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MAJOR CRIME-FIGHTING ANNOUNCEMENT
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Area children thank the Congressman and others
for bringing ShotSpotter technology to Kansas City
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This week we announced a major crime-fighting initiative for Kansas City. I was pleased to join with city officials and the Kansas City Police Department to discuss the ShotSpotter Flex gunshot location, alert and analysis technology coming to the city. ShotSpotter is considered the world leader in wide-area acoustic surveillance and gunfire detection technology. It means officers will be able to detect a gunshot and the location where it was fired -- within seconds. My hope is this will result in a faster response to victims, a higher number of arrests and a safer community in every neighborhood in the city.
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Congressman Cleaver announcing the crime-fighting ShotSpotter technology
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I was honored to be able to secure funding for this collaborative initiative and want to thank the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, the Federal Transit Administration, the Mayor, the city, the Board of Police Commissioners – and of course, the Kansas City Police Chief and all of the dedicated officers.
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A large crowd of community leaders, police officers and media attending the event
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As some of the speakers noted, a speech has never stopped a bullet. This new technology will not stop a bullet either. But, it is a powerful weapon in our fight against crime. And with the cooperation of the community and ShotSpotter, as well as other initiatives, we can stand together and tell the criminals ‘no more’.
For more information about ShotSpotter please visit: http://www.shotspotter.com/
RAYTOWN CELEBRATES FIRST NEW BUILD IN THREE YEARS
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Congressman Cleaver, along with Raytown Mayor David Bower, at ribbon-cutting for new homes
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What a great day it is when I can attend an event like the one this week in Raytown. While there is much work yet to do on the economy, creating more jobs and making sure people can stay in their homes – Raytown is marking an important milestone in the push forward through these tough times. The Builders Development Corporation has just finished the construction of not one, but two, new homes along Laurel Avenue. These are the first new homes to be built in Raytown in three years.
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Official opening of the new home in Raytown
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The lots used to hold vacant, dilapidated houses but now there are new, energy-efficient homes. The funding came through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. It is a program that is helping communities throughout our area turn despair into hope, blight into beauty and economic struggle into success.
MEET ME AT THE BRIDGE
I want to personally invite each of you to the huge ‘Meet Me At The Bridge’ Street Festival this Saturday in Kansas City. For decades, Troost Avenue has been a symbolic line dividing the city in many ways. This weekend, that all changes with the dedication and celebration of the new Troost Avenue Bridge over Brush Creek. Festivities begin at 5 PM with a short ceremony followed by music, fun and food. Even though this will be a festive event, the serious work continues to bring the city together to transform all neighborhoods into safe and sustainable places to live, work and play.
For more information please visit: www.bccp.org
CIVILITY CORNER
Waxahachie, Texas is the place of my birth. It is a small town that is now considered a part of the Dallas metroplex. For the first seven years of my life, my family lived in what can only be described as a shack located just off of a dirt road. We had the important things like love, religious values, and hope that one day we would escape the hand-to-mouth existence of our condition. However, we didn’t have luxuries like indoor plumbing or electricity.
No electricity meant no refrigerator. So once a week the ice man delivered a solidly frozen block of ice to our little home. My parents would put it into our ice box to cool the food. I learned early on that even the hot Texas sun could not melt such a big chunk of ice very quickly. In fact, the ice lasted for days in that box. With my always-active imagination, I once asked if a house with so much ice inside could burn down. I truthfully don’t remember the answer, but it didn’t really matter. My interest was in wondering if our house could withstand a fierce blaze if it held within it the very element needed to defeat the fire.
Though my days in Waxahachie staring at that huge ice block seem so far away, at times the lessons learned there are just as relevant today. Indeed, my childhood home could have burned down, even though the water needed to fight the flames was within reach. Using my still alert imagination, I now visualize that house of long ago as the House of Representatives, where there are enough members pledged to civility to provide the cool needed to calm the heat of hostility. But the danger is still present. I believe it is important now more than ever for the civil statesmen to chill the firebrands who in many cases, reduce to ashes the opportunities for legislative compromise and ignite pathological partisanship. Without that, I fear we risk setting ablaze from within, the already singed relationship between Congress and the vast majority of Americans in the middle.
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Emanuel Cleaver, II
Member of Congress
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