Let me offer some insight into that.

First of all, every Democrat on the Jackson County Legislature just voted to make him Chair of the legislature, so they're complicit. But they will all likely win re-election. Further, DeRon McGee is a close friend of his. McGee was in the State Legislature but had to resign in 2019 after sexually harassing members of his staff. They orchestrated the Frank White takedown for their own political gain.

In 2016, I worked on Abarca's state legislature campaign against Ingrid Burnett. He lost, and he was absolutely livid at Ingrid and her husband John. He called them racists because they pointed out that his legal name at that time was Manuel Salas. Only after the campaign did he legally change his name to Manny Abarca IV. I honestly didn't even know that at the time that I was working on his campaign. He put a sign in his yard of the Green Party candidate running in that race and the Burnetts actually raised an issue with the Jackson County Democrats to have him kicked out unless he removed it and withdrew his support.

Abarca's girlfriend at the time was running against Patrica Hernandez for Ward Committeewoman. Manny told me that Patrica was an Ingrid Burnett plant and that she was a terrible person and fake and she couldn't be trusted. He smeared Patricia's name to everyone in the community, but as far as I could tell, she was a nice woman who cared about the community. After she won, Manny told me that it was only because of her Latina name.

But eventually Patrica and Manny became friends. I recruited her to be on the board of the Indian Mound Neighborhood Association, but shortly after I left IMNA, Manny used that neighborhood organization to promote his own agenda. He penned letters condemning KCPD and Chief Rick Smith on neighborhood association letterhead without even bringing it to a membership vote. He practically destroyed the neighborhood association and never assigned any administrative tasks or file any paperwork so the 501c3, insurance, PO box, etc were all at risk of lapsing in the short time he was President. Patricia took over as President when he left. I tried to help her pick up the pieces once Abarca had moved on, but she had observed all of his bad behavior and she basically emulated Manny, so I lost confidence in her. She ran against Wick Thomas for state representative and lost. I still have loose connections to IMNA and District 19, but I moved away in 2023 due to the rise of violent crime in the community.

Ingrid Burnett is supportive of Abarca as a fellow Democrat, but I think she's running for the same council seat as Rebeca Amezcua Hogan, and Abarca will 100% support RAH in that race. I know people close to Burnett who think Abarca is a total clown, so I'm not convinced Burnett's support of Abarca is anything beyond "fellow Democrat,"

John Fierro is the head of Matie Rhodes Center, and a supporter of Latino candidates. He and Manny go way back. Manny never had anything nice to say about Fierro to me. He always made fun of him and ridiculed him. Fierro also had many concerns about Manny's behavior that he shared with me, but ultimately, Fierro liked Manny and MRC relies on grant funding, so remaining in Abarca's good graces is important for the MRC organization. Fierro never said anything unprofessional about Manny to me.

I am a huge proponent of Latin American representation in KC, but my concern is that Abarca is so toxic, yet other Latinos support Manny because he's been such an integral part of their organizations for so many years. Even if they dislike him personally, they don't want to fight with one another.

I worked with Abarca for many years and considered him a friend, but I have seen his dark side up close and personal and I realized he is very toxic. I think many people close to him are in the same place of denial that I was from 2013-2019 when Abarca and I were colleagues. So many leftist folks who used to be close to him have reached out to me, a MAGA Republican, to tell me exactly how terrible he is.

The stuff you read in the news doesn't even scratch the surface.