Young and green, but energetic and effective. Who is Kansas City’s new city manager?
Brian Platt’s current boss concedes it was a leap of faith to appoint him to his government’s top unelected position.
Platt was only 33. He’d been working for the city of Jersey City, New Jersey, for less than five years. Some city council members were apprehensive — a concern echoed lately in Kansas City.
But Mayor Steve Fulop says he saw talent.
“I think that he’s an example, which isn’t always the case … of somebody who outperformed expectations,” Fulop told The Star.
He ticked off some of Platt’s biggest accomplishments over the last several years, the past two as the city’s business administrator: stabilizing the budget, establishing new parks and creating a ride-share program in parts of the city underserved by public transit.
Now, at 35, Platt is poised to become Kansas City’s city manager. To some Kansas City council members, his youth is a red flag. But to several who supported him, his energy and track record are exciting. Council member after council member were impressed at Jersey City’s ability to weather the COVID-19 downturn without mass layoffs or furloughs.
Though he isn’t expected to start until January, he has made himself available to the City Council’s finance chair to start talking about the budget. Last month the council voted 9-4 to confirm him, and the very next morning he went on a neighborhood walk with Mayor Quinton Lucas. And he already has a Kansas City Chiefs mask.
But learning enough to assume the role of city manager in a city with nearly twice the population is still a daunting task.
“Of course, it’s like drinking from the fire hose at this point,” Platt told The Star, holding forth in a spare City Hall meeting room the afternoon after his neighborhood walk. “But everything I’ve learned, I’m really excited and hopeful about. I’ve met a lot of people who are so passionate and enthusiastic and excited about the city. There’s certainly an energy here that is like no other place that I’ve been to.”
Lucas has said that the new manager would have to deal with a “trinity” of challenges in Kansas City: COVID-19 itself; a budget ravaged by the pandemic; and race, policing and how Kansas City cops build trust with the community.
In addition, he’ll have to build bridges with city council members who not only questioned his level of experience but also why the city was hiring the only white person among the four finalists for the job.
‘A change appointment’
Platt will take over for Earnest Rouse, who became acting city manager after Troy Schulte stepped down in early December.
Platt’s appointment follows a pattern in the lineage of Kansas City managers, alternating between promoting long-time City Hall staffers, like Schulte, and bringing in fresh blood — think Wayne Cauthen, who came from Denver in 2003.
Not only that, but all the finalists who interviewed with the City Council this fall came from outside Kansas City, reflecting some council members’ appetite for new ideas and solutions.
“I think this appointment has got to be a change appointment,” said Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McManus. “I think we need somebody who’s going to come in, shake things up and force the council to think about things differently.”
Though he wouldn’t say he’s coming in to change everything about how the city functions, Platt says what he brings to the table is an ability to solve problems differently. He sharpened those skills at McKinsey & Co., where as a management consultant he helped companies pinpoint the pieces of their operations that weren’t working.
In Jersey City, which sits just across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, Platt said council members would say he’s responsive to them and the community of over 265,000, while pushing city government forward. Often, he believes, those in city manager-type roles maintain the status quo.
“But sometimes you also need to go to offense, you need to be moving things forward,” Platt said. “You need to tackle those long-term and very complex issues that, you know, may not be the first part already but are still important, and valuable and vital to the growth and health of society.”
In Jersey City, that has looked like adding sensors to sewer lines to see where the system is stressed and prevent breaks, and video-analyzing pavement quality to get ahead of road resurfacing needs. It has meant being specific about the sorts of economic development the city wants. The city has moved away from awarding the sort of generous financial incentives Kansas City often uses to bring businesses and apartment towers.
“We essentially called the bluff of developers and they continued to build without them in certain neighborhoods,” Platt told the City Council in his interview.
Challenges ahead
While council members who voted for Platt were impressed by his accomplishments in Jersey City, his inexperience compared to the other three finalists was worrisome to others.
Before he became business administrator, Platt had served as Jersey City’s first director of innovation for nearly five years.
Kansas City has nearly double the population of Jersey City but roughly 15 times the land mass and a lower average income. The city needs affordable housing, struggles to resurface its roads and faces massive budget shortfalls because of the pandemic.
For Platt to step into that role rather than someone with decades of experience was troublesome to Councilwoman Ryana Parks-Shaw, 5th District.
She said in the meeting shortly before the vote that the recommendation had to be questioned.
“Name one $1.7 billion company that would hire a CEO with only two years of leadership experience,” Parks-Shaw said. Kansas City’s budget is roughly $1.7 billion. “Why should we?”
In his interview with council, Platt acknowledged that.
“Yes, I will concede, obviously, that I have not been here as long as some of the other candidates,” Platt said, “but I’ve had a lot of success in the few years that I’ve been here, and I think my track record speaks for itself.”
Parks-Shaw and other council members have also commented that the three other finalists, who had more experience, were Black.
When the council voted, Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, 3rd District, expressed her displeasure: “There is a saying in the African American community — you have to be twice as prepared to get half as much.”
Jersey City Councilman James Solomon said though he is often critical of the mayor, Platt is an effective professional who is responsive and helpful. He said becoming a city manager will be a leap from business administrator, which reports only to the mayor.
“But there was no point in Jersey City where I felt like he was overmatched by the position of business administrator,” Solomon said.
Platt grew up in New Jersey’s Morris County, west of Newark. When he started looking at colleges, he said his mom wanted him to stay close to home and not cross the Mississippi River. So he went to Emory University in Atlanta.
He said public service was always a passion. After college, he worked for Teach for America. He also served as a volunteer firefighter.
While he worked in Jersey City, he got his master’s in public administration from Columbia University through an executive program.
Though he has never lived in the Kansas City area, Platt has visited several times. His wife’s father, Marty Aaron, graduated high school in Kansas City, and several relatives are still in town.
As Platt readies to take the job, he’ll be moving with his wife, Margo Aaron, and their 2-year-old daughter across the country during a pandemic. They’ll finally become a one-NFL team home as he adopts the Chiefs after growing up a Giants fan. Hopefully, he’ll acquire more Chiefs masks.
As he made the rounds after his confirmation, he donned a Charlie Hustle KC heart pin on his lapel.
Until recently, his favorite barbecue spot was Jack Stack. But the mayor’s office has instructed him to say “all of them.”
This story was originally published November 9, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
