This blog features observations from Line Creek Valley resident Wes Minder. The comments on the blog do not represent the views of the City of Kansas City, MO, Platte County, MO, the Park Hill School District, my wife, my children, Warner Brothers, Blacque Jacqcue Shellacque, my wife's employer, the Platte Brooke North HOA, the TIF Commission of Kansas City, space aliens, the University of Illinois, Rockhurst University, or any other governmental or private group mentioned on this site. Any comments are the opinions of the respective commenter and are not reflective of any governmental or private group. Posts may be scheduled and spaced out to go live during hours of the day so time stamps are not reflective of the actual time of post writing. Any political endorsements are not paid and the cost of this blog is all borne by myself. The opinions on the blog posts are the opinions of one person-Wes Minder aka the Line Creek Loudmouth.
Happy summer. 2021 has been a busy year and frankly I've been busy enjoying life and working on a major home improvement project. For those of you following along, I'm doing great recovering from my Achilles tear and surgery and been back on the bike this week trying to rebuild strength in addition to climbing up and down ladders and attic rafters.
It's a little last minute notice but if you have any clothing you've been wanting to purge, you can help others by dropping it off the next day or two at Antioch Bible Baptist in Gladstone for the annual free clothing give away. This is a completely free event and if you don't have clothes, there is a monetary donation for backpacks using the link here.
Let's be honest. We all have more than we need so now it's a good time to clean the closets and help others.
Antioch Bible Baptist Church in Gladstone is having its annual clothing give-away this Saturday and it's an annual event where the Church offers our community free clothing.
You can help! If any of you have some gently used clothing you are looking to donate, it can be dropped off at Antioch Bible Baptist (800 NE 72nd Street, Gladstone, MO 64118 or 3 blocks east of North Oak).
Children and infant clothing is in big demand at this event and if you could assist by separating and label the clothing according to men, women, teen girls, boys, girls, infant boys, and infant girls, it would help all of our volunteer sorters get the clothing set up in the right area. Tax-receipt forms will be available for those of you that are willing to help.
Everyone else enjoying summer? Well we are and I should have posted this earlier and I am sorry I didn't post this earlier but I've got a lot of things going on right now and it snuck up on me.
If you have some clothing especially baby/toddler/kid clothing, bundle it up today and drive it over to 800 NE 72nd Street Gladstone, MO 64118 and a group of volunteers will get it sorted for folks in the community who need clothes to come pick it up free this weekend.
You can get a tax receipt, more closet space, and the satisfaction of helping someone who needs clothing for their family.
One of the reasons why I started this blog was to archive and share history. It even has its own category of posts. It's a repository of stuff I stumble on or things I find interesting. Did you know there's an actual group of folks who take historical documentation very seriously?
They have installed and are dedicating three new historical markers tomorrow (Saturday 4/7/18) at 11AM at the YMCA Challenger Park (click here for directions) and you're all invited.
This group has mapped all of their historical markers for you to learn about our past.
It's going to be cold tomorrow but bundle up and come learn more about the pioneer past. Do a little homework before you come and read up about the Barry Road Flea Market before you come. Also, I forgot to wish the old town of Barry a happy 189th Birthday last March.
If you didn't see the article from Steve Vockrodt yesterday, here it is.
The money line in the article? "Zona Rosa's occupancy rate has fallen from 85.9 percent in 2014 to 60 percent in 2017." This is what happens when we overbuild parking and subsidize parking garages. Cue the Strongtowns.org plug.
We wind up sinking capital in an asset that provides no direct return on investment. Not only is Platte County facing a huge budget shortfall for years to come, how will the vacant 40 percent of the shopping center get leased and help pay off Platte County debt when Metro North Crossing is being subsidized to the tune of $71M and will probably steal some tenants?
Anyways, all of the information being reported could easily be found by someone with a computer and some savvy search skills. I went to the Electronic Municipal Market Access website and did a simple search for "zona rosa" and all of the debt issuances appeared.
From this page, one can click on any of the debt issuance. I pulled the $19.2M 10/4/2007 issuance. I think if you click here, you can see it too. It should pull up a page like this:
From there, one can pull up the original document. One can also see how and when the bonds have traded.
What I like about the site, is it also has "continuing disclosures" tab which had annual reports.
I pulled the most recent one. You can read it here. It had quite a few nuggets of information.
The report had a schedule of annual debt payments. Looks like the bond payback increases to a roughly $2.8M annual average in 2022 with a $5M or so balloon payment in 2032?
However, the revenues of the district in 2016 were only $1,792,302.
I went back to the report for the year before and it looks like TDD sales tax revenue was flat from 2014-2016. I made this spreadsheet to see the annual change.
If the district is only collecting over $1.7M or so but the debt payments continue to grow, Platte County taxpayers are screwed based on these reports. I encourage you to do your own digging. Also, parking garages and parking lots are bankrupting us. Stop and think about the interest and debt we are passing onto our kids for our "free" parking. Building that massive parking garage at Zona was worth what to us?
Ladies and gentlemen, high school football starts tomorrow night. There have been a few rule changes so in order to save you the anger and embarassment of yelling about the wrong thing, I'd figured I'd share with you. The entire set can be found on the NFHS website here.
One big one is defining a blindside block as illegal.
Another big one is making the pop up onside kick illegal. The intent of this rule is to eliminate the head hunting and blasting that happens when the receiving team is trying to catch the ball but the kicking team is trying to destroy them.
Those of you that watch the clock will notice the first time change in a long time.
Lastly, this change is going to make my job easier. Face guarding is now legal.
Here's a nice video from the Arkansas Association of High School Officials Association.
It's been 20 years since I first set foot on a high school football field as a first time referee. Twenty stinking years......
My first game was a varsity game and I don't exactly remember where it was but I think it was either Heritage or Paxton, IL. I know my second game was in Monticello because I got beat bad on the opening kick off by a Central A&M TD return which was fumbled at the goal line and an earful from our crew chief.....
It's kind of ironic that KCTV5 ran a story on schools having a hard time getting officials for games so it's a good time to ask any of you if you have ever thought about getting into refereeing send me an email.
It's motivated me to write this post and start asking folks if they'd like to get into it. For example, last Friday night our football crew was meeting at the QT at 291/I-35 and Councilwoman Heather Hall happened to be there with one of her sons. I introduced her to my crew chief who does a lot of assigning games and said if he was interested let us know because it's a great job. Good news because they're are going to give it a try this fall. I've got my 14 year old into soccer and my 12 year old can't wait to do football. They like the idea of "pay."
I've been doing basketball for 22 years and football for now 20. After about five years it becomes rather easy. You do get into a lot of bad games but you have to love it and like working with kids because it's all about giving them a chance to play sports and learn life skills like teamwork.
Fortunately the years of working so many games finally paid off last year as our crew was selected to work one of the seven state final football games. It was flat out amazing and awesome to work a game at Faurot Field under the lights and made it all worth it. I took a video before the game to just capture the feeling.
After the game we got to watch a little of the next game from the suites. It was an amazing experience.
So if you've ever thought about it or have a kid who's in college who needs a decent paying job, let me know. I got started as a college freshman because minimum wage was $4.25 and refereeing paid $6 an hour. It was simple greed and doing something that was fun.
If any of you are high school coaches, I'd be more than happy to visit for a few minutes with your team and tell them how to get involved. This includes you ladies because officiating isn't just a guy thing. Just let me know because if we don't turn our athletes into officials, we're going to lose a generation of officials.
There's no reason why you couldn't do it. You'd be better than this guy.....
Ladies and Gentlemen, it's getting to be the end of neighborhood garage sale time and so if you didn't have much luck at getting rid of your stuff and don't know what to do with old bikes, I've got a great suggestion for you.
For the past few years we've had a non-profit organization called BikeWalkKC which is doing some great things south of the river. Last summer I dropped off six or so bikes and a tow along. They were in good shape but what BikeWalk will do is take old bikes and either use them for parts or repair them and give them out to kids in their programs who earn a bike. They also have work with kids in a couple of schools by supporting an after school bike club.
With the day job, I've been blessed with the opportunity to meet some of these kids.
The kids in the picture below were part of BikeWalk's earn a bike program. BikeWalk's program has taught them to ride and they've earned a bike to become independent so that they can get to school or jobs to earn money.
They rode to City Hall from East High School and this is what the basement where bikes park looked like.
Most these kids earned their bikes thru @BikeWalkKC "earn a bike" program. Pls donate unused bikes to BikeWalk KC This is their car pic.twitter.com/oFMbOsb7n4
Anyways, if you have old bikes that aren't doing anyone any good, BikeWalk is going to do a bike drive this Saturday from 9AM to 1PM where you can bring your bikes to Antioch Bible Baptist Church at 800 NE 72nd Street or just a couple of blocks east of North Oak on NE 72nd Street. Click here for the Facebook calendar event to remind you.
Just bring your bikes and feel better about having more space in the garage or shed for your other stuff. If you can't make it this Saturday, they do take donations at the office. Old bikes don't do anyone any good but might give someone an opportunity to get to school or a job and learn valuable life skills.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're having a baby girl this fall so enjoying boys piece of clothing from 0 to 3 is yours for the taking for $1 an item.
Our neighborhood garage sale is this week and the boys have worked hard to set up a lemonade stand with cookies for sale so follow the links below to the neighborhood and buy ours and others stuff....... PLEASE
Our neighborhood is on the east side of Green Hills between Barry and NW 68th and due east of Lake Waukomis.
Man, it's been so long since I've had a chance to blog that I notice Typepad changed the icons and format....
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a huge amenity in the Line Creek Valley and enough people don't take advantage of it. Tomorrow is your chance to do that and skate with Santa at the Line Creek Community Center. Details here:
Skate with Santa
Saturday, December 19 2-4 p.m. Ages 5+ FREE admission with every can of food donated! ($6 admission; $2 skate rental)
Join the jolly big man for some fun and festivity on ice!
I'm not sure how good of a skater Santa is but he's got to be better than this guy....
Christmas is just one week away but maybe it's because of the warm weather but I'm not feeling it. Maybe it's because it's not the same Christmas season without the Metro North Mall free train rides. Anyone else miss the guys that used to work there?
I get comments or emails from time to time from people asking if there is another blog or website focused on Clay County stuff. I don't really have the time to write about half the stuff in Platte County I want to write about let alone all the things going on in Clay. I've never been able to answer that question until now.....
It's a news start up edited by Andrew Palmer (who is not getting subsidies to stay in business) focused on all Northland and Clay County news. Like the FB page here and follow on TW here.
This is a good week to help others and straighten up the house. Antioch Bible Baptist Church in Gladstone is having its annual free clothing give away to help those in our community with clothing for the upcoming school year.
There are a lot of people who attend this event and it is a great way to help a family and kids in our community. Donation receipts are available.
The church is right in the heart of the Northland and easy to get to so feel free to help by simply dropping off your clothing. Get directions here.
First off I wish I would have posted this earlier but it snuck up on me. This Saturday is the annual Sophie's Run at Lake Waukomis. You can sign up here.
This is your once a year chance non-residents can legally run around Lake Waukomis.
How? By participating in Sophie's Run this Saturday May 10th. Here's the website for the Foundation where you can learn about Sophie and how the run benefits kids in the Park Hill School District. Below is what I cut and pasted from the site about the Foundation. Please share.
About the Sophie's Run Foundation
Sophie’s Run @ Lake Waukomis is a 501c3, organized to honor the life of Sophie Edwards, a citizen of Lake Waukomis and student of the Park Hill School District, who passed away April 29, 2010.
The fundraising we do benefits children in surrounding communities to assist them in obtaining technology that will help them in school & in life. Our goal is to provide children who have special needs with the means to communicate. Park Hill School District has documented the work being done in the classrooms with Assistive Technology Devices donated to the Assistive Tech LIbrary in the District.
We had searched for a communication device that Sophie could access all her life. It was a challenge given that her limbs were affected by tone from spasticity and her body was challenged by the energy metabolism disorder that was the basis of her health issues. Sophie communicated with us through her eyes and in 2008, we found an eye gaze computer that Sophie could operate. It took months to locate the sources to fund the $17,000 device, only to have it delivered 1 week to the day after Sophie's funeral. We contributed over $5000 worth of equipment in 2012 & 2013 to Park Hill School District's Assistive Technology Library and the therapists and educators continue to inform us that it was a gift that keeps on giving each day in the classrooms and beyond.
Our goal through the Sophie’s Run @ Lake Waukomis Foundation, is to never see a child have to wait to communicate. Communication doesn't stop when children leave their school, so we hope to assist families who would like a device to create seamless communication from home to school and back again. Families who wish to submit a grant application to help fund an assistive technology device, should request a grant application by writing runsophies5k@gmail.com.
Sincerely, Jim & Theresa Edwards (Sophie's Parents) & The Board of Sophie's Run @ Lake Waukomis
Let me just say I have some awesome readers: 121 of you took the time to vote and it was a landslide that the boat at Tiffany Springs should stay.
What does this mean? Nothing really except that I think some of us don't want the sterile, master planned, landscaped look like in JOCO and like to keep some Ozark heritage reminders around.
This is probably the last chance to use a boat reference to share a Bond boat chase (BTW Bond boat chases rule-they should have made more) for a while so enjoy....
The Boat sure looked pretty tonight with the snow. However, don't let that skew your vote. Today is your last day to vote. If you have voted, share it with some friends.
The owner of the boat appealed to the KCMO Board of Zoning Adjustment and was denied. Not an attorney nor sure how the whole planning/zoning law works anywhere but it appears the owner has proceeded to appeal the ruling. The case is 14AE-CV02404 on Missouri Case Net. The last docket date reads this:
11/07/2014
Hearing Held
Plaintiff by atty Randall Crawford. Defendant by atty Sarah Baxter. Plaintiff to have brief due by 12/15/14. Defendant to have brief due by 1/16/15. Plaintiff to have response due by 1/30/15. sh
Scheduled For: 11/07/2014; 9:00 AM ; THOMAS C FINCHAM; Platte
I guess that means we wait and see if the boat stays or goes. Someday you might be able to bike by the boat or over the hump of which it formerly stood.
You have one thing to do today or tomorrow with the kids. The football game is Monday and the yard doesn't need mowed.....so take the family outside this weekend.
Vaydik Park is one of the hidden jewels of the metro area. Now that the trail is done and all of the park is accessible it offers some of the best views of Line Creek and a signature waterfall.
Bring a camera and make a "staycation" out of it. Not only is is close, the kids will remember it and you can get out of there for under $5.
I have the purpose of this blog posted at the top of the page. However, I wanted to just remind people who might happen to come upon this blog recently that this is a hobby. It's a way for me exhibit my inner creativity I am not able to channel in my profession. Engineers are a very different breed. Certain personalities are attracted to the profession and the educational process taught by universities doesn't adequately teach and train those personalities to their highest potential. A great deal of you know what exactly I am talking about. I always tell people I got my MBA from one of the best universities to retrain my brain so I could function in society.
I have the big disclaimer above so that you know this all just me writing about stuff that I care about or issues I feel passionately about. I also use it as a way to promote the Line Creek Valley and southern Platte County as one of the best places to live in the KC area. It's amazing how HTML code and search engines work and how I've been able to use them to push positive things about our area to the top of the search.
It's been awesome to have email conversations from people who are looking to move into the area and don't know anything about the KC metro. I know when we looked at moving here in 1998 we knew nothing. We just wound up at the cheapest place we could find that met our standards. Little did I know that we would love living in this area so much that we've only had three residences in 16 years all within a half-mile radius of each other. That's how much we love the Line Creek Valley and the Park Hill School District.
A lot of the history stuff I come across happens by accident. I have scanned and archived thousands of items. I figure that at some point that information or old study might come in handy. The easiest way to find it is on a computer server rather than going through a gazillion file cabinets and it really doesn't do future generations or you any good rotting away there. I share the stuff I find cool or answers questions like why is there an old bridge along the Line Creek Trail or what is that little shack along Barry Road at the Line Creek Trail. I am not from this area so I find this stuff awesome because I am curious and like to learn new things.
Besides that, since the local Northland newspaper went away and the big newspaper doesn't have anyone covering the local beat, I saw an opportunity to fill a need for information in the Line Creek Valley with regard to construction and real estate development. I told someone today I've always like to play in the dirt. I used to spend hours in a massive sandbox using water to build roads, valleys, stick bridges with mud sand as concrete, houses, fences using sticks, etc. I've been blessed with the skills and opportunities to do that in real life with my current job. I am proud of progress and know that people are curious about what is going on in the world around them. I love (and collect) maps and so that's why you tend to see them pop up often.
I also use this as a way to educate and inform people about political items. Local elections, not national, have the biggest impact on your daily life yet less than 20% of you show up to vote when it's not November. I want to inform folks about stuff coming up (and push my point if I care about it). I really don't want people making their minds up based on campaign signs littering the public right of way or misleading and out of context votes/quotes that show up in the mail the day before.
I also loathe government waste and use this forum to point out things I think readers should know about politicians to keep them honest or at least aware that someone out there is making sure they hold their office with dignity and integrity. Everything is available but very few know where to find it. I hope to keep politicos conscious and that campaign cash will be noted if it appears that cash has bought influence or is causing someone to take a position that promotes crony capitalism.
I find humor from TV shows, cartoons, and music videos as a way to make a point and add a smile to posts when appropriate. Life is too short to not poke fun at certain things/people. When I do pick on people, it's only because they deserve it.
If anyone has come across this blog and wonder why I put my neck and name out there, all I can say is I do it to fill information or leadership voids. By being so public with this site, you will always know where I stand. I don't delete posts. I figure if I said it, I need to answer for it. I'm not going to hide anything from you. I will always give an honest answer. You may not like it or you may disagree with it but I will give you my reasons for it and we'll have to move on. I like to handle differences or grievances immediately so things can move forward. Again life is too short to hold grudges.
I really really do appreciate all of you that take the time to read my musings. Some day I'll get a responsible job and this hobby will probably have to go away or at least only focus on keeping tabs on Park Hill/Platte County elections/politicos. Until then I will continue to be the self-appointed Bluto of the Line Creek Valley.....
It's a little late notice but time is flying. If you have any clothes you want to get rid of or know someone who could use a little help getting by, Antioch Bible Baptist is having its annual clothing giveaway this weekend. In case you want to help, the church is on NW 72nd Street about 3 blocks east of North Oak in Gladstone. Details below:
Clothing Give Away
ABBC’s annual Clothing Giveaway is Saturday, July 26th, from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm for our church family and the community. This is a huge event, with many opportunities for you to serve.
First of all, we need clean, gently-used clothes from infant to adult sizes, sorted by gender. We especially need infant and toddler clothes, because these go very quickly. We also need paper and plastic shopping bags.
You may drop off your clothes and shopping bag donations Monday, July 21st, through Wednesday, July 23rd, 9:00 am to 9:00 pm. There will be tax-receipt forms at the Information Center. Due to limited space, donated items will only be accepted on these dates. Please separate and label clothing according to men, women, teen girls, boys, girls, infant boys and infant girls. Due to blacktop repair, the East parking lot is closed beginning Tuesday, July 22. Please drop off clothing donations on the front porch of the administrative office.
And I'm having one. Head down Green Hills Road south of Barry Road and north of the 72nd Street roundabout.
Head into the middle of the subdivision and just look for the fiber contractor with the orange spools and you'll find us.
If you don't want any of my stuff, feel free to stop by the kids cookie and lemonade stand. They've been looking forward to having one since last year when they did it or you can just heckle me....
I also have plenty of free wild red maples and single oaks looking for a home.
