‘What is the rush?’ Deadline questioned for work that affects KC voters ‘at every level’

When Kansas City last conducted its review of the city charter in 2013, the volunteers on the commission took five months to do their work. They met once a week and heard testimony from 150 people.

A decade later, Mayor Quinton Lucas gave his charter commission six weeks to get the job done. On Tuesday, the group’s nine members are on track to possibly finish their work and issue a report to the city council.

Then the council will decide which, if any, of the proposed charter changes will go to voters. Lucas would prefer the council get that done in a little more than a week from now, whereas the last time this was done, the council took two months to make a decision.

That contrast is why some people, including some on the commission, say this charter review process has moved too fast. They say the process should last longer and be more open ended for a once-every-decade review of the 57-page document that sets the rules for how city government operates.

Instead, the current commission has largely spent its limited time discussing election-related items suggested by the mayor, and little else.

“What is the rush?” Rodney Bland, president of the Black political organization Freedom Inc., asked commissioners during last week’s meeting. “These charter revisions will stay with us for 10 years, and they will impact our voters at every level, including minority voters. I think it’s unfair to present these ideas in a short five-week, six-week time frame.”

Commission member Wilson Vance agrees and scolded fellow members who seem willing to comply with Lucas’ timetable, rather than take more time to see if members of the community might want to discuss charter changes not on Lucas’ list.

“I find it baffling that we as a commission can see that there have been 17 testimonies just this week, asking to extend the timeline,” Vance, who represents the 4th District, said at the last meeting.

Another commissioner warned a week earlier that the “breakneck pace,” as commission co-chair Jack Steadman often describes it, could backfire by breeding distrust in the process.

“I just think it’s not a good look,” Jenny Johnston, president of the Northland Chamber of Commerce who represents the 2nd District on the commission, said at the May 2 meeting. “It’s not a good look when we are looking over the city’s governing document for 10 years in the amount of time that we all have to pay off a credit card bill.”

Still, Steadman, one of the two co-chairs, has said he favors wrapping things up on time and Lucas’ chief of staff, Morgan Said, believes there is no reason not to.

“When there’s a possibly anxiety-inducing decision that has to be made, I think the natural reaction is we want more time to make the decision,” she said in an interview. “We have asked repeatedly, what more our commissioners are wanting to discuss, and we have not heard from any of our commissioners, any new items that they would like to bring for discussion.”

Lucas gave the commission a list of items to discuss, but the commission has been no rubber stamp.

He asked the commission to consider stripping some power from the Board of Parks and Recreation, but the item was soon dropped. Lucas pulled it off the table when current and former parks board members lobbied against changing the status quo.

The charter gives the parks board powers that other city commissions don’t have. The Parks and Recreation Department is governed by a semi-independent board appointed by the mayor that has the power to hire the department director, whereas other department heads are hired by and report to the city manager.

Lucas suggested that the dates of city elections be shifted as a possible way to boost voter turnout. In most election years, no more than one in five of those registered cast votes for mayor or city council.

But according to Said, the commission is leaning toward keeping the current schedule set by the last charter process: An April primary, with the general election in June in odd-numbered years every four years.

Lucas supported changing city elections to the summer-fall schedule Missouri voters are used to for electing federal and state office holders, with the primary in August and general election the first Tuesday in November.

Lucas also felt it was too easy for people to get initiatives and referendums on the ballot, or to launch recall campaigns. The commission seems likely to tweak the number of signatures required by petitioners, but not by a lot, Said said.

The commissioners were unanimous in wanting to do away with the current practice of having candidates scheme to get their names placed first on the ballot. The timestamp on candidates’ filing papers determines ballot order. Many candidates camp overnight outside the Kansas City election board office so they will be the first in line on the first day of filing for office.

Savvy pols outsmart them sometimes by getting up early and driving from their homes to the election offices in Clay or Platte counties, where there often is no line and the timestamp counts the same.

With Lucas’ support, the commission wants to do away with the silliness and recommend that candidates be listed on the ballot in random order, no matter what time or day they file during the month-long filing window.

Commissioners haven’t reached consensus on whether they favor Lucas’ suggestion that candidates for mayor and city council be excused from running in the general election if they win their primaries by more than 50 percent of the votes.

“And that rounds out the the work that the commission was asked to do,” Said said. “If the commission wants to open any additional conversation related to the charter, we are happy to facilitate that conversation and provide any sort of background or red lines that they would need to complete that work.”

But according to Said, “we have not heard a request for that.”

Vance believes, however, that there may be topics out there that people think should be explored, but haven’t brought up because few Kansas Citians are aware the charter was being reviewed.

At the last meeting, Vance asked whether it might be possible to produce its first set of recommendations this week, and then keep on working. That’s one of the things likely to be discussed when the group meets at City Hall for what could be the last time at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

“I think one of the problems is that most people don’t know this is happening,” she said. “And so it feels really, it feels like a disservice to the public, for us to rush through something that people are just now starting to understand is even happening… I mean, there are serious concerns with whether or not this has been truly democratic.”

Said defends the process, noting that commission meetings have been streamed online, documents are shared on the city’s website and this Monday night the commission will hold its third “public listening session” outside city hall. This one starts at 6 at the Glegg/Klice Community Center, 1600 E. 17th Terrace.

“I think it’s very easy to create a controversy around, you’re moving too fast,” according to Said. “But I hope that we can pull back a little bit and say moving too fast because of what?

“If it’s anything other than, you know, everyone complains about the timeline, no matter what the timeline is, that’s different than, ‘hey, we really wanted you to examine this important thing to the future of the city that you completely ignored.’ “

And so far, she hasn’t heard what that thing is, she said.