JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

As most of you probably know — because you have exhibited by your readership and comments here that you care deeply about your community — we had a major development yesterday in the long, difficult slog toward a new, single-terminal airport.

Mayor Sly James, City Manager Troy Schulte and City Council Aviation Committee Chairwoman Jolie Justus announced that the city had issued a “request for qualifications and proposals” (RFQ/P) for design, construction and private financing of a new terminal.

This was like the proverbial dam breaking open…in a good way. Until now, Burns & McDonnell, a local engineering and design firm, was hurtling along at record speed with a proposal to build and finance a new single terminal. At the wheel of the pace car was Sly James, who, until a few weeks ago, had wanted to jam the deal through the City Council in a matter of days.

Gratefully, the pace car has pulled down onto pit road, for refueling at the very least.

Today, all Kansas City area residents can exhale…And we can, and should, thank the “new” Kansas City Star editorial page and the editorial board members for this breakthrough.

It’s only been three weeks since editorial page writer Dave Helling got wind of the Burns and Mac deal and forced the mayor’s hand — forced him to rush down to the editorial board and lay out the framework of the deal he’d been cooking up with Burns and Mac.

Helling’s scoop (you don’t see many “scoops” on the editorial page) was a tremendous public service. If it didn’t slam the brakes on the process, it certainly put a large boulder on the tracks.

Since then, the editorial board has hammered relentlessly at the need for the city to slow down and to solicit proposals beyond that of Burns & McDonnell, which has made bountiful campaign contributions not only to the mayor but to every other City Council member.

The blaring headline on Sunday’s lead editorial cut to the heart of the matter: “Our KCI checklist: More details and alternative proposals needed.”

It went on to say:

We’d like to see a detailed comparison the private financing plan and a traditional public bond plan. And what will the design look like? AECOM (a California company that has expressed in the project), Burns & McDonnell and any other competitor should provide as many options as possible for the council and public to consider.

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That is exactly what a responsible newspaper and its editorial board is supposed to do: Shine a strong light on issues that significantly impact the public, take a carefully considered stance and push like hell for elected officials to do what’s right.

Helling, who has written all but one of the recent, unsigned KCI editorials, told me in an email that not one member of the editorial board was in favor of the city giving the contract to Burns and Mac without seeking other proposals.

…Nothing could be bigger than how the city proceeds on a new airport, which will probably cost about $1 billion. It is the biggest single municipal project many of us will see  in our lifetimes, and it can’t be rushed through in a week, or two or three, and it can’t blithely be handed over to a local firm, no matter how qualified and/or well-intentioned that firm is.

I’ve said before I like Sly James and that he has been an effective leader. As a political novice with a first name that most wannabe politicians would eschew, he put together in 2011 the best grass-roots, local campaign I have ever seen.

But on the airport he allowed his frustration at years of being stiff armed to get the better of him. So, he threw down a trump card, and it backfired, triggering a fortnight of public confusion and opening himself up to harsh blowback from longtime critics. At the same time, as I’ve said before, the dust storm that blew up over the Burns and Mac deal has advanced the KCI debate beyond whether or not Kansas City needs a new single terminal. More and more, people are coming around to the realization that it is the way to go…It’s possible our mayor is crazy like a fox.

At any rate, the trump card is now back in the deck. Burns and Mac may still win out, but the public is going to see other proposals and, ideally, get a much clearer picture of three important components of a possible private deal: how much a new terminal will cost, how a private firm and its partners stand to profit, and how much money is in it for a private firm and its financial partners. 

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Besides those three big questions, another that has drifted off in the backwash of the Burns and Mac proposal is what the new airport might look like.

On a project of this magnitude, what could be more important, at least initially, than the design? 

On that front, I fault The Star and the Aviation Department. The Aviation Department and the airlines have settled on a preferred design, but the city has not produced good, definitive representations. For its part, The Star has published several images of new-terminal and major-renovation options (there are two of each), but I’m almost certain it hasn’t run the preferred option since the Burns and Mac deal took front and center stage.

Last week, the Kansas City Business Journal published a guest column I submitted, and in that column, I said: “What we don’t have is a clear-cut…rendering that is visually appealing and prompts convenience-obsessed KCI fans to say, ‘That looks good, and it could be pretty convenient.’ “

When it comes time for a public vote, possibly in November, whatever proposal is put before the public will rise or fall just as much on an appealing (or unappealing) design as on price and other financial considerations.

With that, let me show you again (I first ran it on May 15) what the city calls NT-A, as in New Terminal-A.

As you can see, it’s in the shape of an “H” on its side. Airport gates — 35 of them — are configured around the top and bottom bars, with a walkway linking the two concourses. (The Aviation Department and the airlines want a terminal that can be expanded to 42 gates.)

The squat, blue rectangle below and attached to the bottom bar of the “H” is the new terminal building. The larger blue rectangle, slightly separated from the terminal building, represents a new 6,500-space parking garage. Below that, in the gray circle, would be a surface parking lot with an additional 1,940 parking spaces.

The circle to the left of the terminal and parking garage represents the existing Terminal B garage, which would be retained, primarily for employee parking.

…This is not an ideal image, by any means, and I don’t pretend that even the most talented campaign consultants could feature it in the election campaign. Last night, I urged Deputy Aviation Director Justin Meyer to develop bigger, better images with arrows and descriptions of various features. In a return email, he said, “We’re working in that direction.”

But even as skeletal as this image is, I can see the possibilities. When I look at it — with the benefit of Meyer’s explication of what is where — my reaction is, “Yes, that looks good…And it could be pretty convenient.”