Kansas City Manager Brian Platt is out.
The City Council voted unanimously Thursday morning to fire Platt, 39, after four years in the job.
Mayor Quinton Lucas teed up the 13-0 vote after a 90-minute closed session by reciting a list of reasons why Platt was being ousted. Topping the list was the testimony and jury verdict of the lawsuit that former city communications director Chris Hernandez brought against the city.
Hernandez alleged that Platt demoted him in 2022 after Hernandez resisted Platt’s suggestion that it would be acceptable to lie to the news media about the city’s activities and accomplishments. Two other former members of the communications staff backed up Hernandez’s account with their testimony during the eight-day trial.
Lucas suspended Platt on March 6, the day after the Jackson County jury awarded Hernandez nearly $930,000 in his whistleblower suit.
Platt denied suggesting that city officials lie to the public. But in his remarks on Thursday, Lucas said the jury ruling had damaged the city’s reputation.
Without naming the plaintiffs, Lucas also cited several other “high-level lawsuits” now pending in which former management-level employees have accused Platt of demoting or firing them for what they allege was retaliation for objecting to what they perceived to be unethical actions on his part.
Next, Lucas cited without explanation what he claimed was Platt’s “failure to effectively establish goals and visions for departments and divisions and a failure...
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