Capital management firm VP to join Kansas City police board, Missouri governor says

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has appointed the vice president of a capital management firm to fill a vacancy on the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners.

Dawn Cramer will replace Nathan Garrett, who resigned from the police board in June after his family moved out of the city. Garrett’s term on the police board had expired in March but continued to serve.

Cramer could not be immediately reached for comment.

Parson also announced that Don Wagner, who was appointed to the police board in 2017, will continue to serve as a police commissioner. Wagner’s term expired in March.

Cramer works for Cramer Capital Management, a firm she started in 2007 after working 28 years in the airline industry. In 2012, Cramer founded the Women’s Mastermind Program, which is designed to help women female small business owners, according to a press release from Parson’s office.

Cramer is also a current member of the Clay County Domestic Violence Board and past board member of the Heartland Foundation and Good Shepard Center. She is also the founder of the “Let’s Get Jazzed” event, which has raised more than $550,000 for Newhouse, a domestic violence shelter, the press release said.

Cramer’s appointment arrives as the police board is engaged in a legal battle with the Kansas City Council over a budget measure that would reallocate some police funding.

Shortly after Garrett resigned, Mayor Quinton Lucas, who serves on the police board, recommended that Parson select a new commissioner from a set of bipartisan candidates that he provided who had experience in civic and community affairs.

In a statement Lucas said it is critical that the police board continues to find ways to reduce crime and “ensure the safety of Kansas Citians.”

“As is his right, he elected not to choose from that group,” Lucas said in a statement. “I do not know Ms. Cramer, but look forward to meeting her and working with her, so that no more mothers and fathers need to bury their children due to violence on our city’s streets. Our residents deserve a safer city. I hope she will join me on that mission.”

Earlier this year, Lucas asked for changes in the police board’s monthly meetings to focus on violent crime with detailed reports on homicides and non-fatal shootings.