yes three people. Shawnee 101 is a quick citizen's guide to how the city functions. This "class" can be given by any number of people (maybe Asst City Mgr Gard should have been there). Heck, the finance director probably has a thorough working knowledge of the city. What are we paying Sunderman? Believe it is somewhere in the neighborhood of $140K plus benefits and allowances. Did the city get its money's worth from him last night? No way. He needed to be in that room with 100 citizens. Oh, this Shawnee 101 class was only advertised about 3 days ahead of time. Makes one wonder if it was done so he could have an excuse not to be at the more important community meeting.
I feel that the city council really needs to look hard and long at whether this is the right person for the job. He is coming up on his first anniversary. Maybe admit that a mistake was made and cut the city's losses.
