On Tuesday, the Missouri Court of Appeals overturned Judge Kelly Moorehouse's decision last week to bar The Pitch and The Kansas City Star from publishing stories based on a confidential letter written by the attorney for Kansas City Board of Public Utilities. Following the reversal, the Pitch reposted its original story based on the document, which addressed the utility's potential violations of federal pollution regulations.
On Friday afternoon, a Missouri judge ordered The Pitch and the Kansas City Star to purge online stories about the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities (BPU) that were based on a confidential letter written by BPU's attorney. Judge Kelly Moorehouse's ruling (PDF file) states that the letter is "privileged legal communication," and also barred the papers from publishing information contained in the confidential document or "otherwise referring to it in any public medium." Attorneys for The Pitch have requested an emergency hearing to settle the matter. "This judge made a serious error," says Steve Suskin, legal counsel for the Pitch's parent company, Village Voice Media. "The injunction so clearly violates the First Amendment that we have no choice but to fight for these fundamental principles in the appellate courts." (The Pitch's original story is still available online in a Google cache.)
An article by the Kansas City alt-weekly alleging that Board of Public Utilities officials have racked up excessive meal and entertainment expenses has resulted in an internal ethics commission investigation, according to the local ABC affiliate. The Nov. 30 article, by Pitch reporter Justin Kendall, details how BPU administrators spent $15,000 on meals and entertainment in 2004 and 2005 -- including alcohol tabs at numerous sporting events. The story breaks during a time of public anger over the rising price of electricity and water in Kansas City. The BPU Ethics Commission is scheduled to review the allegations next month.
The Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp., a state economic-development agency, announced Monday that it will document more details of investment projects, the Kansas City Star reports. The company had hired an independent law firm to review its processes after a May 4 Pitch story in which writer David Martin described a project that received funding even though its application contained easily checked inaccuracies.
Back on Mar. 9, The Pitch's Justin Kendall profiled David Owen, a man convicted of possessing child pornography who later found an unusual purpose in life -- lobbying to reunite the homeless with their families. Kendall detailed the confrontational and occasionally violent encounters Owen had with homeless men, to whom he would offer use of his cell phone. "He estimates that he's been beaten up three or four times. His glasses have been broken and his face bloodied. Owen says his father has bought him a burial plot in Cimarron in case a homeless man kills him," Kendall wrote. The Associated Press reports that "Owen's father was right to worry," because Owen's body was found July 2, and four homeless men have been arrested in his death. A July 13 follow-up story in The Pitch says, "Topeka's David Owen was annoying, but we hope he rests in peace."
In its May 4 issue, The Pitch profiles John Flowers, founder and chief executive of technology company Kozoru. According to The Pitch, Kozoru received funds from a state economic-development agency, The Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation, even though its application contained inaccurate information about Flowers' background that KTEC could easily have checked. The Kansas City Star reports today that KTEC has already announced that it will hire an independent law firm to review its application process.
City Auditor Mark Funkhouser and Mayor Kay Barnes have been at odds over economic policies, according to The Kansas City Star, but the tension reached a new exteme when Barnes formally reprimanded Funkhouser for giving "the appearance of inappropriately assisting a mayoral candidate" in the pages of The Pitch. A photo published by The Pitch showed Funkhouser meeting on March 8 with Stanford Glazer, who subsequently declared his candidacy for mayor. Funkhouser was also quoted as saying he would like a mayor "who can wrestle with the city’s financial problems and be open and honest with the citizens on the choices we face," but he did not name a specific candidate. The reprimand is the first Funkhouser has received in his 30-year career, but he "has come close to being fired at least three times in the past 18 years because he speaks bluntly and rarely has good news about city government's performance," according to the Star.
