It’s a Family Business - …!
As ANOTHER delay in the voting on the ‘hideous development’ is approved by Olathe (for Oddo’s benefit - so he can try to get a winning vote by manipulating the Council Member numbers), now apparently moved to May 7, you just can not help getting the feeling that there is something rotten in Olathe …
Review of the Planning Commission March 2024
More than one voting, tax-paying, law abiding homeowner noticed that smell. It was the smell of fish. An odd thing to smell at the March 11 Planning Commission meeting. But there it was.
Before the meeting even started the Olathe Planning Department’s fishy chaos was fully olfactorable: the fix was in, as it were. The agenda announced that Planning Staff were backing the Oddo “town Center”…. a WHAT? The smell wafted across the room as the planners presented their incoherent jumble of fish-taco-word-salad.
But before even the rotten presentations - much more was causing a stink. Lets me explain - using a game… What’s is this? - ‘Ok, you’re on ‘the list’” - “well who are you speaking for?” - “Are you for or against the development?” “Do you intent to make a presentation?” “The deadline for presentations in tomorrow” “The deadline for presentations has passed” “The deadline for presentations is Saturday, it’s Sunday, it was Friday…” If you answered ‘what happens when I call or email with my intention to speak in the public session of the Olathe Planning Commission’, you were right… Multiple homeowners reported that they were met by a number of such responses, put through 20-questions and/or fed contradictory instructions. Not very welcoming to the public.
Talking about ‘the public’ what about the ‘requirement’ of providing comprehensive introductions…?! Anyone objecting had to provide full personal details. Developers didn’t. No one else did - for them it was all corporate offices and company anonymity. There was that feeling again; the entire process belonged to the developer - NOT to the public. Perhaps that’s just how Olathe thinks it has to be - but we know first hand that aggressive developer-HOA owners like to know who’s ’getting out of line’ … and developers making lists is ominous.
Also we are all aware that there is a modern day air of menace - even here in Kansas - that there never used be. A menace that stalks those who exercise their right to petition government. It’s uncomfortable - to say the least.
So already some people were put off. We KNOW that because they told us. People who don’t want to be on lists - even a list run by the haphazard chaotic planners in the Olathe City planning department. (Perhaps particularly them - given the potential for juveniles to be vindictive!). People want to stay off the radar of those who’s names are only repeated after heads dip and faces dart back and forth - checking out the room - ‘him… well here’s what I know about him…’
For sure there are certain types in this world who culture an air of ‘don’t get in my way’ and most of us civilians would rather just oblige. Fair enough in a rough and tumble world. But only so long as you can count on such people NOT also controlling the levers of the state or its many layers of bureaucracy… that prompts thoughts of true discomfort.
What next seemed to have more than just the tang of the fishmonger…! The Applicant - (i.e. Oddo’s Gang) was granted as long as it liked to speak - as many ‘professional’ voices as they wanted, (no opportunity for the public to challenge them or ask them any questions, of course! In fact the Commission Chairman made it clear from the start ‘DONT ASK ANY QUESTIONS, JUST DON’T…’. And if you were in any doubt about his seriousness - there were armed police all around the room..! Yes in Olathe, not Nicaragua, Nigeria or a Nazi client state last century, Olathe…! )
Any one else feeling chilly yet?
But then there was time. Time itself. An abundant resource when developers speak - was as precious and limited as our diminishing rights when it came to the objectors turn to speak. The Preserve Our Neighborhood group paid to have a planning-expert lawyer present - and guess what, he was the Only professional treated like a schoolchild by the Planning Commission.
He patiently and respectfully sat and waited ‘his turn’ to speak… for 5 - Big Clock timed - minutes. Despite repeated advance requests and even appeals to the City Attorney and the Commission to be afforded a usual professional courtesy of a full 15 minutes. No. Not for him was there to be any ‘home-field advantage’ of the kind the developer’s lawyer enjoyed. Developer Esq. had no clock on his words - he could joke and banter; thank everyone on the Commission; “oh and Staff, and my agent, and my producers and my long suffering wife….” (We began to wish it were an Oscar speech - at least the music might have welled up and spared us…! ) Then the Oddogineer, the Oddarcitect, the entire circus… all were given untimed talk time. Who needed to keep track anyway - these guys were great entertainers (with all their tall tails about how no one can count (stories or feet) and how anything is ‘Green’ because they say it is…! What a hoot they were…
No, the lowest of the low in Olathe City Hall is being a voting, tax-paying, law abiding homeowner participant exercising his or her right to petition government. (It’s funny how that phrase ‘the right to petition’ - implies it might not be just being granted a favor by a Planning Commission Chair… it’s almost like we had some - well… right! To be there…)
Being lowest on the totem poll also meant we had to stay in line. Literally and figuratively. And the order of that line also generated a distinct odor of sushi … While speaker after speaker opposed Oddo - the surprise what how it all ended. The shock of the evening was the two ‘Turkeys for Christmas’. A married couple who both said, literally, ‘no one wants to lose their freedom - but let’s speak nicely to our kidnappers and “not spit in their eye”. After all - we are going to be spending a lot of time together. And they are the boss!’ I’m pretty sure that was the speech. (I could be wrong as I was vomiting into an airline sick bag during their particular 5 minuteses)! One really has to wonder if Ricardo Oddometer himself is holding that couple’s prized Maltese in an Oddo Developments secret location. Perhaps an unrentable apartment unit - sorry, ‘luxury apartment unit’ - somewhere in Darkest Leawood…?
So right to the end - as a bunch of HOA-controlling developers all got to speak after the actual HOA membership and then Cedar Creek’s own Stockholm-syndrome couple were afforded a helpful dead-last-but-one and dead-last place on the speaker roster - the fishy smell of things did not go away.
The entire sorry, sad, statist and stage-managed kabuki left a terrible taste. You know what I mean if you’ve ever eaten a dead fish raw of the beach. You haven’t? Are you sure? Well let me tell you - you haven’t missed anything - especially not if you were there to object to Oddo on March 11. You got the taste - and it was spot on…!
Shame on Olathe, Kansas…! Shame.
They misspelled the last bit…!
