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

One reason Mayor Sly James is controversial and has many detractors is he doesn’t always bow and scrape to the City Council.

He’s bull-headed and self-confident and tends to charge ahead like Don Quixote.

If he thinks he’s onto something — like awarding a no-bid, $1 billion contract Burns & McDonnell to build a new airport terminal, he grabs a couple of council members whom he has empowered — Jolie Justus and Mayor Pro Tem Scott Wagner — and off he goes.

On the other hand, his self-confidence and willingness to throw the dice (Remember the $800-million general-obligation bond issue campaign last year?) endear him to an electorate that likes its mayors to be strong, in the style of former mayor and now U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and former Mayor Kay Barnes.

In addition, he doesn’t kowtow to anyone or any group and doesn’t shrink from using scathing language to call out people and/or companies he believes are trying to sidetrack his good intentions.

I remember another type of mayor — Richard L. Berkley (1979-1991) — one who cowered in his office, afraid to face the media’s “on the record” questions. He always insisted on a dry run off the record to help himself formulate an innocuous on-the-record comment. My predecessor on the City Hall beat once told me, “If I had a nickel for every minute I’ve waited on Berkley to answer some questions, I’d be a rich man.”

Berkley’s standing criticism of anything — be it an unwelcome comment by a fellow council member or a firefighters’ strike — was, “That’s inappropriate.”

When Cleaver succeeded Berkley in 1991, it was like a stifling, heavy paper bag was suddenly lifted from City Hall. To this day, I believe it was Cleaver — for all his faults — who exploded Kansas City’s inferiority complex. He put us on the road to self-respect.

Sly James is no Dick Berkley. He is locked and loaded, and you never know when he’s going to pull the verbal trigger. I trust you recognize, like me, that for that reason alone he is fun to follow and watch.

In mid-December, for example, after a council majority launched a sneak attack that almost undermined the selection of Edgemoor as airport contractor, James called the gambit “an ambush” and said, “You can’t lead people you can’t trust.”

Ouch!

Then, over the weekend, he was at his word-slinging best again, lambasting the people behind a covert, robo-call campaign to discredit Edgemoor as “hogs who have to belly up to the billion-dollar trough.”

He wouldn’t say whom he suspected of initiating the dial-up effort, but the two prime suspects are Burns & McDonnell, which is still on the outside looking in, and AECOM, which the city’s terminal-selection committee ranked second behind Edgemoor. (Recently, Burns and Mac and AECOM teamed up, hoping to jump in and get the job if a deal with Edgemoor fails to materialize.)

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Despite my appreciation for James’ candor and passionate outbursts, I am not optimistic about the contractor-selection process resulting in a first-class terminal. More than any other escapade of Sly’s that I can think of, this badly flawed initiative has played out in a way that could leave us with a difficult and painful construction process and a mundane and problem-plagued facility.

Because the city (Sly & Co.) decided to put the cart before the horse — i.e., forgoing the conventional design-first, take-bids-later process — we are entirely betting on the come in regard to what this new terminal will look like.

We are in a situation where the contractors, labor unions and other special interests are calling the shots. Guns firmly placed at our temples, we the public are marching down the aisle with Edgemoor. There was  no engagement party, and there is no ring symbolizing commitment — a design we can examine and comment on.

Worse, it looks like there’s no graceful way to exit this union; the suitor waiting in the wings is uglier and greedier than the one we’ve got on our arm.

All in all, I tell ya’, this wild ride could result in a homely terminal that may or may not be functional. For me — and I hope for you — it takes a lot more than a fancy drawing of a two-story fountain to get excited about a new terminal. To me, it just looks like a flimsy veil.

Edgemoor rendering