Suite Charities

The best week ever: Hella props to your May 20 issue. I freakin' fell out laughing at least five times. Thanks!

C.J. Janovy's article about Union Station (" Move Over, Mary") brought out some good points, especially about the MAD (Misfits and Dimwits) people running it into the ground. The Pitch ought to form the new committee (like the mayor ALWAYS does) for changes mentioned in the article and name it CAUSES (Citizens Against Union Station Executives' Stupidity) and make Jen Chen the chairwoman. As a side note, what if a minicasino were put in Union Station? That would solve the cash shortage problem. Hmmm ...

And regarding Tony Ortega's " How Suite It Is": Is one of the reasons why Jason Whitlock couldn't finish the marathon because of one too many buffets, especially at arenas? Hmmm ...

And I see TIF (This Is Fu**ed) is at work again in David Martin's " High-Class Handout." TIF is giving us a FIT and a PAIN in the ASS!

Keep up the good work!

Ed Hendricks
Kansas City, Missouri

Superior courts: Tony Ortega's "How Suite It Is" was interesting but seemed one-sided. I realize the Star has been reporting the arena issue with an incredibly positive spin, but it'd be great to receive a little more balanced information from the Pitch (even though the Strip has an editorial feel).

The KC downtown area definitely has a huge challenge ahead with the arena -- mainly if/what team and sport will agree to move to KC and if the arena can truly offer additional advantages from Kemper, other than being new and shiny. The idea of the masses sitting in cheap seats and sportswriters and rich people in ultra-luxury boxes is old news and unfortunately, part of the economics of any arena these days.

The part that really concerned me was the cities used as examples: Phoenix and Los Angeles. From the article, both of those cities have been failures, but there was no mention of successful new urban arenas or stadiums. Both Denver and Minneapolis added sports teams downtown with tremendous success. I lived in Minneapolis for several years and watched the Target Center kick-start the transformation of the downtown area. In the years following the building of the arena that houses the Timberwolves, restaurants and bars popped up within a three-block radius (twenty in the first year), and real estates prices increased significantly.

Obviously there is a great deal of work ahead of Kansas City as it begins to breathe life into downtown, but it'd be great to understand the challenges and opportunities rather than just the obvious negatives that come with professional sports today.

Alex Hannah
Mission

Arena balled: I read "How Suite It Is" and thought how despicable it is that a corporation can lay off thousands of employees while top management makes millions in bonuses and the company wants to spend money to have its name on Kansas City's arena.

Since Sprint has all this money to endorse the Kansas City arena, maybe it should keep the money instead and use it to pay its employees instead of laying them off.

This is just another example of corporate greed and arrogance that makes me want to puke.

Dave Butler
Kansas City, Missouri

Arrested development:Thank you for keeping us up on what is actually happening in Kansas City.

David Martin's "High-Class Handout" really hit home. Kansas Citians are treated like mushrooms: kept in the dark and force-fed a multitude of development projects aimed at Mr. and Mrs. Johnson County. Seems that the only people who stand to gain from all these development projects are the developers. It looks to me like all Mayor High and Mighty's bright ideas are nothing more than payback to these cronies.

As a resident of the urban core, it really burns me up to see our infrastructure crumbling and the truly blighted areas of the city that are in much more need than the Plaza going neglected for years.

Regarding Tony Ortega's "How Suite It Is": Personally, I am against the use of public funds for private development, especially the blind giveaways by our present mayor. Let the millions of dollars generated by area sports pay for the arenas and stadiums. I doubt that this market can afford to support the kind of revenue needed to buy a bunch of extraordinary players. Who loses in this game? The taxpayers, that's who.

The Pitchquoted from City Auditor Mark Funkhouser's report that "the use of TIF has been driven by private developers rather than explicit public strategies and policies." We need a transparent, public audit of TIF and Union Station.

My exception to the Pitch's recommendations in C. J. Janovy's "Move Over, Mary" as replacements for Union Station's board of directors would be to give more of a voice to the citizen groups that are now publicly opposing these developments. I am all for letting these citizens have more of a say, since they are standing up to the powers that be and showing some backbone. Please do a story on them -- I'd like to get to know them better!