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Even his support of regional light rail, he says, is done with an eye toward making life better in Kansas City’s poorest neighborhoods.
“There is probably not another single stroke that we could make that would do as much,” he said, citing the development that springs up around rail stations, as well as lower commuting costs for the working poor.
Funkhouser concedes that the job of doing all this would be easier if the Semler mess would go away.
“But it doesn’t keep me from doing it,” he said.
Neither is he especially worried about future distractions, such as a rumored recall campaign.
“Bring it on,” he said.
Given that race is an issue, I should note that Funkhouser won’t be attending local celebrations of Martin Luther King Jr. in the next few days. He did speak at the King week kickoff, Saturday’s Urban Community Summit.
But this weekend he’s bound for Washington, D.C., to visit members of Congress and attend a gathering of mayors. However, Funkhouser has his own observance planned.
“I felt guilty that I wasn’t going to be here,” he said, “so I’m going to read what the man wrote.”
The sermons and essays of King won’t be entirely unfamiliar territory to him.
“For a big, white hick from West Virginia, The Autobiography of Malcolm X changed my life in the late ’60s and early ’70s,” he said. “It just opened my eyes as a 17-, 18-year-old kid to a life and a point of view that I had not seen.”
For someone who isn’t big on symbolism, there’s a fair amount of it in that.
To reach Mike Hendricks, call 816-234-7708 or send e-mail to mhendricks@kcstar.com.
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