Posted on 09/14/2007 10:16:22 PM PDT by Huntress
Kansas City has landed a new convention — but it’s one that some leaders don’t want.
Several city officials were angered Friday by the announcement that the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps will hold its first-ever national convention in Kansas City to support a member embroiled in controversy.
The two-day event is scheduled for early December and expected to attract about 300 people.
“I am concerned our city is looking like the hotbed of right-wing vigilante groups, and that’s not how I want Kansas City to be portrayed,” Councilwoman Jan Marcason said.
Correcting such misconceptions is part of the purpose of the convention, said Chris Simcox, the Minuteman president.
“Hopefully, we can be peacemakers and bring the community together in a unified way,” he said.
But Marcason and some other leaders worry the Minuteman announcement will be the tipping point for some civil rights and minority groups considering whether to withdraw their conventions from Kansas City. And they fear more conventions will follow.
Marcason and Councilwoman Cindy Circo also worry that the Minuteman convention will undermine their efforts to find a compromise that will keep the NAACP and the National Council of La Raza conventions in Kansas City. The two civil rights organizations have threatened to pull their conventions because Mayor Mark Funkhouser appointed Frances Semler, a member of the Minuteman group, to the city parks board.
The civil rights groups have complained that the Minuteman organization is a vigilante group that is hostile to minorities, although Minuteman leaders say their prime concern is fixing the nation’s broken immigration system.
Funkhouser, who refused to accept Semler’s resignation in June after the initial controversy over her appointment, issued a statement in which he said he does not get to decide which conventions do and do not come to Kansas City. Funkhouser also said he called the head of La Raza Friday in an effort to retain the convention, offering to discuss steps the city could take that did not involve Semler stepping down.
“I am certain there are ways we can work together to advance the agenda of civil rights,” Funkhouser said.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat and former mayor, has been working behind the scenes to resolve the tensions, but he was dismayed by the Minuteman announcement.
“This is getting uglier than any of us expected,” Cleaver said in a statement Friday. “And it is clearly creating an image problem for us nationally.”
Indeed, even before the Minuteman announcement, officials with the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, the nation’s oldest and largest African-American fraternity, said Thursday that the Semler controversy could cause that group to pull its 2008 convention from Kansas City. This year’s convention in Orlando, Fla., brought 2,000 visitors and $2.2 million to the city’s economy, officials said.
Kansas City is also on the short list of cities for a convention for the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, but the Semler controvery is undermining the bid, officials said.
National La Raza officials declined comment to Friday on the effect of the Minuteman announcement as they reconsider holding their 2009 convention in Kansas City unless Semler steps down. Neither national nor local NAACP officials, who are reconsidering their 2010 convention in Kansas City, returned phone calls.
Rita Valenciano of the Coalition of Hispanic Organizations said the Minuteman convention would only further divide the city. “There are other ways to be a peacemaker and a healer … than this type of in-your-face approach,” she said.
Simcox, the Minuteman president, said the uproar over the Semler appointment offered an opportunity to “educate and diffuse some of the animosity that is growing based on ignorance.”
He said that his group and the NAACP and La Raza all want to fix the problem of unsecure borders and that the three groups should focus on their common beliefs.
Simcox said the Kansas City convention, the first of five to be held in the coming months, will be the group’s “first really big national/regional convention.” He said the others will be in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas and the West Coast.
He said he has spoken to Semler to offer moral support and prayers but that they did not discuss the convention.
Semler’s husband, Richard, said she was unavailable Friday afternoon. He said she was unaware of any details about the Minuteman convention.
Ed Hayes, director of the Kansas chapter of the Minuteman group, said the idea of holding a national convention in Kansas City came to him last week after listening to numerous talk-show debates on the Semler controversy.
“I’ve heard people comment on the talk shows that since La Raza wasn’t coming maybe the Minutemen should,” he said. “I talked to our national people, and they agreed.”
He said periodic local meetings in the area in recent years have drawn between 25 and 85 people. The organization held a regional gathering last year at the Clarion Hotel Sports Complex in Kansas City that drew about 150 people.
Hayes said area Minuteman groups that met in Mission on Tuesday and in Wichita on Thursday each drew about 50 people. The next local meeting is tentatively set for October in Kearney, Mo.
Officials at the Kansas City Convention and Visitors Association said they did not have enough information to estimate the group’s economic effect. But it would be only a fraction of combined $14.5 million that La Raza and NAACP delegates are expected to leave behind during planned events that are projected to draw 14,000 visitors to the city.
Marcason and Circo, along with at least three other council members, are working on a resolution to express the city’s values in a way that they hoped would pacify the NAACP and La Raza. But Circo has her doubts now after the Minuteman announcement.
“I don’t think a resolution will do anything,” said Circo, who added she doubts the Minuteman will actually hold the convention, calling it a publicity stunt. “We have to find a way to get past this. We’ve worked so hard to put ourselves on the map as a big progressive city.”
Marcason said the council should receive a briefing on the Minuteman group from the FBI and other law enforcement officials on safety concerns posed by the convention. She called on Funkhouser to join her in determining what steps “the city may need to take in the face of a clearly provocative act by this organization.”
Councilman Terry Riley said he thinks the convention will be held and worries about problems. “I think this convention will continue to divide Kansas City,” he said. “This issue is tearing down bridges that a lot of people have worked hard to build.”
Councilman Ed Ford said he hopes La Raza, the NAACP and the Minuteman group will look at Kansas City’s history when it comes to diversity issues and that city officials have to talk up that record.
“I believe all three organizations have misjudged us on one appointment, and I would ask each organization to take a broader look at Kansas City, and we welcome with open arms the NAACP and La Raza,” he said, declining to include the Minutemen in his statement. “I am an optimist. I believe calmer minds will prevail and we can use this as a teaching moment.”
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To see statements by Mayor Mark Funkhouser in their entirety, go to Prime Buzz at KansasCity.com
To reach reporter DeAnn Smith, call 816 234 4412 or send e-mail to dsmith@kcstar.com. To reach Rick Alm, call 816-234-4785 or send e-mail to ralm@kcstar.com.
Yep, folks. Joe SIXPACK is finally putting down his potato chips, turning the TV off, extracting his ass from the Lazy Boy, and TAKING BACK HIS COUNTRY.
What a sight.
>Rita Valenciano of the Coalition of Hispanic Organizations
>said the Minuteman convention would only further divide the
>city.
As if demanding the resignation of Semler wasn’t divisive to begin with.
They would be wise to meet in the suburbs and not downtown and far far away from the "West Side"(Latino area).
That wouldn't be much fun...
Besides, you cast all Latino's as pro-illegal immigration and here in KC they aren't...
Why placate the racist La Raza and the knee-jerk NAALCP? Why should KC pay and pay for social programs that are only a cover for graft and corruption of well connected individuals like Ralph (Kofi)Cleaver?
Sounds like KC is more concerned about losing REVENUE because the racist NAACP strong arm has a lot of extorted money to throw around. And racist LaRaza is a group of socialist hispanics who proclaim anything but an open border and amnesty is unacceptable.
I think law abiding citizens should support more pro America, Pro Law Enforcement conventions in KC.
Where do I register for the Minutemen convention?
The heart of America is no better place to start a fight back at those racist thugs on the left wing.
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