The Dumb Defense

In addition to preaching, McFadden-Weaver took part in political activity. In 1991, she wielded a sledgehammer to help destroy a Toyota Tercel in protest of offensive racial remarks reportedly made by Japanese officials. In 1994, she spoke at a rally against Kansas City, Missouri, School Board candidate Clinton Adams Jr. During the event, she reportedly called Adams a "drug-addicted rap singer." Adams later sued her for slander. The suit, which also made a libel claim against The Kansas City Globe newspaper, was dismissed in 1996.

She eventually sought public office. McFadden-Weaver ran for City Council in 1995 and 1999. Outspent by her opponents, she lost the races by close margins.

In 2003, after receiving endorsements from outgoing Mayor Emanuel Cleaver II and the influential Citizens Association, McFadden-Weaver finally won a council seat. But once in office, she made a major blunder.

She initially opposed the 2004 campaign to build a downtown arena, a pet project of Mayor Barnes. McFadden-Weaver switched to the pro-arena side a few weeks before the election. She said she had changed her mind after receiving assurance that women and minorities would get a fair share of contracts that a new arena would generate. The arena backers showed their appreciation to McFadden-Weaver by writing a $5,000 check to a political consulting business run by an ally, Riccardo Lucas.

But McFadden-Weaver was playing both sides. A political committee that McFadden-Weaver had founded, called Partners for Community Progress, had accepted $25,000 from an anti-arena group. On Election Day, the mayor's people saw workers distributing anti-arena material. The workers said they had been hired by McFadden-Weaver.

Barnes was furious. She marched into the Prospect Avenue headquarters of Partners for Community Progress to confront McFadden-Weaver.

"I had to run to catch up with her," Barnes aide Steve Glorioso recalls. Two days after the election, Barnes punished her by stripping her assignments to two key committees. (McFadden-Weaver was restored to the Planning, Zoning and Economic Development Committee in 2005.)

A month after voters approved building what is now the half-completed Sprint Center, an effort to recall McFadden-Weaver was launched. Adams, the school board candidate she had attacked, was among those who circulated petitions calling for her removal (Grudge Report, January 6, 2005). Recall organizers cited, as grounds, the arena debacle, unreturned messages and missed meetings.

Two months before the recall vote, McFadden-Weaver appeared with recall proponents at a special meeting of the Citizens Association at the Screenland Theatre. The councilwoman appeared contrite. She apologized for seeming to be unresponsive. She blamed her occasional inattentiveness on her lack of computer skills and on a staff member who had been replaced. She promised to do better.

Recall organizers said the 3rd District could not wait for McFadden-Weaver to get up to speed. Recall proponent Quinnetta Fristoe called her term a "disappointment and an embarrassment."

The Citizens Association decided not to take a position on the recall. The Kansas City Call, the city's black newspaper, encouraged readers to vote against the measure.

Prominent black leaders also defended McFadden-Weaver.

The Rev. Wallace Hartsfield of Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church on Linwood Boulevard, for instance, spoke from the pulpit against the recall. Hartsfield says today that he favored a less drastic intervention. "I felt that something like a community meeting of some sort, talking with her about that, was a better thing than seeking to recall a person. I believed then and I believe now that if it's at all possible, not to have to do something like that."

Councilman Alvin Brooks met with recall proponents in an effort to get them to take another course. Brooks' support likely helped scare off strong replacement candidates. Pat Jordan, a public-relations specialist who led the renovation of the Gem Theater in the 18th and Vine District, circulated petitions in an effort to get on the ballot. Ultimately, she did not enter the contest. "I simply decided that's not the direction I wanted to take at this particular point in my career," Jordan tells the Pitch.

McFadden-Weaver handily defeated the recall. Nearly three-quarters of 3rd District voters chose to keep her in office. Brooks joined McFadden-Weaver in celebrating the recall's defeat at the Peach Tree Restaurant.

But McFadden-Weaver continued to appear inept after surviving the recall.

In the fall of 2005, the Missouri Ethics Commission investigated the finances of Partners for Community Progress. The committee's money had been overseen by 28-year-old treasurer Marcus LaRue, at whose marriage McFadden-Weaver had officiated in 2004. The commission found that Partners for Community Progress had failed to properly disclose contributions and kept inadequate records of cash withdrawals. LaRue was fined nearly $87,000. The state is still trying to collect the penalty, the second largest of its type in Missouri history.

At the time, McFadden-Weaver blamed the committee's problems on her team's amateur status. She told the Star: "None of us confessed to be professionals in campaigning."

Later, the state ethics commission fined McFadden-Weaver $10,000 personally for the shoddy bookkeeping of her candidate committee.

In her four years in office, McFadden-Weaver has amassed one of the worst attendance records on the council. She has missed 33 out of 185 legislative sessions. Only Nash, the other 3rd District rep, had more absences over the same period, with 35.