Once again, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas has shown his true, City-Charter-shredding, open-meeting-violating colors by deliberately making backroom deals with a specific group of council people in order to exact even more local control over the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department.
In his latest bit of subterfuge, Mayor Q secretly corresponded with eight council people representing only south of the river districts in order to slice over $40 million from the police budget. Done mind you, by design, without so much as lifting a finger to notify anyone at Police Headquarters. The Mayor then sprung this on everyone at an 11:30 presser last Thursday, giving only 40 minutes notice that he and his quorum of cronies were taking action in order to placate his bought and paid for woke constituency.
During the Council’s Legislative Session, the ordinance was subsequently introduced, read and passed by a 9-4 vote, without so much as a single millisecond devoted to public comment on the matter. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what a despot looks like. This is what taxation without representation looks like. This is what illegal, corrupt, back-room dealing looks like. This guy makes Tom Pendergast look like a veritable Piker by comparison.
So proud of himself Thursday, too, after sticking it to the popo, that he took to social media to defend his decision, lying through his teeth saying that the action wasn’t a cut, it was merely a reallocation and an actual budget increase. Really? Stealing money from the police department, then diverting those funds to what equates to a slush fund for a new, yet unnamed social program that can potentially be used for any cockamamie “public safety project” that comes down the pike, as dictated by your council cronies, all without any subject matter experts, a.k.a. police officers at the table. What could possibly go wrong? One has to seriously wonder if the mayor had an image in his maniacal mind of Chief Rick Smith groveling at his feet for more money. Shades of Dickens come to mind. Please sir, can I have some more?
The bottom line in all this is this. A corrupt Mayor, purposely and knowingly and in potential violation of Missouri’s Sunshine Law (section 610.025, RSMo), colluded with eight willing council accomplices, legally considered a quorum by state statute by the way, and conducted secret negotiations behind closed doors to craft public policy, then directed the city’s Legal Department to draft said public policy in the form of an ordinance, again, outside the auspices of the public eye, then ratified that policy at a subsequent public meeting.
This public safety minded Newsdog wants to know, how does this back-room deal, open meetings violation of an ordinance make citizens of this city safer? Answer: it doesn’t. But the mayor and his council cronies don’t give two hoots about safety despite their elitist, race-baiting bloviating to the contrary. Just like I’ve stated for the record so many times before, it’s all about control, nothing more. They don’t have it, they want it, and they’ll employ any means necessary, legal or otherwise in order to get it.
Welcome to Detroit, folks.
