The upcoming mayoral election will likely leave Historic Northeast without a voice. Neither Quinton Lucas nor Jolie Justus has shown any support for this community, its needs, diversity, or its history.

This election is, and needs to be, much bigger than either of them and their pet projects. This election is about retaining our City Manager, Troy Schulte, and his staff because they are the people doing the work and looking out for the entire city. Under Troy Schulte’s leadership, Historic Northeast has seen a renaissance and that cannot stop.
It behooves each of us who want to continue to see progress in residential and economic development, crime reduction, and other critical areas to do everything we can to spread the word that Troy must stay. And to help ensure that happens, Quinton must not be elected. If he is elected, the likelihood of him bringing in a new City Manager that he can control and who will direct funds to Quinton’s favorite causes is high.

Quinton has shown his colors repeatedly. He was the one who pressed for control of how much the City Manager could spend without Council approval because he didn’t think enough money was going into the hands of his supporters in the Third District, south of Truman Road.

As City Councilman, Quinton was the one who continually pressed for the City Manager to find more funds to put into the black hole that is 18th and Vine. He has failed to provide support to efforts to end the transient occupation of our parks and neighborhoods or elimination of panhandling.

The City Manager, on the other hand, has worked with us on these efforts. And we all know what Quinton did to rewrite history by renaming The Paseo under direction from the pastors of Black churches.

The work of the KCMO Police Department is at its strongest point in years under the leadership of Chief Rick Smith. The City Manager has been a staunch supporter of the projects that the Chief is putting into place to improve the quality of life in neighborhoods and has wisely let the Chief and his leadership team determine how that happens.
Comments from Quinton lead one to believe that he wants say into how police are deployed, once again meddling where more knowledgeable people should be making the decisions.

The list goes on and on. Bottom line is– Troy Schulte needs to stay our City Manager and a vote for Jolie Justus is the more likely way to make that happen, regardless of her lack of involvement in Historic Northeast.

We will also need to ride herd on Katheryn Shields and Teresa Loar, who constantly set up roadblocks for Troy because they seem to think they know more about the day-to-day operations of the city than do those like Troy who are actually doing the real work.

Leslie Caplan
Northeast Resident