KC mayor right to suspend city manager who betrayed public by suggesting lying to media | Opinion

Kansas City Manager Brian Platt’s job is in jeopardy — and it should be. He must be held accountable for questionable behavior at City Hall that led to a near-million dollar judgment against the city.

In a stunning announcement Thursday evening, Mayor Quinton Lucas informed Platt via a letter that he was suspended with pay effective immediately.

“In consultation with my City Council colleagues, I write to inform you that you have been suspended with pay from your position as City Manager, effective immediately,” Lucas wrote.

Platt will learn his fate at the next City Council meeting on March 20, according to Lucas’ letter.

We think this is the right step. We trust that the council members will treat this with the gravity it deserves.

Late Thursday, we asked a spokeswoman for the Mayor’s office why the City Council took this action but had not heard back before publication. Lucas appointed Deputy City Manager Kimiko Gilmore to serve as interim City Manager, according to correspondence he sent to Platt.

“The City Council will ratify or reject this determination or take other action at its next scheduled meeting on Thursday, March 20, 2025,” Lucas wrote to Platt. “Within one day of the meeting you will be provided with notification of the City Council’s action.”

We’ve questioned whether Platt was fit to manage city affairs since we learned he told staffers it’s OK to lie to the media. But we can’t be any more clear: City officials lying to the media is wrong. Retaliating against a whistleblower who pushed back against this asinine policy is worse.

Platt, his associates at City Hall and even Lucas learned this lesson the hard way.

And this haphazard approach to media relations will come at a steep cost to city taxpayers — almost $1 million was awarded to former city Communication Director Chris Hernandez.

It’s also an affront to the very community our officials are supposed to look out for. And make no mistake: We do not condemn these actions as aggrieved, self-important journalists. Our concern is for the public trust, which has been violated by an official serving at the highest levels in city government.

This week, a Jackson County jury found credible evidence that Platt retaliated against Hernandez and demoted him for standing up to Platt’s unethical mandate that lying to the media was acceptable. Hernandez made these claims in a 2022 whistleblower lawsuit.

After an eight-day trial, the jury unanimously sided with the former city employee. As we did when we first learned of Hernandez’s lawsuit, The Star Editorial Board unequivocally disagrees with this approach to media relations.

Simply put: Not telling reporters the truth is bad public policy. Because of Platt’s actions, the jury awarded Hernandez $928,829 in back pay and damages.

‘Verdict warrants a closer look’

Lucas should not be absolved of blame here, either. He testified during this trial that he was on board with Platt’s decision to reassign Hernandez to a dead-end position in city government, The Star reported.

But a more pressing issue at City Hall is how employees such as Hernandez and others have been treated, said 1st District Councilman at Large Kevin O’Neill. We spoke with O’Neill prior to Platt’s suspension.

Another former employee, ex-civil rights and equal opportunity director Andrea Dorch, sued Platt and the city for race- and age-based discrimination last year. That case has yet to be adjudicated but we will surely keep a close eye on developments there.

“We as a council must have a serious discussion as to how we go forward,” O’Neill wrote in an email to this board. “We have tremendous momentum in KCMO and I want to keep that momentum going. However, this verdict warrants a closer look and discussion at how our city manager interacts with our employees.”

Platt was hired in 2020. Since then, Kansas City’s legal payouts have increased from about $9.3 million per year to more than $13 million annually, according to 3rd District Councilwoman Melissa Robinson.

She cited data presented during a finance committee meeting Tuesday. Not all of these claims can be tied to personnel issues, but a majority of them can, Robinson said via text message before we learned of Platt’s punishment.

“While I won’t go into personnel matters, taxpayer funded legal claims have ballooned to more than $13 million annually,” Robinson said. “This is something the council should take a hard look at and address with a sense of urgency. This is not just about cost containment and a line item on the budget. There are real people behind these numbers. We as elected officials are ultimately responsible for these outcomes.”

From our vantage point, nothing has changed: Platt and staff must abandon questionable practices such as these inside City Hall. If not, maybe it’s in his best interest — and the public’s — to look for employment elsewhere. Depending on how things shake out in the coming days and weeks, he may have no other choice.

We all must question if the heavy-handed tactics deployed by Platt and others at the city manager’s office is worth the cost of doing business.

This story was originally published March 6, 2025 at 9:05 PM.