Well this is a fine kettle of fish.
Burns & McDonnell, the “Hometown Team” that for many weeks appeared to be on a glide path to landing the new single-terminal project at KCI, has now placed a big stick of dynamite under the terminal-selection process. But that’s not all: It has lit the fuse.
In very short order, we should be hearing a big explosion. Burns and Mac has decided to go scorched earth, even to the point of destroying its own chances in order to keep any of the three other competing companies from getting the contract.
The impending explosion means there will be, in all likelihood, no KCI election in November and no City Council recommendation on a contractor anytime soon.
As twisted as things are right now, we might not have an airport election until November 2018 or even 2020. And that’s as it should be: This process was horribly flawed from the outset, and it needs to be dumped.
…In a nutshell, here’s what has unfolded in the last several days.
The City Council’s bond adviser alleged there were flaws (it’s too complicated to get into) in Burns and Mac’s proposed financing proposal. In retaliation, Burns and Mac, which has seen its chances of winning reduced in recent weeks, called Tuesday for the selection process to be scrubbed and for “a new, open process” begin anew.
Mayor Sly James got this “process” — if you can call an unadulterated muddle a process — off on the wrong foot because he wanted to rush the airport project to a start while he still had a couple of years left on his second term. It all started over a lunch at the River Club, and it mushroomed from there, after he strong armed a few other council members to go in with him.
It was going to be the whipped cream on Sly’s milkshake. It was going to be the Cuban leaf in his cigar.
So, instead of going the traditional route of having the city take bids and select the “lowest and best” bidder, he tried to anoint Burns and Mac as contractor and, in so doing, he basically invited the firm to name its price tag.
But he didn’t get away with it. After other City Council members insisted the project be opened up to other competitors, another firm came along and said it could do the job for nearly $500 million less than Burns and Mac had initially projected!
A friend who has been in local politics a long time told me Burns and Mac tried to pull off “the biggest scam in the history of Kansas City.”
Now, the firm is reduced to being the spoil sport. And in that role, it will succeed.
In assembling a “Hometown Team,” it recruited as partners several powerful interest groups, including organized labor and minority and women-owned businesses. With a majority of Kansas City voters lukewarm, at best, toward the prospect of getting rid of KCI’s horseshoe terminals, the prospect of labor and important parts of the African-American community turning against the initiative spells certain doom.
…There is one more possibility, albeit remote. Burns and Mac could capitulate and try to reel back in its call for a do-over.
Won’t work. Too late.
The headlines on tonight’s story in The Star, combined with the story that will appear on the front page of tomorrow’s print edition, will sink this ship that’s been taking on water from Day One.
In the face of these hurricane-level headwinds, a City Council majority would be crazy to go ahead with a November election because the proposal would go down in flames. But I don’t think they’ll do that. They’ve been eating Sly James’ dust for many months now, and they’re tired of it.
I think they’ll throw the milkshake, the whipped cream and the Cuban cigar back in his face.
…I’ve said before I don’t like sitting in those bullpens at KCI. And it is a dump. But I would prefer to put up with the bullpens and the gloomy terminals for a few more years, until the city can show us an appealing terminal design and give us a solid bid process that will result in a good product at the “lowest and best” price.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Ahem: “…a big stick on dynamite…”
A single terminal plan was always only a cash grab, and an obvious one at that; you do not demolish and then build a new house simply because you no longer like the design. Well, certain clueless rich people might, but then…it’s their house, n’est-ce pas? The airport is not Sly’s.
That has always been Sly’s big problem: He thinks Kansas City is his, regardless that its citizenry have told him, repeatedly, that he’s in error.
I am amazed that the FBI has not spent the last year or so quietly investigating the idiocy coming out of City Hall, and that includes the water department.
Thanks for the edit, Will…I was writing fast and late.
Sly has tapped heavily into his trough of goodwill with the public on this. A bigger mess is hard to imagine.
I agree. It’s now apparent why Burns and Mac wanted this whole process to be secret and try to have the mayor get the City Council to rubber stamp it. All of these charges and counter charges are going to cause the vote to be lost in November (if it is held). If the fighting continues, the no vote may become so large that it will be years before any KC politician seriously brings up the project again.
If it fails, we’ll start hearing over the next year about renovating what is there again and then see how much fighting between the various parties there will be on that.
I suspect this will all be litigated out in the 2019 mayoral election. And since James cannot run again, it will be open season on him on how he screwed it all up, and it will be up to the next mayor to find the right path.
The more I think about it, the more I think the airport issue has to be put off until after James goes out of office. His heavy hand — and the upheaval his intended anointing wrought — has squished it out of recognizable form. It’s a loser as long as he’s involved.
Yes, it’s going to take a new mayor with a new (and more traditional) approach to get a new-airport proposal on track.
In the long run, though, this debacle could be helpful. “Never again!”
Teresa Loar and Kathryn Shields have been around the block a few times in local government and they know the road blocks and hurdles. From what I have read in The Star, they’ve telling everyone to be open about what is going on because they know how things ended up in the past if they weren’t. They also know the sentiment of a voting public that is interested, but has significant questions and doubts about an airport change proposal. I suspect polls still show any proposal will lose and all of this chaos will not help people get to yes. Of any KC politicians coming out relatively unscathed on this issue, it will probably be these two.
Jolie Justus, Scott Wagner and a few other council members who’ve gone all in on this are going to wear this long into the future if it all goes down the drain. I think a couple of these folks have designs on being the next mayor. This may be their Waterloo. Getting James’ endorsement for the next mayoral election may not be something anyone wants after this is done.
It’s all about James’ political ambitions after leaving the mayor’s office.
Today, Burns and Mac says if the city wants to proceed with this selection process it should hire an independent auditor to oversee it.
Like I said, the fatal blow was struck yesterday; the firm’s call to start afresh was the death knell.
And the winner is Edgemoor, whose proposal consisted of … we don’t know.
It “was the least well-known of the proposals. While the other teams released information about their airport design and financing approaches, Edgemoor chose to maintain confidentiality.”