Midwest Voices

Yael T. Abouhalkah

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Finally, Kansas City has a mayor who seems ready to work for local control of the Police Department.

Granted, Sly James isn’t as gung-ho as supporters of local control would like. But at least he says things like this:

“I do believe that, inevitably, we will have local control,” he told me in an interview Tuesday.

Yes, I agree, and the sooner the better.

Alas, James says he’s not expecting to work to pass local control during the upcoming Missouri General Assembly special session. That’s where St. Louis politicians and police officers are united in hoping the state lawmakers approve local control for their city.

That would be a good thing for St. Louis. It also would leave Kansas City as the only city in the nation without local control of its police.

How utterly embarrassing - and wasteful of tax dollars when it comes to governance and financial issues.

James says he wants city and civic leaders to work out some governance issues of their own in the coming months before strongly pursuing local control in Jefferson City.

One concern I know the police board (on which James sits) has been looking at: Will there be a police board - appointed by the state or by the city - as a bridge to whatever kind of local control is eventually adopted?

Or do we go straight to a model where the mayor appoints a police chief - or the entire police board?

Sure, there are questions to be worked out. And if former mayors Mark Funkhouser and Kay Barnes, for instance, had been stronger supporters of local control, all of those questions could have been addressed by now.

Instead, Kansas City needs to get them answered very soon, because local control is coming - either through the General Assembly or through a potential citizens initiative led by Rex Sinquefield in 2012.

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