Parks Board waves magic wand, changes Benton Circle to Harper Circle
A few members of the Scarritt Renaissance Neighborhood Association are peeved that Parks Board commissioners failed to seek their input when they decided to rename Benton Circle in honor of the late Ruthanne Harper at their June 23 board meeting.
The traffic circle at St. John Avenue and Benton Boulevard, which lies within the boundaries of the Scarritt Renaissance Neighborhood, is called Benton Circle by the area’s residents. (A monument to Missouri Sen. Thomas Hart Benton stands at the traffic circle’s center.) But the traffic circle had never been named “officially,” according to Cheryl Bisbee, president of the Cliff Drive Corridor Management Committee (CDCMC), the group that proposed changing the name to Harper Circle.
Harper, who died at age 74 on March 29, had been a champion of the historic Northeast. Commissioner Meghan Conger called her a dear friend and political mentor. “She was one of the founders of the Kessler Society and a very active and integral Kansas Citian, particularly in the northeast,” Conger tells The Pitch. “She worked tirelessly.”
The CDCMC was looking for a way to honor Harper when they learned that improvements were being made to Benton Circle. “We had a unique opportunity, given the construction schedule, to do this,” Conger explains. “It dovetailed into the construction at the right time, and the CDCMC brought it to us at this serendipitous moment.”
On June 23, the Parks Board commissioners voted to rename the traffic circle for Harper immediately following a presentation by Bisbee and other CDCMC members. Parks Board president John Fierro said that additional research wasn’t necessary, according to the meeting’s minutes.
But at the July 6 meeting of the Scarritt Renaissance Neighborhood Association, the group’s president, Adam Scheiber, asked how many of those in attendance were in favor of naming the circle for Harper. No one raised a hand. When he asked who was against it, 18 hands went up.
