The Real Mrs. Semler

"You know, the people who are complaining are the people that I will be doing things for," she said with a hint of indignation.

She defended the Minutemen, saying she didn't believe opponents' claims that the anti-illegal-immigration group had engaged in violence. "Show me a police report," she said.

Two days later, Semler shared her views with Laura Ingraham's national audience. She told the conservative radio host that she believes in following the law. "So if that doesn't agree with some people, then I guess that's their problem," she said. She added that La Raza pulling its convention from Kansas City "only hurts their own people."

Not that she believed the national organization would abandon its original plans. "I think it's extortion, and I don't think that will happen," she told Nick Haines, on a segment for KCPT Channel 19's Week in Review.

Semler doesn't rule out a trip to the border, either. In some ways, the fallout has been worth it if it helps make her point about illegal immigration.

"You have to say this is wrong and stand up to it," she says. "I've had a lot of support, and maybe people will stand up, maybe they'll research [the issue] a little bit and pay more attention. So many people are so busy making a living, they don't know what's going on."

Besides, she has an outlet for when she gets fed up with all the politics.

"I just go out there [in the garden] and yank a bunch of weeds out."

This year on September 11, Frances Semler was hailed as a hero.

To commemorate the victims of the 2001 attacks, the Heart of America Minuteman Civil Defense Corps gathered in a small room adjacent to the driver's license office in Mission. Semler sat attentively in the second row, wearing a relaxed gaze and a white T-shirt emblazoned with an American flag.

Much of the meeting was the typical recruitment pitch: Join the Minutemen to help immigration officials identify illegals and demand that politicians enforce the law.

Hayes told the group to study up on La Raza, learn its "agenda." They're the type of folks who "knock on the doors of 73-year-old grandmothers," Hayes said. "They got six to eight guys in a car, barreling out like the DEA on a drug raid. We don't do that. They do."

Hayes cited an early September poll on the Star's Web site in which nearly 80 percent (of more than 650 people who chose to participate) said Semler should not resign from the parks board.

When Hayes finished, he introduced Richard Fatherly, a retired broadcaster who is the group's media liaison. In his authoritative radio voice, Fatherly urged the group to write letters of support to the mayor, lauding his appointment and retention of Semler.

Fatherly read from his own letter to Funkhouser. "Mrs. Semler is an asset to your administration in bringing back the luster to Kansas City's quality of life," he boomed. "I get the feeling that you've seen through the ruse of the La Rrrrrrrraza" — he paused, moving his arm with a salsa dancer's flourish and waiting for the group's laughter to subside — "attempt to muscle in on Kansas City's tourism and convention business."

From the back row, local Minuteman Rod Will, who runs a small trucking business, had another idea for dealing with City Hall. Though Funkhouser might deserve praise, he said, City Council members such as Beth Gottstein, who pushed for Semler's removal, should be reprimanded.

"Why don't we take it to the next level? Let's do this recall," Will suggested. "I don't want anyone to represent me who believes in open borders, who believes in standing with people that say they want to take my jobs, my homes and so forth."

The idea drew little enthusiasm. The group was getting ready to picket a construction site in southern Overland Park where, demonstration organizer Thompson said, contractors had hired undocumented workers. Will volunteered that he operates his own personal picket every day. The sides of his trucks are plastered with messages such as: "Attention Illegal Aliens. America Doesn't Need or Want You. Leave My Country."

Minutes before the end of the meeting, with the group buzzing over shared stories of harassment from passers-by who disliked their anti-illegal-immigration bumper stickers, Semler stood up. She thanked everyone for their support. The man in the back row piped up again.

"You plan on standing tall for us, right?" Will asked. "You don't plan on stepping down, do you?"

"No," Semler said. "Absolutely not."