Are attacks on council’s Teresa Loar really about racism — or money for KCI terminal?
Is this really about racism, or something more?
The race card keeps being played against Kansas City Councilwoman Teresa Loar. There’s no doubt she invited it, at least initially. But since her unprofessional slights against Black council colleague Melissa Robinson at a meeting July 23 — for which she later apologized — there’s a troubling belief that the continued attacks on her may be about much more than her behavior.
Loar and her supporters have long thought that. But that belief was thrust into the open Thursday when Mayor Quinton Lucas told a radio audience that not only does he not believe Loar is a racist, but that several civil rights organizations told him they’d felt pressured to seek her ouster as chair of the council’s Transportation, Infrastructure and Operations Committee.
“I don’t believe she is,” Lucas told KCMO-AM radio host Pete Mundo when asked if she’s a racist. “She has been around for decades. I think these allegations are fairly new.”
“If I were a racist, I would’ve thought it would’ve surfaced over the last 25 years in my work with City Hall,” Loar told me later Thursday.
Lucas went on to claim that “some of the very same civil rights organizations that signed on to a letter to call for her removal — then folks in those organizations called me right after and said ‘We really didn’t want to sign the letter. We felt pressured.’
“That’s troubling to me,” the mayor added.
The letter’s author, Gwendolyn Grant, president & CEO of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, was incredulous at the mayor’s claim.
“I am not aware of anyone being pressured,” she told me. “I never pressured anyone, and I’m not aware of anyone being pressured to sign on to the letter. In fact, we had a few organizations ask to be added onto the letter.”
So noted. The mayor does, indeed, need to explain himself. He needs to name the organizations who he says felt pressured to go after Loar, and where that alleged pressure came from. He owes it to everyone involved, as well as to the citizens he serves.
Moreover, if he doesn’t think Loar is racist, and that attacks on her were ginned up, then why has his defense of her been so tepid? Why not more forcefully defend her character?
For her part, Loar believes this is really about her opposition to the way a $75 million bid for concrete work at the new Kansas City International Airport terminal has been awarded, taken away, awarded again, taken away again and awarded yet again.
Dizzy yet? It’s been a foul-smelling process that has caught the noses of several federal agencies, Loar says.
“I am kind of a by-the-book girl on this stuff, especially when it comes to sealed bids,” she said, explaining why she feels she’s been targeted. “By law and by charter, the council is not to interfere with those bids. Which is exactly what happened.
“It took me a while to put it all together. But I feel like I am being discredited and made to look like a racist to remove me from this committee because I objected to the process and the behavior of the committee on flipping that contract.”
Does the mayor agree with that assessment? As of this writing, he wasn’t exactly saying — though I’ve sent him pointed questions on the matter, including: Which civil rights organizations told you they’d felt pressure to sign the letter requesting Loar’s removal as chair? Who pressured them? Is the continued effort to remove Loar about race or something else? If it’s something else, then what?
The mayor declined to be interviewed. His aide said the office would stick with a milquetoast statement from Wednesday that really said nothing. And even that vacuous statement was attributed to the aide — not the mayor. Come on.
Of course, the threshold question is of Loar’s character — the ostensible reason three members of her committee boycotted a scheduled meeting on Wednesday.
Loar notes that she’s been in and out of council service over the years, while employed by big-name firms such as Black & Veatch that work on water and infrastructure issues her council committee is all about. She says former council members and mayors vouch for her, and current council members support her.
She also says several members of civil rights groups that joined the letter calling for her removal as chair have called to give her their support.
While Loar and I have an up-and-down friendship that is on the upside, I’m not taking up for her here. I’m merely seeking the truth in the middle of a tangled mess. As for others who actually have supported her privately, Loar says she’s never asked them to speak up for her publicly.
Perhaps now it’s time they did. It could be argued they have a moral obligation to do so, rather than watch silently as she gets tossed under the bus.
The mayor is at the front of that line. As the person who controls chairmanship assignments — and as someone who has blandly said he doesn’t think she’s racist — it’s time he gave an unequivocal statement, once and for all, regarding Loar’s character and his support or lack of support for her.
Yes, he’s said she has done her penance for the slights against Robinson. But the attacks on Loar have persisted, as evidenced by Wednesday’s committee boycott.
Only the mayor can put an end to this. But it will require him taking sides.
That’s what leaders are called upon to do, isn’t it?
This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
