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Posted on Thu, Feb. 07, 2008

La Raza will meet next year in Chicago instead of KC

After pulling its 2009 convention from Kansas City, the National Council of La Raza announced Thursday that it will meet in Chicago instead.

The Washington, D.C.-based Hispanic advocacy group rejected Kansas City after Mayor Mark Funkhouser appointed illegal-immigration opponent Frances Semler to the park board.

Semler belongs to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a private group that conducts armed patrols of the U.S.-Mexico border to spot illegal border-crossers and report them to the U.S. Border Patrol.

The council’s convention had been expected to fill 5,000 hotel rooms and pump $5 million into the Kansas City economy.

http://www.kansascity.com/115/story/480846.html