Blogs

By NADIA PFLAUM

A Lee's Summit mom named Maria Sullivan filed a federal lawsuit today in Kansas City against the makers of baby products containing bisphenol A. The lawsuit, which also lists four other plaintiffs, seeks class-action status for anybody "who purchased plastic baby bottles, bottle liners, and cups containing the synthetic chemical."

Click here to read how Missouri biologist Frederick vom Saal and his team exposed the dangers of bisphenol A — and earned the wrath of the plastic industry.

And click here to read the lawsuit.

By JUSTIN KENDALL

Michael Van De Carr wants husbands to round up their wives and children and come on down to Totally Nude Temptations at 1517 Grand today at 12:30 p.m. for a free family portrait outside the club.

Van De Carr, a family photographer and 33-year-old father of six, put out a press release Monday morning offering the downtown club's regulars a free family portrait.

“If they like the place that much, and they don't think it's a harm to any families, why don't they bring them down there?” Van De Carr says. “It's free.”

Van De Carr already knows the answer to his question. Though he says he's not sure if anyone will take him up on his offer, the stunt is meant to demonstrate that none of Temptations' customers will accept the offer.

“They would never in a million years think of bringing their families around this,” Van De Carr says. “They know that it's not good for their families, so therefore they keep their families away.”

The publicity stunt is also meant to draw attention to Temptations’ proposed expansion. In exchange for getting permission to expand, Temptations' dancers would wear pasties and g-strings. Temptations would also increase the entry age from 18 to 21, which would allow the club to sell liquor, and replace the “Totally Nude” sign on the building's façade.

The club would seemingly get less raunchy under the changes, but Van De Carr says: “If it’s wrong for somebody to be in there under 18, it’s wrong for somebody to be in there that's 21. It’s morally wrong.”

On the change from naked to scantily clad: “I don't think there's a difference,” he says. “I wouldn't take my kid or any of my kids or any kids I know at all to a beach in Europe that's topless. While that's fine out there – that's the way that it is in their society -- it’s still not right. It's not right.”

On replacing the “Totally Nude” sign: “It’s going to be perceived as a more legitimate place to hang out at because it doesn’t have the sign,” he says. “They’ll put it off as a gentlemen’s club where anyone but gentlemen would be there.”

Of course, rounding up the clan on a weekday isn't easy. People who frequent strip clubs need to work to make all those dollar bills. Wives work, too. Plus, the kids likely will be in school at 12:30 p.m. on a Wednesday. Van De Carr says that’s no excuse.

“I know that there are going to be at least 60 people down there for a fact that have taken off work and gotten away from what they need to do during the regular day because they are that passionate about stopping the expansion,” Van De Carr says. “If the people who frequent the place aren't passionate enough to come down there and make a stand that they believe the expansion should be allowed, that paints another picture for the city.”

Van De Carr expects Phillip Cosby with the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families to be among the 60 people protesting the expansion and taking part in a prayer vigil. After the photo op, they'll march to city hall, Van De Carr says.

I called Temptations but the manager wasn't immediately available.

By ERIC BARTON

Oakland's East Bay Express this week features this tell-all story written by a reporter who worked as a tax preparer for Kansas City-based H&R Block. The reporter, Steve Koppman, writes that Block preys on the poor, pushes bogus "add ons" on its customers in order to drive up profits and employs people at minimum wage with false promises of bonuses.

Koppman enrolled in Block's tax-preparation course in October 2006, a course that potential employees pay $200 to take. Koppman then worked as a tax preparer in Walnut Creek, California. As a tax preparer, Koppman claims he was exposed to Block's "bizarrely byzantine" employee bonus program, which he describes this way:

Employees are given credit for each tax return they complete and additional Block service they sell. Employees also receive extra commission for each year of prior Block employment and each level of advanced training they attain. If the total commission on these items exceeds the employee's hourly base salary, the excess will be paid as a bonus several weeks after tax season is over.

This legendary "bonus" is what employees pin their meager hopes on. I guess I was a relatively productive first-year worker, so even though I only worked part-time for Block for a month beyond training, I got a tiny "bonus" of about a dollar an hour, better than most of my first-year colleagues

As for the add-ons, Koppman claims many were bogus attempts to simply jack up the cost of tax preparation:

To make any money as preparers, we were pressed to push add-ons. These are services at the heart of lawsuits Block has paid more than $100 million to settle in recent years, according to company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Pitch left a voice mail and e-mailed Block's media-relations office in Kansas City this morning. This afternoon, I received this response from Vice President of Communications Linda McDougall:

Eric,

While we would hope that your publication not link to an article we believe to be inaccurate, we ask that you identify the article as an opinion piece and not as a news story.

Our statement is as follows:

"We do not believe this article accurately describes the operations of H&R Block. The article reflects the opinion of only one person who does not appear to understand the company's training programs, products and services, and compensation guidelines, and who did not respond to the company's offer to personally address his concerns. It's disappointing that Mr. Koppman would choose to air his grievances in this manner."

Linda McDougall
H&R Block

By C.J. JANOVY

I can’t let this tax day pass without thanking the nice anti-war activists over at PeaceWorks Kansas City. A couple of weeks ago, they delivered a pizza to The Pitch offices – half a pizza, actually, meant to illustrate how the military gets more than half of the U.S. budget.

Along with the pie, and a pie chart, they gave us handouts showing the country’s astronomical defense spending – which wasn’t news to us, but it never hurts to stop and think about these things once in awhile, if you’re trying to be a good citizen. Among the food-for-thought items: The organization estimates that the U.S. defense budget made up nearly half of the total worldwide defense spending for 2004-2005, according to information from the Center for Defense Information in Washington, DC. If you added in an additional $25 billion appropriated to the Defense Department in 2005 for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, CDI reports, “the total U.S. military spending would exceed the total defense spending by the rest of the world combined.”

Hoo-ah!

Apparently the PeaceWorks folks didn’t have updated numbers for ’06 and ’07, but that’s OK. If you really want to celebrate tax day, you can log onto their Web site and watch the cost of the Iraq war escalate in real time.

After staring at that for awhile, if your head hasn’t exploded, you can click on this link, which will send you to the National Priorities Project’s cost-of-war counter, where you can break down the cost of the Iraq war by city and state. I’d give you the totals for Kansas City, but if you’re reading this just a few minutes after I wrote it, they’re already old.

By PETER RUGG

We’re getting closer to Tuesday’s vote on the city smoking ban, and almost everyone who’s visited their favorite dive bar in the last month has seen those “Vote No on Question 3” signs. As someone who’s struggled with my own nicotine demons, I can appreciate the city wanting to protect me from myself. But Kansas City, it turns out, isn’t big on smoking anyway.

Out of 16 metro areas, Kansas City is ranked 13th in the percentage of people who smoke, according to a study by the Pittsburg Regional Indicator project. About 19 percent in the metro smoke, compared to the No. 1 smokiest city, Detroit, where 26 percent of residents smoke.

The study also found that Kansas City led the nation in the number of smokers who quit. From 2003 to 2006, 26 percent of the metro’s smokers gave it up. Maybe they saw a sign of things to come.

By Justin Kendall

The Kansas Jayhawks had a great season, reaching the Final Four for the first time since 2003. But Bill Self’s basketball team may have just received the kiss of death, thanks to Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

Sebelius announced today that she’s betting a barbecue dinner from Fiorella’s Jack Stack that the Jayhawks will whip Roy Williams’ North Carolina Tar Heels Saturday night. If Sebelius wins, North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley will send her “some of North Carolina’s best barbeque.”

Sebelius split her last two wagers on football games. She lost a Border Showdown bet to Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt in November, when the Tigers dropped the Jayhawks 36-28 at Arrowhead and went on to the Big 12 Championship Game (and a decisive loss to Oklahoma).

The Jayhawks went on to face Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl. Sebelius won a Virginia ham from Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine with a Jayhawk victory over Virginia Tech.

Sebelius’ latest wager is an odd one, considering Jack Stack was founded in Missouri, not Kansas.

By C.J. JANOVY

In this interview with Canada's CBC Radio, U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver -- a Hillary Clinton holdout, despite enormous pressure from other African Americans -- says he thinks Clinton will not get the nomination. "If I had to make a prediction right now, I'd say Barack Obama is going to be the next president," Cleaver said. "I will be stunned if he's not the next president of the United States."

By NADIA PFLAUM

A huge relief: A man has been charged in the killing of 25-year-old Brandon C. Fauntleroy-McDowel (click here for the police complaint). Fauntleroy-McDowel's slaying caught the metro's attention because it was downtown, it was random, and it happened to an unmistakably good guy. Fauntleroy-McDowel was a grad student, a fraternity brother, a mentor, a good employee at State Street and, judging by the Facebook tributes that popped up the same Tuesday of his death, a great friend.

But if Marlan Epps hadn't turned himself in, would anyone have recognized him from the KCPD's sketch?

By JUSTIN KENDALL

Yesterday’s Million Fag March against Topeka’s gay-hating preacher Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church didn’t draw a million protesters, but 418 people did show up at Gage Park to march against the Phelps family. In an e-mail to supporters, organizer Chris Love promises “next year will be bigger and better!”

Below, check out a video from the allgayallday Channel on YouTube. Or click here for an eight-minute director’s cut of one person’s entire day at the march.

By JUSTIN KENDALL

Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline announced today that he has appointed Robert E. Arnold III and Timothy E. Keck special prosecutors in the Paul Morrison criminal misconduct case. What Kline’s office omitted from a press release about the appointments was that Kline hired Keck to work in the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office when he took over in January 2007. Kline hired Keck at a salary of $85,009.60. They also failed to mention that Keck contributed $250 to Kline’s campaign for Kansas Attorney General against Morrison.

The Pitch contacted Keck this afternoon and asked him if he had a conflict of interest having worked for Kline’s office and contributed to his campaign against Morrison for Attorney General. “Somebody else pointed that out to me earlier, and I’d forgotten that I’d given that contribution … and I’m sure Phill has,” Keck says. “I’m obviously a supporter of Phill’s, but we are going to do a fair investigation regardless of that $250 contribution that I gave in 2006. To me those two things are so far apart from each other.”

Keck also contributed $150 on December 5 to Eric Rucker’s campaign for Shawnee County District Attorney. Rucker is Kline’s chief deputy district attorney.

Keck’s 13 months in the District Attorney's Office overlapped with that of Linda Carter, the former director of administration for the office who is now accusing Morrison of sexual harassment. “I didn’t work directly for or with Linda Carter,” Keck says. “She worked in the same office that I did, but that was about the extent of the contact that I had with her. I didn’t have any knowledge of the allegations except for what was in the media even up until now.”

Keck says he worked in the sex crimes unit of the District Attorney's Office under Assistant District Attorney Chris McMullin.

Keck says he received the Morrison file today. “We’re going to do a fair investigation,” Keck says. “Bob and I have both had various public service jobs and been attorneys for a long time, both of us. And we want to do a fair and impartial job and respect everybody’s interests here."

Keck says he and Arnold are charging $200 an hour for their time and $100 an hour for paralegal work.

By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI

Now you see it, now you don't. This time last week, Missouri officials approved the construction of a new, coal-burning power plant. Today, the electric company put those plans on hold.

Last fall, Springfield-based Associated Electric Cooperative Inc., announced its intent to build a new facility in Norborne, a small town 60

AEC’s New Madrid coal plant  

Nancy Southworth, a company spokeswoman, tells The Pitch thatAECI officials decided to shelf the coal plant at a board meeting last Friday. "They looked at all the data about the project and the costs had continued to climb," she says. According to a news release this afternoon, the estimated price tag had grown to more than $2 billion.

Southworth says AECI has already committed to buying electricity from wind farms in northwest Missouri and will unveil a new energy efficiency program later this week. AECI is also investigating the use of nuclear power, she added.

Norborne won't be getting AEC smokestacks anytime soon.

The Sierra Club, which had spent months in "frank discussions" with AECI, praised the utility. "With today's announcement that they are abandoning their coal plans in favor of clean energy, Associated Electric is taking a giant step forward in our collective fight to stop global warming," Melissa Hope, an organizer with the Missouri Sierra Club, said in a news release.

AECI isn't alone. Including the Norborne proposal, 63 coal-burning plants across the country have been canceled or postponed in recent months. Meanwhile, Kansas legislators are still trying to ram through plans for a massive coal complex in Holcomb. Maybe this forward-looking utility from the Show-Me state can help lead the way.

By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI

In Kansas, the battle over a pair of new coal-fired power plants in western Kansas has gridlocked state politics for nearly two months. But on the Missouri side, officials aren't too concerned about a little inconvenience like global warming. Yesterday, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources said: Show-Me more coal!

The new plant will be built by Springfield-based Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. in Norborne, a small town 60 miles northeast of Kansas City. Company spokeswoman Nancy Southworth says the plan was scrutinized by the state and has plenty of pollution controls to protect the environment. "The plant is equipped with the best technology on the market," she says.

But Melissa Hope, development director with the Missouri Sierra Club, says local residents aren't interested in more dirty, coal power. "The folks making the political decisions are really not listening to the public, like in Kansas," Hope says. "In Missouri, we want to move toward clean energy. This puts us 50 years in the hole."

The Sierra Club is planning to appeal the DNR's decision. But, in addition to the legal angle, Hope says the Missouri Clean Energy Coalition is encouraging a grassroots uprising aimed at the power co-ops themselves. Through the group's Web site, residents can send an e-mail directly to their power providers, encouraging them to dump coal in favor of renewable options, like wind.

With plenty of Missouri Republicans happy to deny the existence of global warming, Hope says, there's little chance of a political debate in Jefferson City like the one raging in Topeka. So to stop this coal plant — just a short drive from Kansas City — it will take some serious firepower in the courts or an avalanche of protest from pissed-off citizens.

By NADIA PFLAUM

A dozen people showed up at the gravesite of 15-year-old Charles T. Simpson recently to mark the third anniversary of his slaying. Simpson’s mother, Pamela, handed out Dixie cups containing citronella tea light candles. The family, joined by former Mayor Pro-Tem Alvin Brooks, formed a shivering half-circle around the boy’s headstone in the Forest Hill Calvary Cemetery at 69th and Troost. The wind soon blew out all the candles.

“He was my partner,” his sister, 20-year-old Kiera Simpson, said at the February 10 vigil. “My mother had six kids and we all paired up. He and I always celebrated our birthdays together.”

“He was a good boy,” Pamela Simpson remembered, her voice wavering. “Nobody ever had anything bad to say about the child… I’d be less of a mother if I didn’t try to get some justice for him.”

Simpson was the 17th homicide of 2005, a year that ended with an alarming 127 homicides in Kansas City. He was shot walking home from after-school activities at Operation Breakthrough, where he’d proudly showed off a photocopied sheet of his report card from East Elementary School – he’d gotten straight Bs.

Simpson made it to his grandmother’s driveway at 58th and Indiana, where he collapsed and later died at the hospital.

Operation Breakthrough had a scholarship account saved for him with $40,000 in it, according to his mother. A co-founder of Operation Breakthrough, Sister Berta Sailer, told The Kansas City Star in 2005 that Simpson always talked about wanting to run for president -- “if” he grew up.

The unsolved killing still bothers Detective Matt “Buck” Williams of the Kansas City Police Department. “It’s tough when your crime scene consists of him, and that’s about it. There were no eyewitnesses,” Williams says. “It’s our job to solve them, and when you don’t, you feel like you failed.”

Anyone with any information on Simpson’s slaying should call the TIPS hotline, 816-474-TIPS.

BY JUSTIN KENDALL

Kansas Sen. Jim Barone got caught stuffing his pants with top-secret polling data, according to the Associated Press. The incident, which has been dubbed “Trousergate,” occurred at a December 19 Democratic Party retreat when Barone allegedly tried to slip out of the meeting with his packet.

Tim Graham, Sen. Anthony Hensley's chief of staff, caught Barone “red-handed” and asked the senator from Frontenac to return the packet.

Barone handed over the data, and later, in an e-mail, tried to explain the reason for the bulge in his pants to Graham.

“I did place the poll in the small of my back as I have done with bulky papers for 40 years,” Barone wrote, “so that I could continue to review some areas that I did not clearly understand after returning from a bathroom break.”

Eww.

The Democrats are now trying to strip Barone of his caucus chairmanship.

Click here to read about other things involving Barone's trousers.

By PETER RUGG

Union Station’s administrators already have their hands full with the final push before the Bodies Revealed exhibit opens February 29. Besides that, though, they're hoping they won’t lose their CFO before then.

M.A. "Art" Chaudry, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Union Station, is one of five candidates visiting Iowa City next week in a bid for the open city manager position, according to this article in the Iowa City Press-Citizen.

Chaudry was chosen out of 48 candidates as a finalist, but one of the most interesting things about this is who he’s up against. Steve Stanton was city manager of Largo, Florida, until 2007, when he decided to get a sex change and became Susan Stanton. According to news reports, the city commission promptly terminated her, and she’s been seeking work ever since. Normally, we’d root for the hometown choice, but in this case, go Susan.