In June, newly sworn-in Mayor of Kansas City, Mark Funkhouser, appointed 73 year-old grandmother Frances Semler, pictured on the left, to the city's park board. It's the type of government agency that does harmless things such as issue picnic permits and oversee dog-leash regulations.
But Ms. Semler, a neighborhood leader and onetime president of the Clay County Rose Society, is also a member of the Minutemen. They're the group that many people, including President Bush, call "vigilantes," but what they mostly do--besides holding occasional rallies requesting enforcement of current immigration laws--is sit in chairs with big hats and binoculars--and plenty of fluids--at the border so they can alert border patrol officials when they see someone breaking the law--that is, entering the United States illegally.
Despite the insignificant amount of power Ms. Semler has in her parks position, her Minutemen membership was too much for La Raza, an Hispanic civil rights group--who within days of her appointment called for Semler's resignation. And the group had some leverage--the 2009 La Raza national convention was already on the books for KC.
But Mayor Funkhouser surprised La Raza by not caving into the demand for Semler's head. And carrying through with their threat, La Raza announced Saturday afternoon that they're cancelling their Kansas City get-together. Not to be outdone, the NAACP, in a show of support, is threatening to pull its 2010 national convention out of Kansas City.
The 2009 La Raza convention, according to the Kansas City Star, was expected to bring 5,000 hotel rooms and $5 million in revenue to KC. Mayor Funkhouser shouldn't sweat, I used to work in the hotel business, those rooms will be re-sold, and besides convention bureau economic impact predictions are as about as scientific as alchemy. Generally, the estimates greatly overestimate the true revenue of what a group spends in a city.
Hats off to Funkhouser for not caving in to La Raza. The Minutemen are a legal organization, and Semler in her park board position can hardly expected to do anything of significance regarding immigration--or illegal immigration--in Kansas City.
Tony's Kansas City blog, while not a supporter of Funkhouser and Semler, has a pretty good summary of the events since June.
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Kansas City 
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immigration 
minutemen 
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