After rocky confirmation, new city manager gets to know Kansas City and Chiefs spirit
Before he ever collects a paycheck as Kansas City’s newest city manager, Brian Platt was out Friday morning to make a connection with neighbors — importantly, wearing a Chiefs mask.
Platt doesn’t have a precise start date yet, but will tentatively assume the role in early January. Still, he went out, a day after being appointed and approved, with Mayor Quinton Lucas to tour a neighborhood in the Historic Northeast and meet community leaders.
Though he grew up in New Jersey, Platt has ties to the area through his wife’s family. Her parents attended high school in Kansas City. And in the day since the City Council approved him, Platt said he had appreciated residents’ passion for the city.
“This is the most important part of working in government is speaking with the community and learning directly from the people who have the challenges and who are impacted by the things that we do,” Platt said.
Platt is currently business administrator in Jersey City, New Jersey, where he has worked on managing the city’s budget through the COVID-19 crisis and improving city government with technology and efficiency.
Alongside Lucas, Platt toured the Sheffield neighborhood, just west of the Blue Valley Industrial Area near the city’s border with Independence.
Leaders from Sheffield and surrounding neighborhoods showed the two where they had invested in green space and the Sheffield Place homeless shelter. They talked about businesses moving in to the vast industrial area just down the hill where decades ago the Ford Motor Co. had an assembly plant. Sheffield residents would walk just down the hill to the busy plant, which later produced steel.
The group also told Lucas and Platt their neighborhood struggled with random gunfire and efforts to get dangerous buildings, including a burned out house, torn down.
Hearing from the neighbors, Lucas said, was exactly why he and Platt were there. He told the group that Kansas City was often too “top down” in its approach to building and maintaining neighborhoods.
“We are trying to make sure that any plans we have for the future are from the ground up,” Lucas said.
Lucas said it was important for Platt to start meeting Kansas Citians.
“The best way to get to know a city isn’t reading about it; it isn’t reading studies about it,” Lucas said. “It’s talking to the people in the community.”
Lucas announced on Wednesday he would appoint Platt to the role to replace Earnest Rouse, who has been interim city manager since Troy Schulte stepped down last year.
Schulte served in the post for a decade, overseeing the construction of a new downtown convention hotel, negotiation of a deal to build a new terminal at Kansas City International Airport and the construction of the streetcar starter line.
The City Council voted 9-4 Thursday to confirm Platt, with several members voting no because they believed Lucas offered Platt the role out of turn.
Under the city charter, the mayor and council are to jointly conduct a search. The mayor then recommends an appointee for a council vote.
But on Tuesday, the Jersey City Times reported Platt had already been offered and accepted the job. The article was deleted, and Lucas and Platt have both said Lucas did not offer the job ahead of the council vote. But that wasn’t enough to win over some council members.
Members voting no also voiced concern about Platt’s relative lack of experience. He has worked for Jersey City for about seven years, but other finalists for the job have decades of local government experience.
Platt was also the only white candidate among four finalists who came to Kansas City earlier this fall to interview. Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, 3rd District, noted his fewer years of experience and his race in remarks on the City Council floor before voting against his appointment Thursday.
“There is a saying in the African American community — you have to be twice as prepared to get half as much,” Robinson said.
Platt’s start date is yet to be known, but in its announcement, the mayor’s office tentatively set that date around Jan. 4.
This story was originally published October 30, 2020 at 4:05 PM.
