What’s next for Kansas City after firing of City Manager Brian Platt
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and City Council unanimously agreed to remove Brian Platt as City Manager on Thursday. Now, the conversation turns to finding a new top leader.
“I, as the Mayor introduced a suspension action some weeks ago, we gave ample time for more discussions some of us spoke with the City Manager in the intervening time some did not,” said Kansas City, Missouri Mayor Quinton Lucas.
It was an hour and a half behind closed doors before the Council and Mayor voted to remove Platt.
He was suspended earlier this March after a Jackson County Jury sided with former city communications director, Chris Hernandez, in a whistleblower lawsuit.
Hernandez claimed Platt instructed his staff to lie to the media in 2022. Hernandez said he pushed back and was demoted and eventually pushed out.
“That played a significant role in our lack of confidence in the City Manager,” said Kansas City Mayor Pro Tem, Ryana Parks-Shaw.
“That provided us with important insight. It substantiated a concerning level of behavior at City Hall that we needed to address,” said Kansas City Councilman Crispin Rea.
Before Thursday’s vote, Mayor Lucas shared a list of concerns from Platt’s four-year run as City Manager.
- The Jury’s finding of Platt encouraging staff to lie to the media after the recent action of Chris Hernandez’s lawsuit against the City and subsequent damage to the city’s reputation, that action and others within the lawsuit
- Ineffectiveness in handling personnel matters relating to the supervision of employees and resolutions of certain issues
- Failure to effectively establish goals for departments and divisions and a failure to adapt to evolving risks
- Failure to engage in or implement risk mitigation strategies
- Loss of confidence in leadership abilities both from staff and the elected official level
- Messaging City Employees on values important to the City and Council
- Unresponsiveness to elected officials as to certain issues
- Failure to accept constructive criticism and inability at times to make substantial changes
“It is fair to say we got to a point where bringing it all together created a very real concern for us,” said Mayor Lucas.
He said this is about public trust.
“Frankly those things all related to objective, factual service delivery that is necessary for the people of Kansas City it related to public confidence and public trust and we will continue to make sure that we have a city that always has all of those no matter how talented one or several of us in this institution may be,” said Mayor Lucas.
While many had good working relationships with Platt, Mayor Lucas said personal matters were set aside in this decision.
“I think what we can leave this discussion in saying is we have been fair to Mr. Platt we’ve been fair to employees that may have expressed concerns both during trial and outside of that and will continue to be fair to our public and ensuring that they know we evaluate and review every concern and contention that will come our way,” said Mayor Lucas. He added, So on this one I wish the best for Mr. Platt, I wish him very well but at the same time we will continue to do the work that the city needs to ensure that our public can have confidence in us.”
Now the City Council and Mayor plan to have conversations at legislative meetings to see how the hiring process will go. Mayor Lucas expects to look at either keeping a longer-term acting city manager or having a more robust search.
“We have a lot of important things in front of us from the World Cup to development, to our crime problem that is out of control, the most important factor to me is stability we need to make a decision quickly and one that reflects stability in the organization,” said Councilman Rea.
KCTV5 Investigates asked Councilman Rea if he felt removing Platt put the City in a bad position.
“I think if we made a decision that does not reflect our desire for truthfulness and integrity, that would have done more damage moving forward. Folks need to have faith in their city government and that goes from everything from paying your water bill to engaging in something as big as the World Cup,” said Councilman Rea.
Adding: “I would hope that the action that the council has taken is an important and first step in restoring that faith and confidence but there will be many more steps ahead I believe. I think we need to take a look at ethics reform.”
He said he also wants the City to understand who they are truly hiring in light of this recent situation.
Deputy City Manager Kimiko Gilmore continues as interim City Manager.
There is no set timeline for when a new City Manager will be hired.
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