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

Kansas City Star readers and City Hall watchers have been treated the last two days to an entertaining and enlightening spat between City Manager Troy Schulte and a handful of City Council members who have been feeling ignored.

I’m sure most of you have heard by now that Schulte reacted strongly and noisily to a proposed ordinance that would reduce the dollar amount of no-bid contracts he could award without council approval.

He essentially dared the council to fire him. If they did, he said, “I’ll earn more money and sleep better at night.”

The story was entertaining because we readers (and sometimes even reporters) aren’t always privy to the internal tensions and frictions that are bubbling up at the cauldron that is City Hall. (I’ve always said anything big that happens in Kansas City starts, goes through or ends at City Hall.)

The story was enlightening because it cast into sharp relief — for the first time in a big way publicly — the divide between council members who are unfailingly loyal to Mayor Sly James and a smaller contingent — led loosely by council members Katheryn Shields and Teresa Loar — that feels marginalized.

Among other things, the rump group has complained about not being informed of developments pertaining to the proposed convention hotel and also about James’ attempted Hail Mary pass to Burns & McDonnell on a no-bid, new-airport contract.

Today, I’m not getting into the councilmanic fissure, interesting though it is. What I am here to do is point out that we readers owe these last two days of compelling news stories to one thing: aggressive, on-the-ball reporting.

Turque

The credit goes, specifically, to City Hall reporter Bill Turque, who has been on the beat less than two months, having succeeded the very capable Lynn Horsley, who covered the city for nearly 20 years.

Turque, who came to The Star from The Washington Post, approached Schulte early this week to get his reaction to the ordinance that would limit his contracting prerogatives.

Turque’s questions must have struck a nerve with Schulte because, instead of giving a diplomatic answer, like, “Well, I’m not too thrilled about this but we’ll see where it goes,” he chose to pick up an hammer and start swinging.

Experienced and savvy reporter that he is, Turque took full advantage of Schulte’s temperamental lapse. Turque charged onto the front page Thursday with a story under the headline: “City manager defies council pressure.”

Very wisely, Turque wasted no time getting to the most explosive of Schulte’s quotes:

“If the core issue is, quite honestly, that they don’t like my management style or where they think I’m taking the organization, that’s easy. That’s seven signatures on the paper with the mayor and nine without the mayor, and I’m gone tomorrow. I’ll earn more money and sleep better at night. Life’s too short.”

Wow…As a former reporter, I’ll tell you, you don’t often get quotes like that handed to you on a platter. It’s strictly a gift from God and something not to be passed up. And yet in the hands of a less experienced, less finely attuned reporter and writer, it could easily have been fumbled. A lesser reporter could have failed to recognize that it was not only a money quote but, more important, it represented the eruption of the long-simmering divide between the pro-Sly and anti-Sly council factions.

Turque saw it for all it was and leapt. As a result of his perspicacity, we now have what we in the news business refer to as “a story with legs.”

Turque scored a good follow-up in today’s paper, with Schulte allowing as how he wished he hadn’t vented his frustration to Turque, and the editorial board jumped in the breach, saying firing Schulte “would be a mistake.” Looking farther ahead, though, this eruption paves the way for more stories exploring the divide between the two council factions. In fact, that divide could now become the defining element of the last 18 months of James’ second and last mayoral term.

…This story is a seminal development on the local journalistic front, too. It tends to validate Turque’s appointment to the city beat and also ease any misgivings regular readers may have had about Lynn Horsley’s displacement.

Frankly, Turque came in under a bit of a cloud. Although hailing from one of the two best papers in the country — The Washington Post — his appointment was met with mumblings of discontent among some former Star reporters and editors because nepotism was at the root of his hiring: Early this year, The Star hired his wife, Melinda Henneberger, as an Op-Ed columnist and editorial writer.

No less than the recently departed, former reporter Laura Hockaday denounced Turque’s hiring — in so many words — on this blog back in August. To my post about a “package deal at 18th and Grand,” Laura appended this comment:

“Taking Lynn Horsley away from City Hall, where she has worked her tail off for The Star for years, leaves a tragic void. She is a heroine and a real trooper for staying on and covering Johnson County politics. As you indicated, it (Johnson County) will be covered by a pro who has no peer.”

If you knew Laura, you know she was lashing out in frustration because of her tremendous loyalty to long-serving KC Star colleagues, many of whom were her friends. She probably didn’t know Turque, or didn’t know him very well, even though he served an earlier, four-year stint at The Star from 1977 to 1981.

I think if Laura was with us today, she would rescind her words about “a tragic void” and would acknowledge that Turque produced a damn good story this week.

That’s not taking anything away from Lynn, whom all of us former editorial KC Star staff members love and admire. But I think it’s safe to say, now, it appears likely we’re going to continue getting first-rate coverage of City Hall from The Star.

Congratulations, Bill! Great story.