November 22, 2009
What's Inside:
Ground broken for Chiefs camp
$10.3M project will take a year to complete
$10.3M project will take a year to complete
Katy Schwartz was born into a family fanatical over the Kansas City Chiefs. The family will travel to River Falls, Wis., this summer to watch their beloved Chiefs’ summer training camp.
Next year’s commute to the training camp will be far shorter.
“Chase,” a Bichon Frise sporting a Chiefs jersey, accompanied his owner, also wearing a Chiefs jersey, Monday at the future home of the Kansas City Chiefs’ summer training camp — Missouri Western State University — for the ceremonial groundbreaking.
“I’ll be here every day,” said Ms. Schwartz, who as a teacher at Central High School has summers off.
About 250 people came out to the ceremony at the Chris Faros Alumni Pavilion, which will be in the shadow of the indoor practice facility, construction of which is slated to begin Wednesday. The $10.3 million building project will take a year to complete.
Kansas City Chiefs president Denny Thum accompanied Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and local officials at the ceremony. Sen. Charlie Shields, R-St. Joseph, and Dirck Clark, president of Western’s board of governors, also spoke Monday about how the deal went down. Apparently, it took hundreds of hours of negotiations to bring the Chiefs training camp back to Missouri.
“Dealing with Dirck Clark is like dealing with Drew Rosenhaus or Tom Condon,” said Mr. Thum, playfully referencing two well-known sports agents.
Mr. Clark, who in his college days worked traffic and security at Chiefs games, said he never thought he’d one day be negotiating with the president of the Chiefs. The groundbreaking marked the end of a process that began last August.
“This cleans up a space on my speed dial,” Mr. Clark joked of the his frequent calls to Mr. Thum.
Mr. Shields talked about the snowstorm that canceled a flight from Kansas City to Jefferson City where he was going to pitch the Chiefs proposal to the Missouri Development Finance Board (which later approved funding for the project) — and how a plane carrying a heart from Wichita, Kan., to Kansas City for a transplant intervened to get them to that meeting.
“Fate played a part in that,” Mr. Shields said.
Thanks, congratulations and standing ovations were plentiful Monday, but not everyone was in a festive mood. On the outer fringe of the crowd watched a handful of men in matching T-shirts reading “Laborers Local 579.” M. Scott Howell, business manager of the Laborers’ International Union Local No. 579, gathered the men from his “out of work list.” Their concern is that despite having a $10.3 million project in their backyard, they’ll likely remain on the list.
“Looks to me like more of this job should have been done locally,” said Mr. Howell. About 50-plus percent of the work is going to out-of-town subcontractors.
Crossland Construction, a general contractor from Columbus, Kan., which submitted the lowest of 14 bids submitted for the project, chose 11 local subcontractors for the job. Western officials initially believed six locals would be used.
Jimmy Myers can be reached
at jimmym@npgco.com.
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thats what we need on this project. jayhawkers. i dont blame the local,s who would have liked to give their men a chance to work on this hometown job. whatzup with this ?
donaldo......it's called politics.
or a free market economy with a bid system.
What don't you people understand about a law that requires the college to take the low bid? They had no choice.
well it,s a bad law that accept,s the low bid and end up with junk dilivery. i could pay scab wages and get unacceptable work with the low bid and still make money. or i could bid the job ,pay good wages and get quality work. whatzup?
as has been stated, all the bidders must pay Davis-Bacon Act "prevailing wage rates" which are set by the Dept of Labor based on "UNION SCALE".
Apparently, local contractors aren't efficient enough or hungry enough to "sharpen their pencils". Now they are trying to get "poor union workers" to put pressure on for them. Union workers who make as much as $75.00 per hour plus benefits, and many draw $100,000 to $150,000 for a season's work and draw unemployment in the winter.
Time will tell if this will be an asset for St. Joe. The old adage, "you always get what you pay for" may come back to haunt the quality of the construction process. You have to know there's a reason why they had the lowest bid.
On another note, I noted that Ms. Schwartz, a teacher at Central High School, says she will be at the Chiefs training camp every day next summer to watch. There goes that myth about how hard teachers work even on their summer vacation!
apple...I would venture to say that the salary of teachers for 9-10 months slightly exceeds the salary of the average skilled worker that works for 12 months. I don't know the policy of the SJSD but I know that some school districts allow the option for the teacher to receive their salary over 12 months rather than the 9-10 months but they still receive the same amount of money.
Actually, my point was not about teachers' pay schedule. No matter how you look at it, the teachers have a 2-3 month vacation. In many professions you're lucky if you get two wks vacation. So......why do we have to hear how hard teachers work the year round??? Ms. Schwartz negated that argument by saying she'll be at the training camp every day next summer. Teachers DO NOT spend their summers doing school work.
And oh about the attitude (which you misspelled by the way), I had a fairly positive attitude until that empty suit guy, I believe his name is Barry, Hussein or ?teleprompter, became the Supreme Ruler. Now I have a headache every day.
apple, you can call it what you want but teachers do not work in the same capacity during the summer. I realize that some have part time jobs or take summer classes but that is their choice.
Most college grads would jump at the change to start at a beginning salary of $32,000 that you stated as a new teacher's salary. I agree that teaching isn't a posh job but most employees in other professions put in at least 40 hrs or more a week for 52 weeks a year with 2 weeks (if they're lucky) of that for paid vacation. You won't see those employees at the Chiefs training camp every day next summer!
Ditto to you on the respect comment. Please review the post you made on June 30 about your Mayor.
Okay, so why do teachers in St. Joe make more than college grads in St. Joe?
Also, I don't care that teachers have the summer off but I don't like to hear about how hard they work during that time. I realize you don't call it vacation but in essence that's what it is.
Another point that you have misunderstood about my comment is salary. I think teachers are deserving of every bit they earn; their profession is one of the most important there is - educating our future leaders.
I don't know what I would have posted that made you think that I think I am more deserving than others. I'm retired now but I worked 2,080 plus hours a year and tithed my gross earnings but when I hear an educator talk about how hard they work and then do nothing on the job for two months, it goes against the grain.
My opinion, if I can be so bold as to have one, is that your Mayor and Barry, Hussein, ?teleprompter wear the same size empty suit.
Wow, what a job like no other! Starting salary of $32,000 plus unpaid time off during the summer. To die for!
apple....you seem to be quite the authority on schools and teachers AND politics from your endless posts. And do you have any facts or figures to show that college grads turn down a starting salary of over $30,000 in any profession? Is that why we have a high unemployment rate.....no one wants to work for less than $40 grand???
I guess teachers will be the only ones next summer at the Chiefs training camp - everybody else has to work.