At first, I thought maybe Mayor Q’s Twitter account was hacked. But no, he said that
This is a column I should not have to write. But I do have to answer Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas’ wild tweeted suggestion that this editorial board, and Dave Helling in particular, who has written all of our editorials about the process for awarding airport concessions, might be “on the take” because we’ve been critical of that process.
That’s not just false but irresponsible.
Lucas also said on Pete Mundo’s radio show on Thursday morning that the editorial board “has some interesting ownership interest, perhaps,” in the process. Which is also false.
I’ve never had anything but a good working relationship with the mayor, so at first I had a hard time believing his Twitter hadn’t been hacked.
When he finally called me back late Friday morning, I said I hoped he was calling to apologize. Nope, he said. You cannot possibly actually believe that we’re “on the take,” I told him, more than once.
“I don’t know that’s not true,” he said. That cannot be the standard for public or even private communications from any serious person in any position of responsibility.
(Example: Is it our mayor, perhaps, who put the Q in QAnon? Of course not, even though technically speaking, I don’t know that’s not true.)
Unlike Lucas, I did not attend Cornell Law, but the phrase “reckless disregard” popped to mind. He was all ready to explain why what he had said wouldn’t be considered “actual malice” in court, so he would win a defamation suit. But as we’re not going to court, that wasn’t the point, was it?
Instead, to reiterate, it’s that no one is paying Dave or any of the rest of us to argue that the airport bidding process should be more transparent, that officials shouldn’t hurry their decision, and that those with potential conflicts should recuse themselves from voting on who gets the contracts. If the preferred bidder doesn’t work out, Dave wrote, well then voters can hold those who picked the Vantage Airport Group responsible. This is controversial?
To suggest, as Lucas told me on the phone, that it’s “shocking” and “worthwhile for us to ask why” the coverage has been so “aligned” with critics and failed bidders is a conspiracy theory wasted.
No, The Star did not bid on airport newsstand
As for the part about us having a financial interest in the airport, Lucas said he’d heard that The Star was part of an unsuccessful bid for a newsstand concession.
Star President and Editor Mike Fannin answered, “We sell newspapers at the airport, like every other news outlet in the country that has an airport. But we are not a bidder for concessions at the new KCI. In fact, I have no idea what the mayor is talking about.”
Lucas said that since other local publications — The Kansas City Call and The Pitch — really did bid to run a news store at the airport, we could have, too. “There are other publications in Kansas City with a pecuniary interest. It’s not the farthest afield thing to suggest that you could have an interest.”
Could but don’t. And if The Star really had been competing for a concession, which would have been fine, then we on the editorial board would have 1) immediately revealed that and 2) recused ourselves from writing about the process.
The mayor said a lot of other things about his comments: That “we all write things when we’re upset.”
That the “on the take” business was “said a bit tongue in cheek. I don’t think I suggested you take bribes.”
He complained, too, that our board is doing the bidding of City Council member Teresa Loar, who has also harshly criticized the airport concessions process. He said we regularly gives her a pass compared to how a past editorial board treated a past Black city council member, Sharon Sanders Brooks.
Wait, was he really saying we go easy on Loar, and do so because she’s white? No, he said.
I told him that one person who would definitely not agree that we do nothing but love on Teresa Loar is Teresa Loar, who has been unhappy with me since I wrote an editorial about her behavior toward her Black colleague Melissa Robinson a year ago.
Reporting on campaign donations is journalists’ job
By the end of the conversation, Lucas had at least acknowledged that no, he didn’t really think we’d gotten paid, though he still thinks we have been played by interested parties who then turn around and weaponize what we write as part of a well-funded campaign against Vantage by its rivals.
“I don’t think Dave has ever taken a bribe. I don’t think you have ever taken a bribe.”
Then our editorial about his $1,000 campaign donation from the bidder who got the food concession posted, and he went off all over again, texting me, “If you’re wondering what builds one’s desire to respond to defend themselves and the city with whatever voice they may have, this is likely it.”
Because we’re not supposed to note the donations to elected officials from those who have business with the city, or would like to? On the contrary, that is our job. If the press and public are supposed to ignore campaign donations, why disclose them at all?
Defend all you want, Mr. Mayor. Argue, advocate and disagree all day long. But lashing out with baseless accusations does nothing for you or the city. It only adds to the general post-fact politics that’s killing us, literally. And adds to your reputation as someone whose chief vulnerability, still, is a relationship with the truth that’s far too flexible.
