July 24, 2013

The people of Northeast responded loud and long when they learned that beloved Kansas City Museum Director Christopher Leitch was unceremoniously fired two weeks ago. The email campaign is ongoing and from all accounts, is beginning to take its toll on the Union Station Kansas City (USKC) Board of Directors as well as the mayor, city manager and city council people. This newshound says, “Keep those cards and letters comin’, folks.”

This thing was dirty from the get-go, and the word on the street is that there are some high ranking elected officials that are spittin’ mad about how it all went down. From day one USKC hasn’t known what to do with the museum and has treated it like the proverbial red-headed stepchild. In this case, a red-headed stepchild with a sizable dowry in the form of the mil levy. As far as the council-ordered audit goes, this ol’ newshound urges the city auditor’s office to proceed with the audit and not be bullied into limiting the scope and breadth of said audit by the sneaky ne’er-do-wells at Union Station.

The next 30 to 60 days are critical to the museum and its movement toward autonomy, free from the mismanagement of George Guastello and his Board of Johnson County micro-managers whose only goal is to gut the museum of its collections as well as its finances. We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again. Keep calling, keep emailing, keep the pressure on the USKC Board as well as the mayor, city manager and the council. The fat lady hasn’t even begun to warm up on this one.