The Chiefs will make their third consecutive Super Bowl appearance on Sunday, and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas will be in New Orleans to cheer them on.
Exactly who is funding the organization picking up the tab for this year’s trip, however, is not clear.
Two years ago, the mayor attended the Super Bowl in Phoenix with a top aide and security personnel. A nonprofit called the Mayors Corps of Progress for a Greater Kansas City footed the $23,518 bill for the trip. A day after the game, the organization took in a $24,000 donation from a politically connected trade group.
Lucas told reporters Thursday that the Mayors Corps would once again finance his trip, but he referred questions about the organization’s donors to its board of directors or attorneys.
“We’ve worked with lawyers, advisors and others to make sure that everything is on the up and up in connection with it,” Lucas said, adding that he would have official meetings with individuals in business and government during the trip.
While Lucas has been open that the nonprofit paid for his travel, the $24,000 donation — given by the Heavy Constructors Association — was first revealed in December by The Independent. Critics contend the arrangement could violate the city’s gift rules, which require elected officials to disclose any gifts they receive worth more than $200 and bans gifts worth more than $1,000.
As a 501c4 nonprofit, the Mayors Corps is not legally required to disclose its donors.
The donation only became public when a whistleblower who did compliance for the mayor’s nonprofit provided documents to The Independent showing the transaction.
Lucas has also not disclosed how the Mayors Corps paid for his trip to last year’s Super Bowl in Las Vegas. A law firm representing the nonprofit did not return requests for comment on Thursday.
According to the organization’s bylaws, the Mayors Corps was created “to hold, attract, develop and encourage the economic development of the Kansas City community and to further the common good and general welfare of the citizens of Kansas City.”
The bylaws say: “The corporation shall not be used for either business or political purposes or for the pecuniary gain or profit of its organizers, board of directors, officers, members or any other person.”
Documents obtained by The Independent late last year show that, over the course of Lucas’ first term in office, the Mayors Corps spent more than $35,000 on Kansas City Chiefs tickets, hotel stays, flights and dinners for Lucas and staff.
The 2023 Super Bowl trip accounted for the bulk of that spending.
In an interview with The Independent last year, Lucas defended the spending, saying the Mayors Corps allows him to promote the city at conferences and sporting events and on international trips.
“I see nothing inconsistent with that, and it’s really not even my opinion,” Lucas said. “It’s the opinion of our counsel.”
Jon Berkon, an attorney for Mayors Corps, said in an email to The Independent in December that Lucas’ office’s use of the nonprofit helped attract film industry investments to Kansas City and contributed to Kansas City becoming a host for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The organization, Berkon said, helped Lucas be able to serve in national organizations and build relationships with members of Congress and governors.
Lucas also told The Independent in December that the Mayor’s Corps has a board of directors that can review expenses to ensure they are legitimate. He referred a question about the organization’s recent donors to the board on Thursday.
Lucas was on the board in 2020, shortly after taking office, according to meeting minutes provided to The Independent. Filings with the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office show that the Mayors Corps was administratively dissolved from October 2022 April 2023, meaning it could not carry on any business at the time it paid for his February 2023 Super Bowl trip.
When the Mayors Corps was reconstituted in April 2023, the three-member board included the mayor, the aide who went to the Super Bowl with him and an attorney who told The Independent he was not sure he was ever an officer.
The most recent registration report for the nonprofit — from June 2023 — still names the three as board members, but the mayor’s general counsel said in a letter to The Independent in December that the mayor and staffer relinquished their roles as voting members of the board in October 2023.