COURT ORDERED LEVEE CROSSINGS
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Attorney Robert W. McKinley, who claimed to be president of the dead Birmingham Drainage District in
1990, would have known that the Clay County Court had ordered the district to build and maintain
levee crossings for the landowners on the south side of the federal levee system's Birmingham Unit. Hw
would have also informed his client, Norbert Kemp, who was running the dead district.
Neither gentleman had an interest ,or a reason to be concerned about the landowners, on the south
side of the levee. Yet, they have tried to close the levee crossing to landowners on the south side of
the levee in direct violation of the 1916 court order.
In 1990, they claimed the right to close public access across the levee. Under a City sponsored
agreement to provide access to some landowners, the would have had the right to close all access
10 days after the document was signed. Everyone didn't sign the document -- but they tried to use it
anyway. In a separate 1990 agreement McKinley signed an agreement with the city to let the
city fence up to the toe of the levee to protect its hazardous sludge disposal site. Except,
neither the City lawyers or McKinley had the guts to include land actually titled in the name
of the Birmingham Drainage District.
In 1993, the district was taken to court (Miller vs Birmingham Drainage District) for attempting to shut
down access across the levee near Highway 291. They lost, but grew bolder.
In 1999, the district was in court again (Kansas City vs James Bynum et.al). Even though Kansas City
had a fence around its property (under the 1990 agreement) with gates, Kansas City and the district
claimed a right to install another gate before the levee crossing to prevent public access to landowners
on the south side of the levee. The judge was very candid, he did not want to see any evidence, and
he assured Bynum that his order could be overturned on appeal, but he was going to order a gate
restricting public access across the levee to landowners. This was the same court which had order the
public crossings in 1916 for the land owners.
The taxpayers of the Birmingham Bottoms were paying for this charade played out by the lawyers and
court. In playing out the charade in 1990, 1993, and 1999, there was no apparent return on
investment for McKinley or Kemp. However, they were exposed. Ethics and law were tossed into the
sludge pile. They worked very hard with the court, legislative branch and Secretary of State to
manipulate the law and the rules to give the impression that the dead district was resurrected and in
good standing. This cost a lot of taxpayer money they had no legal authority to spend.
3.
1915 - In vocation
In The Circuit Court of Clay County, Missouri
Birmingham Drainage District, a Corporation, Plaintiff, vs. Mary E. Scholey and
Florence H. Russell, Defenants-Exceptors.
2. --- , and inconsequence thereof any order or decree that may or might be made by
the this court approval and confirming said report would only cast a cloud upon the
title of the owners of the land within said Drainage District, including the lands of these
exceptors thereby working great injury to all owners of lands within said Drainage
District. (Page 3)
4. --- , and that if and when said levee shall have been constructed under said "Plan for
Reconstruction", the title to a strip of land lying within and adjacent to said levee will
be clouded and possibly the subject of interminable disputes between respective owners
of the lands and the said Drainage District, and the owners of the lands within and
adjacent to levee will be subject to the expense and vicissitudes of extensive and
expensive surveys when they sell or purchase said lands as the case may be, and will be
menaced by litigation that may or might arise from the giving of warranty deeds thereof.
That by reason of the foregoing, these executors are and will be deprived of property
without due process of law in contravention of Section One of the Fourteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Section Thirty of Article
Two of the Constitution of the State of Missouri; that their privileges and immunities
as Citizens of the United States will be and are abridged, and that they are and will be
denied the equal protection of the laws in contravention of Section One of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: and that private
property of theirs is and is sought to be taken and damaged for public uses without just
compensation thereof, in contravention of Section 21 of Article Two of the Constitution
of the State of Missouri. (Pages 9 & 10)
5. (b) That convenient access and connections between these exceptors' lands within said
Drainage District and those outside and adjacent thereto is and will be cut off and all of
the exceptor's said lands, both within and without said Drainage District will accordingly
be damaged. (Page 12)
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On March 28, 1916, the court did address the exceptions and concerns about access to
and across the levee to Property between the levee and the Missouri River. Specifically,
that area to the south of the levee on what is now designated by the City of Kansas City
as North Arlington Street. The court ordered two levee crossings. One crossing was
created on Arlington Street and the Second crossing was created on NE 28th Street.
The 1960 District financial statement identify the crossings as the Luhnow-Minter and
Minter levee crossings.
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4.
1916 - March 28/
In The Circuit Court of Clay County, Missouri
In the matter of the incorporation of the Birmingham Drainage District
Now on this 28th day of March, A. D. 1916, this cause coming on to be heard upon the
question of damages as to the exceptors, Ida Scharnagel, Lizzie Provest, Margret Elder,
Joseph Haefner, Frank J. Haefner, Alma Stoddart and Carl Stubenrauch, --------.
------- together with the privileges for rights of way across said levee as follows,
to wit: There is reserved to the owners on each side of the levee right of way, and to their
heirs, devisees and assigns, the right to have road crossings, with 22 feet crown, to be
built by said district across and over the levee right of way at the following places, to
wit: One such crossing just west of the east line of the southwest quarter of the
southwest quarter of section 14 in Township 50 of Range 32, in Clay County, Missouri,
connecting said quarter quarter with the lands lyings to the south thereof: another such
crossing just west of and adjoining the east line of the southwest quarter of the southeast
quarter of said section 14, connecting said quarter quarter with the lands lying to the
south thereof, - said rights to run with said lands. (Page 248, Book 48)