[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 57 (Wednesday, May 4, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E878-E879]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




TRIBUTE TO WYANDOTTE COUNTY/KANSAS CITY, KANSAS, MAYOR/CHIEF EXECUTIVE 
                        OFFICER CAROL MARINOVICH

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DENNIS MOORE

                               of kansas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Wednesday, May 4, 2005

  Mr. MOORE of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, I was once talking with a group of 
constituents from Wyandotte County, and asked who they looked up to in 
Kansas City, Kansas.
  A gentleman said, ``I can't say I look up to her because she is 
barely five feet tall, but I do admire and respect Carol Marinovich.''
  As Mayor/CEO of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas 
City, Kansas, Carol Marinovich established a record of achievement that 
inspired awe throughout the Kansas City area and beyond. Whether as a 
teacher, special education coordinator, or Kansas City Councilwoman, 
she has brought a sense of hope, pride and progress to Wyandotte 
County.
  First elected as Mayor of the City of Kansas City in April 1995, she 
served as Mayor/CEO of the Unified Government since its establishment 
in April 1997, stepping down from that post on April 20th of this year.
  During that time, Carol provided leadership in a period of 
unprecedented change and growth that has transformed Wyandotte County 
into a place with much to celebrate. She spearheaded the city/county 
consolidation process, taking two separate entities and bringing them 
together into one more effective and efficient government. House by 
house, she worked with neighborhood groups to reinvest in our 
neighborhoods. Evidence of that success is everywhere: the Mount Zion 
Estates, Turtle Hill, Cathedral Pointe, Mission Cliffs, Rainbow Park, 
Mount Carmel Place, Carmelle Estates, River's Edge East, Jersey South, 
Nehemiah, and the Strawberry Hill Townhomes and St. Peter/Waterway. In 
2004, 500 housing permits were issued in Wyandotte County--a 40 year 
high. In the same year, crime dropped by 7 percent and Wyandotte County 
experienced the fewest murders in ten years and unemployment dropped 
for the first time in five years.
  With Carol's guidance, downtown revitalization has been spurred by 
projects such as the Hilton Garden Inn with the adjacent, renovated 
Reardon Center, the new Board of Public Utilities building, and the 
federal Region VII Environmental Protection Agency headquarters. She 
has helped make dreams of developing western Wyandotte County a 
reality, where the Village West project is still expanding. Today we 
are all proud it is home to the Kansas Speedway, Cabelas, the Nebraska 
Furniture Mart, and the Great Wolf Lodge. As she left office, 
$1,000,000 of redevelopment projects were under construction in the 
city's urban core, and the mill levy had dropped 18 percent during her 
tenure.
  In 1989, Carol became the first woman elected to the City Council of 
Kansas City. Six years later, she was the first woman elected Mayor of 
Kansas City, Kansas. During her tenure, she received the Excellence in 
Local Government Award from the League of Kansas Municipalities and has 
been recognized by Governing Magazine as one of the Public Officials of 
the Year in America. She was picked by Kansas City Magazine as ``Best 
Local Politician'' and was awarded the Excellence in Community Service 
Award by the Points of Light Foundation.
  Mr. Speaker, I'm 6'2'' tall, but I look up to Carol Marinovich. 
Mayor/CEO Carol Marinovich turned our community into a place where you 
would want to work, shop, live and raise a family. I am proud of 
everything she has accomplished and even more proud to call her a 
friend. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record for review by the House of 
Representatives an article that was carried by the Kansas City Star on 
the day Mayor Marinovich concluded her tenure in office.

               [From the Kansas City Star, Apr. 20, 2005]

                    Marinovich Leaving Driver's Seat


                With KCK transformed, mayor's term ends

                            (By Mark Wiebe)

       A bleak landscape confronted Carol Marinovich when she was 
     elected mayor of Kansas City, Kan., in 1995: high crime, 
     plummeting population, a crumbling retail base.
       Today, violent crime has been cut in half, record numbers 
     of housing permits are being issued, and Wyandotte County 
     boasts the largest tourist attraction in Kansas with its 
     Village West retail district.
       One constant throughout that decade of change has been 
     Marinovich, the former schoolteacher who once said she 
     decided to run for mayor because ``it was my town--and it was 
     going down the tubes.''
       Tonight, Marinovich ends her political career in local 
     government when Joe Reardon is sworn in as the Unified 
     Government's second mayor and CEO. After 16 years in public 
     service, she leaves behind a county that has shed its image 
     as the area's beleaguered stepchild.
       During that time, she's made countless tough decisions, but 
     the ones she believes will shape her legacy are often 
     overlooked in the narrative of the county's success: 
     consolidation of the city and county governments in 1997, and 
     neighborhood revitalization.
       The latter helped Marinovich, 54, cultivate allies at the 
     grass-roots level. Consolidation was but one issue that 
     created political enemies for her, and some complained of her 
     unyielding style. Even among some of her most vocal critics, 
     though, there is a grudging respect for the change she helped 
     usher in.
       That stubbornness, supporters said, was a decided asset.
       ``Has she upset people? Made them mad? Yes,'' said Cindy 
     Cash, president of the Kansas City Kansas Area Chamber of 
     Commerce. ``When you're doing what you think is best for the 
     community, you do run the risk. . . . But she does have the 
     best interest of the community at heart.''


                          Progress, not polish

       Marinovich isn't a highly polished politician. Her 
     extemporaneous moments are sometimes peppered with unfinished 
     sentences. She is not adept at working a crowd. Put her in a 
     cocktail party where she doesn't know anyone, she says, and 
     ``I'd probably stay five minutes then get in my car and go 
     home.''
       The issue that secured her first political victory, to the 
     City Council in 1989, is one that remains close to her heart: 
     the revitalization of the city's urban neighborhoods. She 
     kept that emphasis through her six year tenure on the council 
     and then into the mayor's office.
       ``Neighborhood groups weren't heard of'' before Marinovich 
     became mayor, said Patty Dysart, executive director of the 
     Armourdale Renewal Association. ``I can remember five or six. 
     But they would ride in parades and that was about it.''
       Today, the county boasts more than 130 neighborhood groups, 
     many of them active in crime watches and cleanups, reporting 
     code violators and organizing community events.
       As soon as she was elected, Marinovich established ``impact 
     teams'' that made cleanup sweeps through neighborhoods. Such 
     efforts demonstrated to neighborhood leaders like Dysart--
     tough-talking and demanding grassroots supporters--that 
     Marinovich meant business.
       ``She didn't have my respect at first,'' Dysart said. ``I 
     just didn't think she cared, especially about Armourdale.''
       Her opinion changed when Marinovich participated in an 
     impact team and attended some of Dysart's meetings. She 
     realized then that Marinovich was ``just quiet and shy but 
     has this big heart.''


                            Hard-won respect

       Despite her supporters' admiration, Marinovich leaves a 
     city that is not entirely enamored of her. In her 2001 run 
     against Elmer Sharp, she grabbed what many considered an 
     unimpressive 53 percent of the vote. In this month's mayoral 
     election, she supported former state Rep. Rick Rehorn; he 
     lost by an 18 percent margin.
       Former Unified Government Commissioner Joe Vaught, who 
     backed Marinovich in 2001,

[[Page E879]]

     said her stubborn and uncompromising leadership style had 
     alienated some people.
       Still, he said, ``our city moved forward, and she was in 
     charge. So whether I liked her or didn't like her, the city 
     moved forward and that was important.''
       Then there's the county's Achilles heel: high property 
     taxes. Despite an 18 percent reduction in the Unified 
     Government's rate of taxation since 1997, most property tax 
     bills continue to rise as property values surge.
       State Sen. David Haley, who lost to Marinovich in a 
     landslide in 1997 and who later sparred with her on many 
     legislative matters, accused the mayor of not doing more to 
     lower taxes. ``I just think she had the power to be a 
     catalyst for progress for the taxpayers,'' he said. ``It's 
     not an abuse of power; it's just an underutilization of all 
     that office could have done.''
       Despite that criticism, Haley insisted that Marinovich 
     ``does have a track record that is enviable. And at the end 
     of the day, she accomplished a tremendous amount for 
     Wyandotte County.''
       Marinovich acknowledges that the Unified Government, which 
     came with the promise of more efficient government, needs to 
     rein in spending. In 1997, county and city spending stood at 
     $168.8 million. In 2003, the last year available for the 
     government's actual expenses, that figure had jumped 24.6 
     percent, to $210 million.
       Wage increases, rising health-care costs, the addition of 
     nearly 100 employees--many of them hired to form a new 
     emergency medical service--account for much of that increase. 
     But with a budget that stands at more than $250 million this 
     year, the government's expenses aren't going down.
       Marinovich, who attributes many of the budget issues to the 
     plight of an aging city, said one of the biggest challenges 
     for the next administration would be to get that spending 
     under control. If it can't, she said, ``That doesn't bode 
     well for the future.''


                             a lasting mark

       If Marinovich controlled her legacy, she would place 
     revitalization and consolidation of the city and county 
     governments above economic development. County Administrator 
     Dennis Hays seconds that.
       Consolidation ended decades of local Democratic Party 
     machine politics. But, Hays said, it also gave the community 
     a single body to make decisions. ``We could not have done 
     what we did with the speedway and Village West without it,'' 
     Hays said. ``Our community needed a single voice to take a 
     risk and move forward.''
       Consolidation also gave Marinovich immense power. With a 
     veto threat in hand, the ability to break tie votes and the 
     authority to hire and fire the administrator (with the 
     commission's support), the Unified Government's mayor 
     occupies a position of strength that other mayors around 
     Kansas City can only dream of.
       It's a government with true executive power, said real 
     estate agent Mike Jacobi, co-founder of the consolidation 
     movement. And Marinovich has used that power responsibly, he 
     said: ``She restored our integrity. Taxes were skyrocketing; 
     values were falling. ``When you restore the integrity of the 
     community,'' he said, ``it's OK to invest here again. It's OK 
     to live here again.''


                         the marinovich legacy

       The most visible evidence of Wyandotte County's economic 
     resurgence under Carol Marinovich is Kansas Speedway and 
     Village West commercial district.
       To make way for that massive complex in 1998, Marinovich 
     and the Unified Government Commission displaced 150 families 
     in western Wyandotte County--the most difficult moment of her 
     political career, she has said.
       Other hallmarks of her tenure: Consolidation of the city 
     and county governments. Voter approval of consolidation in 
     1997 quelled the influence of a powerful Democratic Party 
     machine that had overseen decades of economic decline.
       As a city councilwoman, she teamed with District Attorney 
     Nick Tomasic to take on the city's adult entertainment 
     industry, eventually wiping it out.
       With the Unified Board of Commissioners' support, she 
     stepped up the demolition of blighted structures and cracked 
     down on code violators, angering landlords who viewed the 
     measures as too harsh.


                              left undone

       The unfinished business that Marinovich had hoped to 
     address: Furthering economic development to broaden the tax 
     base and lower tax bills for property owners.
       Creating plans for an ambitious development near the 
     confluence of the Missouri and the Kansas Rivers.
       Bringing more commercial and residential development to the 
     urban core.


                              what's ahead

       Marinovich insists she doesn't know what she will do next. 
     Her immediate plans are to take a brief vacation and to spend 
     more time in her garden and with her husband, Wyandotte 
     County District Judge Ernie Johnson.
       Is another run for higher office looming? ``Not at this 
     point,'' she says. ``I don't enjoy the politics. Never have. 
     I don't think I ever will.''


                           career highlights

       1989: Becomes first woman elected to the Kansas City, Kan., 
     City Council.
       1995: Becomes the city's first woman elected mayor, 
     defeating incumbent Joe Steineger.
       1997: Wins voter support for consolidation of the city and 
     Wyandotte County governments; elected first mayor and CEO of 
     the county's Unified Government, defeating state legislator 
     David Haley.
       2001: Wins second term as mayor and CEO, defeating former 
     City Councilman Elmer Sharp; plans are announced to use tax 
     incentives to bring Cabela's, Nebraska Furniture Mart and 
     Great Wolf Lodge to the city.
       2002: Named one of the nation's top 11 public officials by 
     Governing magazine.
       2004: Announces she won't seek re-election, becoming the 
     first mayor in decades to leave voluntarily.
       April 20, 2005: Hands over office to Mayor-elect Joe 
     Reardon.

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