Kansas City Council member suggests pay cut amid COVID-19. Shouting match ensues
The most hotly debated item before Kansas City Council members Thursday wasn’t a big-ticket development project or possible budget cuts.
It was a resolution proposed by Councilman Kevin O’Neill, 1st District at-large, for council members to take pay cuts. Specifically, to allow them to forego pay raises — from $61,569 to $70,718 for members and from $123,516 to $141,455 for the mayor — which they received last summer. They would donate the balance back to the city as it deals with any economic downturn brought on by the spread of coronavirus. The proposal devolved into a yelling match between O’Neill and Councilman Brandon Ellington that Mayor Quinton Lucas struggled to quiet.
O’Neill described it as a “small gesture” as Kansas City deals with any budget problems that might arise from the pandemic.
If all the members and the mayor took advantage of the proposal for three months, the city would save about $31,930.
“I thought the people should know that we have the opportunity to do it,” O’Neill said, “and I just thought it was something I could do and maybe all of us could do to help out.”
O’Neill proposed the measure for same-day adoption, but after an argument with Ellington, 3rd District at-large, that resulted in a perceived threat, members decided to send it to committee. Ellington called the proposal a “superficial gesture,” which he said he told O’Neill earlier this week.
“I’m unwilling to support anything superficial when people are actually suffering,” Ellington said as O’Neill yelled, “Well, Councilman Ellington,” and Mayor Quinton Lucas tried to quiet them.
“I told you it was superficial,” Ellington said.
O’Neill again tried to get a word in: “Well, I take it a little personally.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen,” Lucas said trying to get the two men’s attention as they spoke over each other.
“I have the floor, gentleman. I have the floor gentleman,” Ellington said, “and you’re going to give me my respect. When you came to my office, I told you it was superficial. So I ain’t saying nothing to you that I ain’t said to you eyeball to eyeball.”
Ellington told O’Neill that he would finish his remarks when he wanted to and that O’Neill didn’t have the authority to tell him to wrap up or O’Neill would get “drug out this chamber.”
“Don’t threaten me,” O’Neill said. “Don’t you threaten me.”
The two kept yelling, and Lucas banged his gavel and yelled repeatedly trying to get their attention.
Ellington said he was not threatening O’Neill, but rather that the sergeant-of-arms could remove members not observing “decorum.”
“I’m just asking for one little thing that you don’t even have to do,” O’Neill said. “You’re calling me superficial is basically what you’re saying because I introduced it. So you’re saying it’s superficial. That’s insulting to me.”
Eventually, the two quieted, and O’Neill apologized for “losing my temper.”
“This is nothing more than an effort to do one little thing — that’s all,” O’Neill said. “I’m not asking you to do it; I’m not telling you to do it. I’m just saying it’s something we could do.”
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 6:23 PM.
