The Joplin Progress Committee and how to buy a school board and city council

Occasionally, I read a comment on one of my posts and have a hard time believing that someone is so blind to what is going on around him.

Last night, after reading the Joplin Globe's page one story by Susan Redden about the Joplin Progress Committee, a collection of business interests that plans to pour big bucks into putting the kind of people it wants into Joplin R-8 Board of Education and Joplin City Council seats, I read a comment that left me shaking my head.

Someone thought it was only fair that these people get involved and have a say in how things are run in Joplin.

Hello?

The people who have formed the Joplin Progress Committee and who indicated to Mrs. Redden that they plan to conduct their meetings, quite legally, out of the public's eye, already have a major say in what is going on in Joplin.

The only reason they found it necessary to form a Joplin Progress Committee is because people are finally making the decision to run against their hand-picked choices for school board and city council.

From their website, Joplin Progress, here is what the group, whomever it consists of, thinks are the key platform issues:

• regional economic growth and the creation of new jobs through both existing and new businesses to our community
• quality of life improvements for our community
• the efforts of any reputable large-scale developers who express an interest doing projects in our city and bring forth economically viable, self-sustaining projects
• the development of new, younger leaders
• working cooperatively with other cities and schools within the Joplin Region
• student achievement that is on target or exceeds expectations in core academic areas for all grades with continued emphasis upon increasing the high school graduation rate
• graduating civic-minded, high quality citizens who are college and career ready
• the development and ongoing maintenance of a short and long term strategic plans for the City of Joplin and the Joplin School District respectively

It is hard to argue with any of those ideas. They sound wonderful.

Where I run into problems with the Joplin Progress Committee is with its section on "personal values and attitude:

• possess strong integrity and moral values
• be positive, progressive and open minded
• form opinions based on broad-based facts from varied sources
• be practical and pragmatic
• demonstrate good common sense
• be both compassionate and passionate
• be non-partisan with no personal agendas
• demonstrate the ability to focus on policy, not politics or day-to-day management

When a group hides behind closed doors and makes value judgments on candidates and then does its best to elect its chosen candidates, it is doing so perfectly legally. I simply question the definitions that are offered and why we should assume that this elite group of business leaders is doing anything to help the rest of us.

I would guess that someone who "demonstrates good common sense" would be someone who sees eye-to-eye with the committee on every issue. "Non-partisan with no personal agendas" would indicate that if you are getting elected to try to remove people who have been a barrier to good city government or to good education, but who kiss up to the business community on a regular basis, you are not going to be receiving any of this group's money.

It is the last one that concerns me most of all. When they say "demonstrate the ability to focus on policy, not politics or day-to-day management, they are saying, "we like the status quo and we are willing to spend money to make sure things stay exactly the way they are."

My guess is that for the first time we are going to see city council and school board ads in heavy rotation as we approach April as the city's economic heavy hitters flex their muscles  and do their best to maintain the status quo in a community that is desperate for change.