Criticism
Cordish instituted a dress code in June 2008 that has been called racist by critics. The dress code includes a ban on bandanas, work boots, ripped or baggy clothing, shorts that fall below the knees, athletic jerseys, and chains. City Hall questioned the Cordish company about the dress code, noting that the dress code seemed targeted towards black males and was inconsistently enforced. Councilwoman Melba Curls said her son was turned away from the district, while Counselwoman Beth Gottstein stated that "the message I keep getting is that Cordish is only available to some." David Cordish stated that the company was merely attempting to reduce gang related activity. Critics further accused Cordish of exhibiting racial bias when DJ Jazzy Jeff left the stage early during a performance. Kansas City Power & Light District President Jon D. Stephens stated that "It was entirely an issue of audio and sound."
Cordish has also been criticized for being ungrateful for opposing festival licensing for other Kansas City businesses, festival licensing that it was granted to allow patrons to possess alcohol on the streets in the district.
In addition, Cordish CEO David Cordish has been criticized for repeatedly requesting additional taxpayer subsidies and police for the district. The tone of the requests was labeled "petulant", "greedy", and "uninformed" as it was noted that the company had already received over $300 million in taxpayer subsidies yet failed to open on schedule. This caused City officials to criticize the company for its "secretiveness and slowness."
Read more about this topic: Kansas City Power & Light District
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It’s the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Good criticism is very rare and always precious.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)