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Crime and Police

Activity Overview

• On May 20th, at approx. 2:30 pm, officers were dispatched to an apartment in the 9800 block of 61st St regarding an armed robbery. The victim reported that two men he did not know kicked in his door, pointed a gun at him, and stole his property. Some of the property was later recovered nearby. The investigation is ongoing.
• There were two aggravated assaults this week: o May 20th, at approx. 07:00 am in the 6500 block of Harvard. A couple had an argument and the male beat the female, causing lacerations to her head, and tried to attack her with a pair of scissors. The male was arrested at the scene.
• May 22nd, at approx. 7:30 pm in the 11000 block of 84th Ter. The victim and multiple family members were trying to move her things out of the house due to a previous domestic violence incident with her husband. He threatened multiple people with a gun and was arrested at the scene.

BREAKING NEWS

SOURCE: KMBC CHANNEL 9
UPDATED 9:08pm CDT MAY 24,2020

Raytown Police Officer involved in shooting.

RAYTOWN, Mo. —The Missouri State Highway Patrol is now investigating an officer-involved shooting that happened Sunday evening in Raytown.

An official with MSHP Troop A said Raytown police were called to the 6000 block of Kentucky Avenue to investigate a disturbance with an individual who reportedly had a weapon.

Troopers said police arrived on scene and located the suspect. At some point during the encounter with officers, one officer fired his duty weapon and struck the disturbance suspect. READ MORE

BY PAUL LIVIUS

The Paul 
Livius Report

MAY 19^TH  BOA MEETING

Unlike the four hour marathon of a meeting held by the Board of Aldermen on May 12^th, the May 19^th meeting was just under 2 hours in length. But it was not without drama. Most of the meeting covered a controversial event space application currently before the Board. 

Barb Schlapia serves as Vice President of the Rice Tremonti Board of Directors. She also is one of three members of the Raytown Fire Protection District. Ms. Schlapia's testimony was especially interesting. 

The Rice Tremonti Historical Home is located directly across the street from the proposed event center.

USE THIS LINK . . . MAY 19, 2020 BOA MEETING

BOA Eliminates Processing / Credit 

Card Fees on Sanitary Sewer Bills

Close to one month ago the Raytown Board of Aldermen voted to eliminate late fees for delinquent sanitary sewer billings in Raytown for a period of one month. Alderman Greg Walters brought the proposal before the Board in response to financial hardships Raytowners are experiencing due to the Covid19 Pandemic.

At last Tuesday’s meeting, City Administrator Damon Hodges reported to the Board that the city had forgiven $20,082.94 in late fees in the last month. He told Board members the City had received many comments from taxpayers thanking the city for the help.

Members of city staff also received requests by private citizens for the city to explore forgiveness the Bank Fee and Processing Fee (charged by the city) on those bills paid with credit cards. Those using credit cards are charged $4.25 for bank and processing fees.

Some area banks have cooperated with local utilities by waiving their fees during the crisis. The processing fee portion of the bill is collected by the city to defray collection costs.

After considerable discussion the item was added to the agenda as the last item of the evening. Motion was made by Alderman Greg Walters and seconded by Alderman Jason Greene to waive the $4.25 fee charged for sanitary sewer bills paid by credit card for the time period of May 26 through June 30, 2020.

COMMENTARY: The Raytown Board of Aldermen has taken some productive steps in helping to ease financial burdens brought on by the Covid19 Pandemic. This last round of help to taxpayers will be a welcome relief for many in Raytown. The restrictions on local businesses are expected to be phased out over the next few months. The Board’s adoption of the additional rollback of fees is very timely.

We urge our readers to Be Safe, continue your social distancing, and of course, keep washing those hands!

BY GREG WALTERS

Mea Culpa

Last week I published a story about improvements made to the Raytown Parks and Recreation headquarters located at 59^th and Lane Streets.

Some would call the story a “fluff piece”. The truth is it was an accurate telling of an upgrade project Raytown Parks Director Dave Turner recently took on at Park Headquarters. Rather than using outside contractors, Mr. Turner put his own Park Department crews to work on the project.

His action saved the City approximately $30,000 in construction costs.

In telling the story I committed a journalistic “boo-boo”. I attributed a quote to Mr. Turner that he did not make. The quote praised his employees for successful effort they put forth on the project.

There is a back story . . . 

I live very near the Park Headquarters. My wife and I regularly take our puppy, Wickett, on walks in Colman Park, so we pass by the headquarters on nearly a daily basis. When we bought our home, close to 36 years ago, one of our main motivations was to be near a park for our children to have an open area to play in.

About three weeks ago I stopped by Park Headquarters to say hello to Mr. Turner. He is, technically speaking, one of my neighbors. He was not in, but one of his maintenance workers was. He noticed I was looking at the recently completed upgrades on the building. He shared with me that he and his fellow employees did all the work remodeling the Park Headquarters.

I was impressed. They had replaced all of the aluminum siding, gutters, and were in the process of replacing the windows. The workmanship was impeccable.

I told him I thought this was a story the public needed to know and that I would check with Dave Turner on the details for the story.

Two days later I came across Dave at the park. When he saw me, he came outside to talk – I liked that – as it turned, out both of us are big believers in social distancing.

He gave me the background on his decision to keep the project in house. I told him the finished product looked great and that he should be very proud of his employees who handled the job.

Last week I finally published the story. I did so late on a Sunday night and made a mental note to let Mr. Turner know the story was printed.

I do not have a phone number to reach Dave on the weekend, so, I wrote the story, including a quote from him praising his employees. When I saw Dave the next morning I asked him to review the copy and to send me any changes (via email) he felt were in order. Despite my intentions, I should not have published the story without Dave's prior approval on the quotation

I did not receive an email from Dave. So, I thought, all was well. 

Two days later I received an email sent through the City Administrator’s office from the Park Board admonishing me for creating the quotation from Mr. Turner. I have since corrected the journalistic “boo-boo”.

To view it, scroll down to last week’s story entitled Park Department Saves Over $30,000 in Renovation.  

Since I made this mistake in the Raytown Report page I felt it appropriate to make the apology in the same venue.

Mr. Turner, my apologies, I can assure you the mistake will not be repeated.

FOOTNOTE: A little over 40 years ago I began my first term as Alderman from Ward 1. At the time the Raytown area was served by two weekly newspapers, the Raytown Post and the Raytown Tribune. The Kansas City Times was thrown in yards in the morning. The Kansas City Star was thrown in the evening.

As a result there was very little that happened in Raytown that was not covered as “news”.

In one of my first interviews with the Kansas City Times, a reporter started the interview with the following words . . . “Would you say . . .” followed by a statement that I cannot remember.

I was surprised to read in the paper the next day that those exact words were attributed to me as a quote. It was not a bad quote, so I did not complain. But it did teach me an inside trick often used by reporters from Fox News to CNN and all the newspapers in between.

Perhaps I have picked up one of their bad habits.
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