Pendergast County? Yeah, That Sounds About Right

 A year or so ago, I headlined a column “Does ‘Jackson’ County have a future?” At the time, I questioned whether being named after a slave owner, Trail of Tears ribbon-cutter, and Democratic Party founder dishonored the county. A year or so later, I have to ask whether it dishonors the memory of President Andrew Jackson to have this particular Jackson County bear his name.

There is a structural reason why Jackson County is all but condemned to scandal and mismanagement—but first, a word on those recent shenanigans, shenanigans so impressively sleazy they would have made Boss Tom Pendergast proud.

Laundering money through a quadriplegic? Having three ways with your wife and an overpaid subordinate? Almost getting your home foreclosed on multiple occasions? Local Democrats might be thinking at least none of our hijinks reads like a chapter out of Fifty Shades of Grey, and they have a point there, but scandal in Jackson County is so pervasive one would be hard-pressed to know where to begin impeaching.

Little in the way of good news ever comes out of county jails, but few jails anywhere have produced as much bad news as Jackson County’s. In 2013, there were only 13 incident reports; by 2016 that number had increased 10-fold, and the incidents were hard-core—escapes, beatings, rapes, attacks on officers, and a whole slew of civil lawsuits to compensate the victims.

In December, the corrections director resigned. County Executive Frank White appointed the deputy to take the director’s place. This was one of the better news days for the former All-Star second baseman. In the past few months even the hapless Royals have been getting better press than Frank White.

Here’s news of White being “banned” from managing the Jackson County anti-drug agency. There’s news of Jackson County legislators “filing a suit” against him. Here are those same legislators hiring “outside counsel” to challenge White’s budget manipulations. There’s the Dems on the legislature turning to a “Republican attorney general” to investigate White.

Then there’s news of White’s bacon being saved by a “secret financial rescue.” And here’s my personal favorite, White almost “losing his house to foreclosure for the third time since 2016.” In what other First-World county could this possibly happen?

The almost “losing his house” led to the “secret financial rescue” and involved former Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders. When Sanders surprised his fans by stepping down in 2016, the legislature unanimously picked White to take the job, Pendergast being dead and thus not available.

White needed the $145,000 salary. He had not been paying his state or federal income tax for several years and owed the IRS $80,000. Of more immediate concern, U.S. Bank was about to foreclose on his Lee’s Summit home.

That is when Sanders’s law partner, Ken McClain, secretly bailed White out.

The song “I Believe,” in the Broadway hit musical Book of Mormon has this one memorable lyric, “I believe that the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri.” If Jackson County was the Garden of Eden, the current status quo is totally “after the fall.”

Mike Sanders fell hard. When he stepped down, local pundits took him at his word that he did so for his family. The pundits obviously forgot this was Jackson County.