Another former top KC official gets nearly $1M to settle discrimination lawsuit
A former Kansas City assistant city manager who provided key trial testimony this spring in a whistleblower lawsuit that cost taxpayers $1.4 million has now reached her own settlement with the city.
In exchange for dropping her own whistleblower and employment discrimination lawsuit, Kerrie Tyndall and her lawyer will receive $900,000. The City Council approved Tyndall’s settlement on Thursday without comment.
It’s the second big settlement the council approved this year to end litigation brought by former top city employees who alleged that they were mistreated by former City Manager Brian Platt. At least one other similar lawsuit is pending in Jackson County Circuit court, which could increase the city’s costs above the $2.3 million already spent so far to compensate employees who say Platt unfairly ended their careers at City Hall.
The council fired Platt in March after a jury awarded $930,000 in damages to former communications director Chris Hernandez. He alleged that Platt demoted him in 2022 after Hernandez refused to go along with Platt’s suggestion that exaggerating the city’s accomplishments in statements to the news media was an acceptable practice.
The award did not include the more than $1 million in attorney’s fees and expenses that Hernandez’ lawyers felt they were entitled to. But rather than fight in court on what the payout should be, the city agreed to a $1.4 million settlement that both compensated the lawyers and Hernandez, ending the potential for any further litigation in the case.
Tyndall was a key witness in the Hernandez civil trial. She testified that Platt’s top aide at the time, former Assistant City Manager Melissa Kozakiewicz, had a flow chart in her office that included the phrase “PR, NOT Public Information.”
Tyndall took a photo of that chart on what turned out to be the same day that Platt called Hernandez into his office to discuss his removal as communications director, Tyndall said. Asked by one of Hernandez’s attorneys how she interpreted that message on the chart, Tyndall said “that the administration I was working for was prioritizing image over public information.”
Kozakiewicz oversaw the city’s communications staff from the time Hernandez was demoted in August 2022 until June, when Platt’s replacement, City Manager Mario Vasquez, announced that she was being replaced.
Kozakiewicz denies that her message about PR on the flow chart was a matter of city policy. It merely was a discussion point discussed in an office meeting, she said. “It was never a directive, policy, or statement of belief, nor was it posted publicly or used to guide staff,” she said Saturday in a text message.
Tyndall alleged in her 2023 lawsuit that Platt treated her unfairly and demoted her after she gave him advice that he didn’t want to hear. Frustrated by her reluctance to advance development deals that he supported before they were fully vetted, Platt sidelined her, the suit alleged, and excluded her from important meetings.
He began assigning some of her duties to younger and male co-workers and ultimately removed her from her post as assistant city manager and director of economic development. Platt transferred her to what she considered a dead-end job at the aviation department in September 2022, and she quit a month later.
In March, Tyndall was named executive director of the Westport Regional Business League.
This story was originally published August 1, 2025 at 3:29 PM.