No one will accuse Mayor Mark Funkhouser of worrying too much about other people's feelings.
On the day after he scolded the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Commissioners in front of a reporter, Funkhouser had an opportunity to make nice. But the mayor stayed true to his Vulcan nature at a press conference at the city's Health Department on Tuesday.
Asked about his meeting -- in which he reportedly faulted the commissioners for not showing sufficient enthusiasm for his ideas and criticized their handling of a citizen-driven effort to put a dog park in Waldo -- Funkhouser chose to remain adversarial.
"You can't change the status quo without conflict," he said.
Funkhouser's choice of words was a little odd in light of the fact that he appointed the "status quo," including Aggie Stackhaus, the freak show the mayor is now criticizing for the role she played in keeping an off-leash dog area out of Sunnyside Park.
Funkhouser was at the health department to talk about unrelated matter: the funding that Aim4Peace will receive to continue its effort to prevent neighborhood beefs from escalating into rolling gun battles.
Aim4Peace is modeled after CeaseFire, an effort in Chicago which treats street violence as if it were a disease. In Kansas City, Aim4Peace's staff of 12 works to identify and mediate the conflicts that tend to result in bloodshed.
Now in its third year, Aim4Peace has struggled to find money in a city budget that has none. At Tuesday's press conference, Funkhouser announced that the police department and the city's health levy were each going to provide $300,000 to fund Aim4Peace.
The announcement was premature. Later in the day, Funk released a statement indicating that the Kansas City Health Commission had not committed any money. Rather, the commission passed a resolution supporting Aim4Peace's efforts.
Tracie McClendon-Cole, who manages the Aim4Peace program, said her aim is to lock down a budget of $1.5 million so that she can double her staff. She seemed hopeful that federal dollars may become available, given the Obama administration's favorable view of programs like CeaseFire.
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