Northeast News
June 21, 2017

This week the dog would like to call out the Missouri State Treasurer’s office for not including The Northeast community in any public notice ads for the state’s Unclaimed Property list that was released last week.
Here’s the lowdown of an email we sent to our elected representatives pointing out how the Northeast News was essentially “redlined” by a state official. The email was sent to Missouri State Representative Ingrid Burnett and State Senator John Rizzo on Monday.
Thank you for your time and attention in this matter.
This week the Missouri State Treasurer issued a press release announcing that Missouri’s Unclaimed Property list would be released in 100 newspapers statewide. I contacted the ad agency responsible for placement of the ads, the Missouri Press Association, and was informed that the Northeast News was not included in that ad buy. The Kansas City Star, The Kansas City Globe and The Kansas City Call were the only three metro papers listed in the buy from the Missouri State Treasurer’s office.
This completely excludes Kansas City’s Historic Northeast community from any ads and public notices from the State Treasurer’s office for unclaimed property. This sends a clear and strong message that Northeast doesn’t matter. As elected officials, your constituency is once again left out in the cold when it comes to opportunities, and in this case, unclaimed property.
Frankly, the State Treasurer is effectively saying that the unclaimed property of poor whites, Latinos, and immigrant-citizens doesn’t matter. Our freely thrown paper is how those in this community get relevant news.
It should be noted that the same issue will be taken up with the City of Kansas City, Missouri’s Human Resources Department this week, given that our community seems to be denied employment opportunities. The Dog can count on two hands with fingers left over the number of times the City has used our publication for help wanted advertising. We’ll keep you posted on how this all turns out.