The Real Mrs. Semler

But she's not always the quiet one. "I chased Sam Graves up to, I think, a beef farm one time to talk about it [immigration] because I knew he'd be there," Semler said in a recent radio interview.

During the spring of 2006, as thousands of immigrants' rights activists took to the streets in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, Semler was among the organizers of a counter-protest that drew hundreds to Mill Creek Park.

"Her husband built the stage [for the rally]," Mucci says. "The guy's 70-some years old, and he built this stage for us and made it so we could put flags on either end. It was awesome. And she helped us get the state of Missouri flag and U.S. flag for us to put up there."

City Hall veterans, meanwhile, knew Semler for her efforts to uncover details about a local trade facility called SmartPort. The private project, to which the city has contributed more than $2 million, would ease trade with Mexico by turning a West Bottoms warehouse into an inland port where truckers could clear customs in Kansas City to avoid the bottleneck at the border.

Former Kansas City Councilwoman Bonnie Sue Cooper was a leading proponent of SmartPort and a booster for expanding trade with Mexico.

She was also Semler's councilwoman — and the recipient of Semler's requests for information filed through the state Sunshine Law. Semler and Mucci wanted copies of any documents related to SmartPort. Cooper says Semler seemed deaf to her explanations that SmartPort was a one-way warehouse sending American goods to Mexico, not the other way around.

"We could not make Frances understand that this is all southbound," Cooper says. "She kept talking about bringing all these Mexicans in. And I kept saying, 'We're not bringing any in.'"

Cooper says Semler also raised concerns about a supposed "superhighway" that right-wing immigration activists fear the federal government is already planning, which would drastically expand the Interstate 35 corridor.

"She kept talking about this highway being built from Mexico to Canada that would be eight football fields wide, and I said, 'Frances, we don't even have the money to fix I-70. What are you talking about?" Cooper recalls.

The Sunshine requests did turn up information that earned national attention, Mucci says. "One document that Frances got said that it had to be sovereign territory of Mexico," Mucci says. "Frances never really went public on any of this. I took the lead on that and shot my mouth off."

Now, SmartPort and the superhighway are common rallying points for fringe organizations and pundits who believe that the U.S. government is plotting a North American Union that would dissolve borders across the continent.

Semler's worries about Mexican trade were known in the Northland as well. Jim Rice, executive director of Northland Neighborhoods Inc., says Semler often attended the monthly "Meet Your Councilperson" sessions. Whenever Cooper broached the issue of trade, Rice says, Semler would respond with concerns about illegal immigration.

"All the traditional stereotypes and arguments were out on the table," Rice says. "There probably were people on both sides of the issue, saying their concerns were just confined to illegal immigration. But some of us know there's a lot of code involved in that kind of language."

It never got to the point where he had to cut off discussion or ask Semler to leave. "But it was uncomfortable," Rice says.

"She is a pretty reserved woman, who doesn't rant and rave and jump up and down," he says. "But I would say there was an edge on it."

That edge ripped open a seam in Kansas City.

Semler acknowledges that she wasn't exactly forthright with Funkhouser when, before he appointed her to the parks board, he asked whether she was a member of other organizations. She says she thought Funkhouser was interested in groups like the Clay County Rose Society and the neighborhood association, where she held a leadership position. Her membership in the Minutemen, she says, just didn't seem relevant.

"It wasn't something I had any power in other than being a member," she tells The Pitch. "I honestly didn't even think it was important."

To her, the civilian border patrol group offered a chance to add her voice to a growing movement opposing illegal immigration. She tells The Pitch she was impressed by the fact that the leader of the local Heart of America chapter, Ed Hayes, was a former police officer. She joined in 2006.

"I did some studying and thought they were decent people, and I still believe they are," she says.

But on June 12, after Funkhouser named his slate of parks commissioners and the Star asked Semler about her involvement in the Minutemen, she said she was "not active" in the local group.

That wasn't exactly forthright, either.

Semler had been at the August 30, 2006, inaugural meeting of what would become the Heart of America Chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. The Pitch was at that meeting, too; Hayes opened it with introductory remarks about the "illegal invasion" and how undocumented immigrants were taking American jobs, draining social services and committing crimes (“To the Rescue,” November 16, 2006). He called the Minutemen a nonviolent neighborhood watch intent on helping the proper authorities deal with a "terminal illness." During the meeting, Mucci gave a presentation on SmartPort, outlining the information that she and Semler had obtained from the city. When Mucci couldn't remember specifics, she asked Semler to fill in the details.