KC Light Rail

The Mayor, his staff, and some city council members were cleared this week in an state ethics investigation triggered by the opposition to the November light rail campaign.

The city auditor is still investigating the allegations, which involved the statute that prevents elected officials or their staff from using municipal property or time to campaign for ballot initiatives.

According to the Business Journal, the Missouri Court of Appeals will hear Clay Chastain's appeal on Feb. 25. Chastain filed an appeal last year in response to a lower court's ruling that threw out his case. Chastain is being represented by his wife Valerie, who is a lawyer.

The Journal makes an interesting comment: "It’s unclear what happens if appeals court judges accept the Chastain argument, including whether his plan then would have to go into effect." However, we're quite confident that won't happen. If it does, we'll be interested to see the city scramble to come up with a response (because you know they don't have one yet, just in case).

Kansas City's attorney filed a brief today responding to the appeal of the dismissal of Clay Chastain's challenge to the City Council's repeal of his light rail petition initiative that passed in November 2006.

Did you follow that? Well, it's not that important. The challenge was dismissed and the appeal will probably be dismissed, as well. Meh.

In retrospect, the Council's outright repeal of the "unworkable" plan seems especially foolish — not for any legal reason, but simply for the fact that changing the plan with a subsequent vote would have avoided the November 2008 failure at the ballot box.

But here we are, regardless, with our smelly buses, waiting patiently for county leaders to get moving on a regional plan so Chastain can't come back with another initiative (because, let's face it, he will). Recent budget crunches at all levels will put the inevitable off for another year, and Kansas City will continue to evade a reputation as a serious metropolitan area.

…with another legal challenge of the City Council's repeal of the 2006 initiative voters approved and Chastain spearheaded. Laugh if you want, but there is actually an important legal question that would benefit from a higher ruling: whether or not the Council's chartered ability to repeal a citizen initiative after passage is in conflict with the state constitution.

Chastain had threatened that he would continue his legal challenge if the vote on the city-backed plan failed. That way, he reasoned, KC residents could get light rail either way.

According to a late report from the Star, the legal challenge to prevent the Nov. 4 vote has been denied. Absentee voting began Sept. 23 — well before the suit was brought — and the City Council followed procedure by unanimously voting to approve the ordinance without being read on three separate occasions (anyone who watches Channel 2 could have predicted the outcome on this one).

All the answers were in today's Star. Still got questions? If not, please check out this great article in today's Washington Post about the rebirth of the American City through the lens of the presidential campaign (it's kinda transit-related, we promise).