Kansas City’s recent council and mayoral races leading up the primary election clearly commanded a lot of public attention, but it also kept secret a lot of critical information about city development projects and budgets until the last ballot was cast. That information could have damaged a few campaigns had it become public earlier.

Let’s take the much ballyhooed but kept-under-wraps tax-increment-financing audit. Its focus was to determine to what extent the city managed and monitored TIF projects, including many of them north of the river, and whether they actually generated the revenue they projected.

That report was supposed to have been made public in July 2006, but for one reason or another, it was not.

After some disquieting clamor for a glimpse at the document, City Council Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Eddy, himself a mayoral candidate, said release of the report would be delayed a week so the Kansas City TIF Commission could take a look at it. Had that happened, it would have become a public document and there for everyone to see. The TIF Commission never saw it.

Then when it was supposed to be released on Feb. 21, Eddy announced that it would be kept under wraps until after the primary election so the Kansas City Economic Development Council staff could look at it.

Red flags started going up, but Eddy insisted he was not holding it up.

Meanwhile, Mayor Kay Barnes went before the TIF Commission to criticize the report that the commission had not yet seen, so members had to take the mayor at her word. They were handed what was titled a “Tax Increment Financing Preamble to Audit Response and Frequently Asked Questions February 2007," a 14-page printed version of a Power Point presentation.

I have read a lot of audits from the city auditor’s office and read a lot of necessary written responses to those audits, but I have never read anything like a preamble to an audit response, especially when the audit in question has been read by only a few insiders.

That’s not the first time the mayor has sounded off about development incentives, particularly TIF projects. At a Clay/Platte Development Corp. luncheon, she said mayoral candidates should not focus so much on neighborhoods, but instead support more incentives for economic development. At a more recent event, she said most of the candidates “don’t get it,” referring to economic development, and essentially lacked a clear vision.

Former City Auditor Mark Funkhouser, also a mayoral candidate, actually wrote the scope statement for the audit. He said later that if the audit report showed TIF projects were not generating the projected revenue, then the city would have to find a way to pay off the bonds out of the general fund. There are 10 TIF projects supported by city bonds.

Funkhouser said earlier he thought much of Barnes’ rancor was directed at him without actually naming him. Funkhouser has long complained that the city has neglected the neighborhoods and failed to deliver necessary basic services. He has also been critical how the city awards incentives for economic development.

Then there is the new budget. It was unveiled several weeks ago by City Manager Wayne Cauthen. Normally it goes straight to the council’s finance committee for a series of public hearings.

Not this time. Hearings on that, too, have been delayed, waiting until after last week's primary election becomes history.

What all of this did was to take public attention away from nearly all the mayoral candidates and focus instead on a debate between a former city auditor turned politician and an incumbent mayor who can’t run again. All of it, of course, without naming names.

Business Editor Gene Hanson can be reached at 389-6638 or ghanson@npgco.com.

Comments on "Leaving out names doesn't mask message"

Comments are limited to 200 words or less.