Bob Huston has a solution to Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas banning a Chiefs parade. Hold it in Cass County, Missouri.
Huston, who serves as Cass Presiding Commissioner, made the suggestion in an official letter after Lucas put the kabash on any public celebration.
“While we share the mayor’s optimism for another Chief’s Super Bowl win, we do not support his preemptive cancellation,” stated a letter from Cass County signed by Huston and Associate Commissioners Monty Kisner and Ryan Johnson.
The invitation was in response to Lucas who said this week that should the Chiefs win the Super Bowl it would unlikely be celebrated with a parade through the streets of Missouri’s largest city.
During a daily brief this week Lucas asserted the COVID-19 pandemic was the reason for his concern stating that despite the Chiefs being two games and two wins away he would have none of it.
“A Chiefs parade, in the classic sense as we knew it, is highly unlikely, indeed won’t happen,” Lucas said, “There will be different ways that we come up with to try to celebrate.”
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That hasn’t stopped Cass County for making itself available for a celebration and the county may have a point.
County Commissioner Bob Huston.
While Jackson County and Kansas City have some of the most restrictive masking and social-distancing ordinances in the state, their covid rate remains higher than Cass County which has virtually no restrictions.
As of Jan. 23 Cass County has a rate of 170 cases per 100,000 people while Jackson County has a rate over 185. The County of 105,000 residents makes up the southern part of the metro and has remained consistently below the infection rates of KC and Jackson County. That’s while Cass businesses, including, bars and restaurants, plus weddings and other mass gatherings continue operating largely uninhibited.
Those numbers are not unique for many areas that have erred on the side of individual freedom vs. government mandates. They’ve given counties like Cass a reason to believe they’re handling the pandemic in a much more effective way than their more urban neighbors.
That’s provided the county’s leaders the confidence to say bring on the celebration. Their letter said they “formally extend an invitation to the Kansas City Chiefs and the broader Chiefs family to celebrate a Chiefs Super Bowl LV win in Cass County.”
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Huston says they’ll celebrate it with a parade and “all the pomp and circumstance benefitting the occasion.”
Still, don’t expect a parade of half-a-million people in Cass County or any other county should the Chiefs win.
It is unlikely that the NFL, which has struggled with what has been perceived to be convoluted social-distancing mandates, to allow the players a moment of celebration with fans in a parade in Jackson or Cass counties.
Lucas agrees, even implying extension cancellation of any party – public or private.
“Don’t get me wrong, I am so excited about the Chiefs playoff run,” he stated. “House parties, a lot of the things that we actually thought could be concerns during the holiday season, come in this sort of holiday season part two.”
That hasn’t deterred the parade effort of Cass County Commissioners who said they are “excited to celebrate the culmination of another impressive season with back-to-back Super Bowl victories!”
–Dwight Widaman | Metro Voice
