Independence, MO — Intervene in Your Local Election Now

Like a lot of people, I used to believe that I was nothing more than a grain of sand in a political desert, and that it costed public officials absolutely nothing to go about their business as though I didn't exist. Please let me explain to you why that is horribly incorrect, and how much public officials rely on that falsehood to remain unaccountable to the public.

I'm a resident in Raytown, MO and the local government here has instigated a fight that I cannot ignore even if I wanted to. I had no choice but to try each and every avenue of political pressure, and last year on April 8th I voted for the first time in my municipal election. I found out about my own city's election the day before, when someone shared a website that did what this website aims to do: make the government more accessible to the people.

I saw that there were three candidates for alderman of my ward, one of whom completed a questionnaire — Latrice Thomas. In her responses she established her platform as being for increased government transparency, which is what I needed in order to determine if the city really did follow its own laws. As for the incumbent, Ryan Myers, his platform was focused on making Raytown more accommodating for business owners, increased government revenue, and fighting crime. Hopefully, after the entire US bore witness to two horrific public executions of US citizens by ICE, and the administration's malicious slander of the victims' families as "domestic terrorists", the general public now knows to first question every use of the word "crime" by politicians. I've been summoned to Raytown municipal court several times over the past 5 years, and I've only observed working-class people appearing as defendants there.

I needed the city to re-evaluate its claimed goal of promoting public health & safety, and I figured the most I had to lose in voting was the few minutes it took me to go to the poll. However, I didn't want to just swap out one detached politician for another. So I called Ms. Thomas at the number listed in her questionnaire.

I wasn't surprised when my call went to voicemail, but was very surprised a minute later when she called right back. I immediately introduced myself as a Ward 3 resident who is deciding who to vote for, and asked her upfront if she would be pushing aggressive police policies while in office. She replied "No", as though the thought never crossed her mind. I explained to her that Raytown had a police problem that is exceptional among Jackson County cities, and that was the issue that decided my vote. The next day, Ms. Thomas unseated Myers by 5 votes, 143–138, and I was on speaking terms with one of Raytown's ten policy-makers, who knew that at least a small part of her success was due to understanding her constituents' concerns regarding police.

City councilpeople shape the policies that the police follow — notice how close both those words resemble each other. Recently, there was an internal memo retrieved from Independence PD via an open records request that instructs their officers on how to detain someone suspected of being an immigrant with insufficient documentation. This indicates an expansion of their definition of reasonable suspicion to detain people based on their skin color, which is racial profiling. Don't wait until you or a loved one is in handcuffs before you learn that your understanding of the law is different, rightfully or wrongfully, from those who have the power to enforce it.