Mayor Funkhouser's Beasts: Government, Politics, Private, and Public
Political Commentary
Before she left office, Kay Barnes and I sat down in velvet-covered chairs in her office on the 29th floor of City Hall and chatted about what drove her personally.
Remarkably, the subject hadn’t been explored in any great depth during the eight years she served as Kansas City’s mayor. Other journalists instead chose to focus on her political savvy, her internal drive and even the bravery she displayed as a woman that could compel prominent local business leaders – predominantly men – to rejuvenate development in the urban core.
The flipside to those characteristics was that her professional approach had inadvertently cast a hard, almost impenetrable outer shell around her – an image that she had no soft side or that, if she did, it was nothing more than a thin veneer. To prove that she was indeed soft-hearted, she cited her close relationships with her office staff and bodyguards. At the time we spoke, Barnes couldn’t think of one employee that had left her office on negative terms.
I can’t imagine sitting down for a similar discussion with Kansas City’s present mayor. Almost everyday, on the pages of the local newspaper that endorsed his candidacy, Mayor Mark Funkhouser is defending the relationship he shares with wife Gloria Squitiro in descriptions that go beyond what the public needs or cares to know. Worse, his ethics have come under fire as Joe Miller, Funkhouser’s former communications director, has accused the mayor of directing him to work full-time on the light rail campaign and leaving a memo about a staff discussion of Frances Semler’s appointment to the Board of Parks and Recreation be excluded from a Sunshine Law request.
Then, there’s the on-going drama with another former mayor’s office employee, Ruth Bates, who filed a law suit involving Squitiro and is now nearing settlement. Bates alleges that Squitiro created a hostile working environment by referring to her in a racially charged way and making sexual retorts to colleagues. Yesterday, Bates filed a discrimination suit against the city following the issuance of a press release in which the mayor condemned her as an “opportunist” and “fabricator.” Bates has reportedly upped her settlement fee based on this bungle (the press release was issued on the same day Funkhouser reached a proposed lawsuit settlement with the former mayoral aide.)
The wise journalist might see it fit to steer clear from joining the discord involving Funkhouser and the law suit (or perhaps, more appropriately, the fall out.) One of the magazines I write for as freelancer has wisely steered clear of the situation. Who needs another publication further promoting the city’s largest embarrassment? For awhile, I thought at the very least the situation made for interesting political theater, but the ethics investigation that Ed Ford brought to the floor last week and was approved unanimously by the Kansas City Council takes the situation to a serious new low.
Unlike the media’s failure to tap Kay Barnes’ motives, they’ve seemed to expose Mark Funkhouser’s flaws at every turn, shrouding him in misery as opposed to mystery.
The mayor and his wife might have gotten burned by a litigious former family friend (Bates) who might have financial motives in mind. I could buy that, somewhat. I could even understand that the mayor is more process-driven, not a politician. But integrity is a different issue entirely.
Recent national news coverage that strikingly portrayed Funkhouser as the victim in the case. Some local media outlets have asserted the Funk, along with the assistance of politically-minded Squitiro, has deliberately played his own part in whipping up the image. Funkhouser says his handlers have always told him his public relations skills are sub par, so how could he possibly fool The Wall Street Journal and Good Morning America into seeing things his way?
Given last week's accusations that the mayor has broken the law, it’s apparent that there is in fact a deep separation in the mayor’s public and private personalities. As much as Funkhouser wants to believe in his straightforwardness, the “mayor at work” is not the same man as the “mayor at home.”
Funkhouser made his reputation in the City Auditor’s office, a position that showed he knew the inner-workings of city government. Government and politics, though, are two different beasts, and the latter has surmounted him. Unlike the media’s failure to tap Barnes’ motives, they’ve seemed to expose Funkhouser’s flaws at every turn, shrouding him in misery as opposed to mystery.
My opinions of the mayor, who I have not had the pleasure to interview yet, have been shaped by recent media coverage. What’s my impression? His ability to forge relationships appears not to exist. He has so far shown he is a difficult person and, in my experience, difficult people can only make great relationships with other difficult people. Anyone who is willing to defiantly host staff meetings at his own home to spite his colleagues is more than just out of touch. The ethics and the possible violations revolving around such a situation are downright dangerous.
Some Kansas Citians wonder if the mayor can recover from the debacle that he and his wife have created on their own. But there are others who were once his followers that don’t care anymore to see him recover. Barnes, a relative unknown at the time of her election, managed to reignite interest in the urban core in her tenure and she did it with a manner of professionalism that at times could sound insincere to some. In my estimation, she was using carefully chosen words that showed she’d been schooled in the benefits of PR-sounding candor. This lesson, apparently, isn’t handed down from mayor to mayor.
Kevin Kuzma is a freelance writer and public relations spokesperson. His feature writing, essays and short stories have appeared in The Kansas City Star, Urban Times, Ink Magazine and Fatherville.com, an online forum for fathers. He is Manager of Publications and Public Relations for PlattForm, a Kansas City-based advertising firm specializing in higher education.
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