Work Essentials

After a series of burglaries along Southwest Boulevard on both the Missouri and Kansas sides of the state line, investigators are looking for suspects while leaders are pursuing solutions.One of the restaurants burglarized over the weekend was La Bodega.Jodi Cacioppo was a lunch guest there Monday with her son, Trevor, and his girlfriend, Chloe.I don’t think it’s a good thing for our upcoming Super Bowl. And we have the soccer people coming in 2026 and that’s going to be good. I just bought a house in Westport, and I even had people steal my pillows on my porch, and I get very mad about that, she said.Another lunch guest who showed support at La Bodega on Monday was Councilman Crispin Rea. The restaurant is in his district.We approved … $23 million, which is a 30% increase of last year’s budget, for police funding to hire 150 new officers and to provide salary increases to retain the officers that we already have, Rea said. I know we have not hired the 150 officers yet, but I know the police department is working to do that. But that’s an important piece of this is making sure there is an active police patrol presence in hot spots where we know this stuff occurs.In September, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas announced a pilot program called the Back to Business Fund.As of Monday, the city had helped 40 businesses recover expenses from burglaries and vandalism as well as add security.Mildreds, a restaurant with two locations in the Kansas City area, was hit by burglars in September at both stores.Owner Evan Ashby said after applying right away for the program, he just received his final funding last week from the city totaling about $3,000 to replace broken glass and add more security.I think the security upgrade is an important piece to this, so that these businesses aren’t just replacing what was there before, but we’re doing it in a way that makes them more secure and less likely to be a victim, Rea said.New Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson said shes created a new property crimes division within that office to get those cases moving as quickly as possible through the court system once suspects are caught.We have already started partnering with different regions and different entertainment districts in Jackson County to work proactively with security guards, business owners, she said.Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas also weighed in on social media following the latest string of crimes.”I am very sorry to see this, and every one of the dozens of posts we have seen over the past year relating to property crimes in Kansas City and the several seen today,” he said in comments on affected businesses’ social media pages. “The City works hard to do all it can: organizing community improvement districts to unify private security efforts; building two detention facilities for offenders in the City (the larger is public vote dependent in April); enhancing cameras and lighting throughout the City; and more.”As of Monday, the citys Back to Business Fund had paid out $116,322.61.Theres $183,677.39 remaining in that pilot programs fund.