Six-Gun Stan

Instead, Glazer tells Funkhouser about his plan for Union Station. In the '70s, Glazer had envisioned Union Station to include a science museum, hotels, a YMCA and an arena. "If I'm not a visionary, I don't know what I am, trying to put this plan together back when this city had some dollars to spend," Glazer says. (A 1972 Kansas City Star article in Glazer's packet reports that Glazer's Union Station proposal "failed to generate much steam.")

Glazer says he also worked up a design in 1972 for a new arena near the site of the American Royal. But Glazer's arena plan wasn't chosen; a competing plan's group had more financial backing. Glazer explains to Funkhouser that his ideas were rejected because the people in power disliked him. "Because of who I was or how I was, all my ideas seemed to go.

"Did it hurt my feelings? No. I went on to start my restaurants, my entertainment businesses, the comedy clubs. I had a radio show." Glazer's crowning achievement: founding a chain of Stanford and Sons restaurants and comedy clubs. He has since closed or sold the venues; the last remaining location in the chain, which is entirely his son Craig's operation, is located behind a Hooters in Overland Park.

He switches gears on Funkhouser, trying to extract a candid, Glazer-type answer from the city auditor. "You gotta be one of the most frustrated guys in the world. This leadership just seems to have tunnel vision."

Funkhouser replies that it's his job to come to the Council with his reports. It's not their job, he says, to go to him.

"Well, it just seems like they should be listening to you. Boy, I would," Glazer says.

Esping pipes up, asking what Funkhouser thinks the city's three biggest problems are. Funkhouser cites declining infrastructure, the citizens' satisfaction levels with basic services, and the city's poor financial position.

Glazer orders Esping to write all that down. Then Glazer says, "You work with the Council every day. I know 'em. We all smile and shake hands and wish the other would just go away. They're good people. But do you really see Al Brooks as a mayoral —"

Esping interrupts: "That's a bad question." Esping asks Funkhouser what he'd like to see in a mayor.

Funkhouser says, "I'd want someone who can say no, because there's a lot of no to be said, and someone who can wrestle with the city's financial problems and be open and honest with the citizens on the choices we face."

Glazer tries once more to get Funkhouser to complain about the Council. But the city auditor — the guy whose work so often bears bad news — turns out to be an optimist.

Funkhouser grins. "Where there is light, there is hope."

Later in the week, Glazer is hanging out in his condo in a blue, collared shirt open past the first few buttons, a pair of slacks and dress shoes. He has taken off his jacket since his meeting with the mayor of Leawood earlier that day. He's waiting for his "kitchen cabinet" of campaign folks to arrive, but no one's here yet.

Glazer begins a tour of the place but pauses when his Persian-Siamese cat, Princess, wanders into the room. She's gray and white, with blue eyes that sometimes look crossed. At the sight of her, Glazer completely melts. "I'm the only one who can feed her," he explains. "And when the TV cuts off at night, that's her signal to go to my bed and curl up, only on my side, by my head."

Glazer can credit Princess for helping convince Lori to marry him. They met in 2000, when he spotted her at a Jason's Deli. Glazer had a friend call and ask her out — to talk business. She firmly told him that she wasn't interested in anything else. But, Lori says, he hounded her. He sent flowers to her at work, and when Glazer called to make sure she had gotten them, she told him she had given them away. But on the phone, he softened her up, saying that if she wasn't interested in him romantically, fine, but he thought she was remarkable and wanted to know her better. She surprised him by inviting herself over to his place, where she met Princess. How bad could a guy with a cat be? "Then I had to eat crow, fall in love and move in with the guy," she says with a laugh. They began dating in November 2000, and by that December they'd agreed to wed. He's a decade older than her parents. Glazer says of her, "She's my answer to Sharon Stone. Don't you see Sharon Stone?"

Glazer's condo is tidy; he credits his military schooling for his fastidiousness. Leather couches and chairs, off-white carpet, lots of little Roman busts and reproductions of Asian art, a Buddha figure on a table. The sun shines through his patio windows, which look out onto the Plaza. His art includes grandiose depictions of leopards and tigers and zebras. Black-and-white framed photos of his family line the bookshelves, and the walls are covered with framed newspaper clippings.