Allison Kite, Missouri Independent

The whistleblower who revealed financial transactions he felt were potentially unlawful by a nonprofit that bankrolled travel and entertainment for Kansas City’s mayor says he is now being targeted with defamation and retaliation.

Tom Keating has worked on ethics compliance for political campaigns for two decades, including for Lucas’ campaign and for a nonprofit called the Mayors Corps of Progress for a Greater Kansas City.

Late last year, Keating provided documents to The Independent detailing how the Mayors Corps was used to finance travel, meals and Kansas City Chiefs tickets for Mayor Quinton Lucas. The records revealed that the Mayors Corps spent more than $23,000 for Lucas, a staffer and security personnel to attend the Super Bowl in 2023.

Kansas City mayor accused of skirting city gift ban by using nonprofit to pay for travel

A day after the game, the Mayors Corps took in $24,000 from a politically connected trade group — a move critics said 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.

Lucas has denied any wrongdoing, saying the spending was reviewed by legal counsel and fits within the Mayors Corps’ mission to help him promote the city. He has also suggested in interviews and in a letter from his general counsel that Keating was responsible for the finances of Mayors Corps and that Keating provided slanted information to The Independent.

Keating responded to the mayor’s accusations in a letter written last week by his attorney, Max Kautsch, accusing Lucas of retaliating against Keating for serving as a source for the coverage and attacking his First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

Kautsch gave Lucas’ office until Monday to apologize.

“The city can expect a demand from Mr. Keating in the future specifying monetary compensation for his injuries,” Kautsch says in the letter. “The nature of that demand will depend in large part on whether the city apologizes to Mr. Keating as outlined above.”

He adds: “Thank you for your assistance in correcting this flagrant constitutional violation.”

The mayor did not apologize by Monday evening. Neither his office nor an outside law firm that has represented Mayors Corps returned requests for comment.

Super Bowl trips

In December, The Independent reported that, during Lucas’ first term in office, Mayors Corps spent more than $35,000 on travel, meals and entertainment for him and a top aide, including the Super Bowl trip.

The reporting was based on documents provided by Keating, who volunteered to do compliance for the nonprofit.

Keating raised concerns to Lucas and a top aide at the time of the 2023 Super Bowl trip. He suggested returning the $24,000 donation, reimbursing the nonprofit for the cost of the trip and paying for the flights, tickets and accommodations through United We Stand PAC, a political action committee that supports Lucas.

Last year, Keating came forward with the documents and concerns about how Mayors Corps funds were being used, saying he had agonized about whether or not to speak up since his departure from the nonprofit in October 2023.

“The real question about the Mayors Corps paying for Mayor Lucas and staff to attend the 2023 Super Bowl has never been, as Mayor Lucas has suggested, about if the mayor should attend a Super Bowl the Kansas City Chiefs are playing in,” Keating said in a statement Monday. “The real question is how it should be paid for and if the public has a right to know who is picking up the tab.”

Lucas also attended Sunday’s Super Bowl using funds from the Mayors Corps. His office and attorneys associated with Mayors Corps did not identify recent donors to the nonprofit.

While volunteering for Mayors Corps, Keating was also working on behalf of United We Stand PAC on compliance issues. He was asked at that time by the mayor’s then chief of staff, Morgan Said, to alter descriptions of two expenses on the PAC’s quarterly filing to make them more vague, according to a transcribed, recorded phone call provided by Keating.

Keating saw that as an attempt to obscure information about the organization’s spending from the public.

One of the expenses, which Said requested be labeled “inaugural reimbursement,” was for $1,694.42 at Halls, a high-end department store in Kansas City, for a tuxedo for Lucas’ second inauguration. The other, which Said asked be labeled only as “research,” was a $9,500 payment to Bold Decision Consulting LLC for a poll of 300 Clay County voters that showed 70% were opposed to the idea of a new sales tax to fund a Kansas City Royals baseball stadium in North Kansas City.

At the time the poll was released, it was not clear who paid for it. It was seen by many as an attempt to scuttle any hope of a Clay County stadium deal to ensure the team would land in Jackson County.

Campaign committee controlled by KC mayor requested poll he denied involvement in

Following The Independent’s stories, both Keating and news organizations in Missouri received letters from either attorneys for the mayor or Mayors Corps that Kautsch calls “a coordinated attack on First Amendment rights.”

Kautsch says the letters are “rife with misstatements” and ruinous to Keating’s livelihood and reputation.

Keating received a letter on Dec. 18 from Jon Berkon of the Elias Law Group on behalf of the Mayors Corps. The letter claims it was Keating who approved the 2023 Super Bowl expenditures and that Lucas had offered to meet with him to discuss any concerns he had raised. Keating did not take Lucas up on that offer, Berkon writes, and “decided to leak confidential financial materials to the press” and “attack the mayor and his staff publicly.”

In an email, Keating called the insinuation that he didn’t make any efforts to meet with Lucas ridiculous. Lucas offered to meet, Keating said, but never followed up with suggested times for a meeting to take place.

Berkon also wrote that Keating was “the person with the authority” to approve expenses.

That’s not true, Kautsch said, since Keating “never had any decision-making authority.”

Kautsch, in his letter to the mayor’s office, wrote that Lucas also appeared on a Kansas City talk radio show after the coverage and “insinuated that Mr. Keating was solely responsible for making financial decisions for the organizations at issue.”

Berkon also accuses Keating of accosting a Kansas City staffer in public.

“If you have substantive concerns that you would like to address, please reach out to us,” Berkon writes. “We are happy to discuss them on behalf of the mayor and entities for which he fundraises, but the mayor takes the safety and wellbeing of staff seriously; we will not tolerate this ongoing conduct, and if it continues, we reserve all rights to take legal action to stop it.”

Kautsch’s response says Berkon “fails to give even a hint of detail about the basis for such an allegation” of Keating accosting city staff. Kautsch suggests Berkon is hinting at a “chance meeting” between Keating and City Manager Brian Platt at a restaurant in Kansas City.

According to emails Keating sent Platt at the time, a mutual friend had invited them to the same restaurant and Keating introduced himself to Platt. Keating says in the email that he wants to give Platt “the opportunity to know the entire story and defend yourself because this is a public matter.”

Kautsch said emails from Keating to Platt following the encounter strike a conciliatory tone.

“There is simply no evidence that this interaction, or any other my client may have had with city officials, was anything other than protected expression under the First Amendment,” Kautsch wrote. “To suggest, without evidence, that Mr. Keating is somehow a threat when his motive is to simply promote government transparency, shows retaliatory animus.”

First Amendment freedoms

Kautsch also takes issue with a letter the mayor’s taxpayer-funded general counsel, Gavriel Schreiber, sent to The Independent and KCUR, which republished the stories about the Mayors Corps and United We Stand.

Schreiber’s letter, which was also sent on Dec. 18, was shared with numerous members of the media as an attempt to “shift the blame for the Super Bowl reimbursement from Mayor Lucas to Mr. Keating,” Kautsch wrote, “and suggesting that anyone involved in bringing Mr. Keating’s concerns to light would be subject to legal action.”

Schreiber’s letter accuses The Independent of inaccuracies in its reporting and requests corrections and an apology. Schreiber claims the stories rely on a “single biased source and demonstrate such reckless disregard for the truth as to potentially constitute actual malice.”

The mayor’s general counsel also accuses Keating — without providing any evidence — of posting comments on the articles under a social media handle Kautsch says Keating has never used.

The letter requests, in a footnote, that The Independent preserve its communications with Keating. Kautsch calls that a “baseless implication that a defamation lawsuit related to the critical coverage spurred by Mr. Keating’s communication was in the offing.”

“Singling out Mr. Keating is further evidence of the city’s true intent in sending the letter to The Independent and KCUR: to retaliate against Mr. Keating,” Kautsch wrote.

The Independent replied to Schreiber’s letter on Dec. 20 through its attorney, Eric Weslander, who said the letter “can be constructed only as an attempt to blame the messenger, divert attention from the central issues raised by my client’s reporting and deter practitioners of ground-breaking, important investigative journalism from doing further digging into the mayor’s affairs.”

Crucially, Weslander wrote, the mayor’s office did not challenge any of the facts about spending by the nonprofit or the PAC that were central to The Independent’s stories, instead focusing on “highly technical distinctions” such as the makeup of the Mayors Corps’ board of directors and whether the mayor formally denied knowledge of who paid for the Clay County poll at the time it was released.

“I understand that you may have a wide range of responsibilities in the mayor’s office,” Weslander wrote, “but impinging on First Amendment freedoms should not be one of them.”

He added: “My client stands behind its work.”

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.

Bayer pleaded with Missouri lawmakers Thursday to pass legislation critics say would shield the company from lawsuits claiming its glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup causes cancer.

Representatives for Bayer argue the legislation would clarify labeling requirements and prevent courts from creating a patchwork of obligations for the manufacturer.

But environmental groups and attorneys for Roundup users who have become ill say the legislation would insulate the company from accountability and prevent sick customers from suing the company. They urged legislators not to protect Bayer over their constituents.

Bayer, which has its U.S. headquarters in St. Louis, is the only domestic producer of glyphosate, which is commonly used by farmers to control weeds. In recent years, it has faced thousands of lawsuits from users claiming the product causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The company has settled cases or been ordered to pay out billions of dollars associated with the cases.

Those litigation costs, the company says, are “untenable” for a product it argues is safe.

“Continuing to lose billions of dollars on an approved product based on scientifically unsound claims is unsustainable,” Liza Lockwood, medical affairs lead for Bayer, testified Thursday before the Missouri Senate agriculture committee.

Lockwood, along with farm and industry groups, urged senators to pass legislation that would declare the company satisfies its duty to warn customers as long as its pesticides are registered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and carry an approved label consistent with the EPA’s opinion on the ingredients’ safety.

While Bayer claims the legislation wouldn’t preclude users from suing, attorneys for plaintiffs say that the Roundup lawsuits are predominantly “failure to warn” cases, which accuse the company of not telling customers of the possible risks associated with the product.

The legislation, they say, would insulate Bayer from those cases.

Matt Clement, an attorney based in Jefferson City, told the Senate committee Thursday that the legislation would ensure Bayer doesn’t have to warn customers or be held accountable by anyone harmed by it.

“Respectfully, what they’re asking you to do is give them immunity,” Clement said.

Farm groups backed Bayer’s request in the committee hearing, saying Roundup is critical to agriculture and losing the product would be devastating for Missouri farmers.

The legislation received a mixed response from lawmakers on the committee. The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Justin Brown of Rolla, said “a company should not be required to warn consumers of something that no regulatory body around the globe has found to be true.”

But the bill drew pointed questions from state Sen. Barbara Washington, a Democrat from Kansas City.

“Are all the courts and the farmers and the people that have died and have the sicknesses — is that not from Roundup or is that just something they made up?” Washington asked Lockwood.

Lockwood said the science indicates glyphosate is safe for humans.

Washington replied: “So the money that you all have paid out, you just paid it out of the goodness of your heart?”

Bayer and supporters of the legislation are at odds with environmental groups and plaintiffs’ attorneys over the true risk associated with glyphosate.

The Environmental Protection Agency determined the product is “unlikely to be a human carcinogen,” but later withdrew that finding and restarted its review.

Missouri officials are warning the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of a “high likelihood” there is radioactive contamination in a smoldering landfill outside St. Louis.

In a letter last week, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources asked that the EPA assume oversight of the Bridgeton Landfill, arguing it may contain nuclear waste like the adjacent West Lake Landfill.

The two landfills, situated in the St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton, have received extensive attention from regulators over the years. The Bridgeton Landfill has been experiencing a “subsurface smoldering event” — a chemical reaction that heats and consumes waste like a fire but lacks oxygen — for more than 14 years, emitting noxious odors and raising concerns among residents that the “fire” might reach the radioactive waste in the West Lake Landfill next door.

The West Lake Landfill is subject to an EPA oversight and a cleanup to remove thousands of tons of uranium left over from World War II.

But, the state argued in its letter, there may be radioactive waste in the Bridgeton portion of the landfill far closer to the subsurface smolder than previously known.

Kellen Ashford, a spokesman for the EPA, said in an email that the agency “has no new evidence or information to support any claim that radiologically-impacted material … is present anywhere else in the Bridgeton Landfill.”

Ashford said the EPA is seeking more information from the state about its letter.

Brian Quinn, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, said in an emailed statement that the department agreed with the EPA’s most recent work and analysis at the site. Quinn did not immediately respond to follow-up questions about the agency’s belief that the Bridgeton Landfill may contain radioactive waste.

Cost to clean up radioactive West Lake Landfill outside St. Louis nears $400 million

The landfill’s owner, Republic Services, said in an emailed statement that “there is no evidence whatsoever of radiologically impacted material … in Bridgeton Landfill.”

The St. Louis area has struggled for years with a radioactive waste problem.

During World War II, uranium was refined in downtown St. Louis for use in the Manhattan Project, the name given to the war-era effort to build the world’s first atomic bomb.

After the war, the waste was trucked to St. Louis County and dumped at the airport where it leaked into Coldwater Creek, polluting its banks and waters and subjecting generations of families to radiation exposure and an increased risk of certain cancers. The waste was sold and moved to a site in Hazlewood — still adjacent to the creek — where it continued to expose residents.

In 1973, after valuable metals were extracted from the pile, the remaining waste was illegally dumped in the West Lake Landfill, where it remains today.

The EPA is nearing the end of a process to plan an excavation of much of the radioactive waste from the landfill. Parts of the landfill with lower levels of contamination will be capped.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing the cleanup of Coldwater Creek.

Last week, the EPA announced it would expand the excavation at the West Lake Landfill because it found additional radioactive contamination. Under the revised plan, another 40 acres of the landfill will be included in the cleanup. Crews will need to dig up another 20,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris, and the price of the cleanup will climb to almost $400 million.

For years, the EPA thought the radioactive material was confined to two portions of the landfill, relying on findings from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which, in the late 1970s, flew a helicopter over the landfill to measure gamma radioactivity. That effort missed contamination in parts of the landfill.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ letter came in response to the EPA’s announcement last week that it would expand the cleanup. The state agency said it supported the expanded cleanup and recommended that the EPA “considers being the lead agency for all the potentially affected properties.”

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas initially denied knowing who paid for a poll seemingly designed to sink North Kansas City’s chances of landing a new Royals baseball stadium.

But newly obtained documents show the poll was commissioned by Lucas’ own re-election campaign.

The poll was released in August 2023 and showed 70% of Clay County voters opposed a new sales tax to fund a stadium in North Kansas City. Rumors swirled about who paid for the poll, and Lucas side-stepped a television reporter’s questions at the time.

The Independent revealed last week that the poll was paid for by United We Stand PAC, an independent spending committee formed to support Lucas. To ensure the PAC’s involvement remained unknown, Lucas’ then-chief of staff, Morgan Said, requested the PAC change its disclosure of the expense from “polling” to “research.”

Lucas, a Democrat and attorney who was elected mayor in 2019, insisted in an interview last week that he would not have known how United We Stand spent its money because Missouri law prohibits him from coordinating with the PAC on spending.

Records show, however, that a staffer for Lucas’ campaign actually requested United We Stand pay for the poll. Tom Keating, who was doing ethics compliance for both the PAC and Lucas’ campaign, later received the request from the campaign staffer and was asked to process the payment. He said he and other staff were misled about the purpose of the poll.

“They weren’t honest about it from the get-go with their own people,” Keating said. “They put their own people in harm’s way about this, and then they weren’t honest with the public about it.”

Kansas City mayor accused of skirting city gift ban by using nonprofit to pay for travel

In an email, Lucas’ spokeswoman, Jazzlyn Johnson, said he did not direct the campaign to request the PAC pay for the poll. She did not clarify when Lucas found out the PAC had paid for the poll or how it was kept from him despite the involvement of his chief of staff and re-election campaign committee.

“The mayor has repeatedly made clear to the public his preference the Royals and Chiefs remain in Kansas City,” Johnson said. “As a result, neither he nor anyone would be surprised that an entity established to support the mayor of Kansas City and initiatives in Kansas City would conduct research pertaining to keeping the Royals in Kansas City.”

Keating has worked on ethics compliance for political campaigns for two decades, with a list of clients that include Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, former Kansas City Mayor Sly James, former state Sen. Greg Razer and the Missouri House Democratic Campaign Committee.

In addition to his role with Lucas’ campaign and PAC, he also did compliance work on a volunteer basis for the Mayors Corps of Progress for a Greater Kansas City, a nonprofit set up to promote economic development in the city. Keating said he processed reimbursements but did not have the authority to approve expenses before they were made.

He left the Mayors Corp in 2023 after expressing concerns about how Lucas and Said were using the nonprofit’s funds.

In one case, the nonprofit paid more than $23,000 for Lucas, Said and two security personnel to attend the Super Bowl in 2023 at the same time it received a $24,000 donation, raising concerns that the exchange may have violated a prohibition on city officials receiving gifts.

“They took advantage of me for my good reputation that I built over 20 years of working for Democrats in politics,” Keating said. “…And then when it got to the point where I was being lied to and being asked to do things that put me in legal jeopardy, it was degrading.”

Keating, who supplied The Independent with documents concerning Lucas and Said’s use of the Mayors Corps and the PAC’s involvement with the poll, said he agonized about coming forward for more than a year.

He said his recommendations to improve Mayors Corps were ignored, and he feared he would be blamed for the spending despite having no power to stop it. He told Lucas and Said shortly after the Super Bowl that he felt tension in his communications with them and no longer felt comfortable providing advice regarding the Mayors Corps. Lucas responded with an invitation to talk in person about several projects Keating was working on.

Keating also said he thought it was unfair that the Royals poll made North Kansas City all but ineligible to be the site of a new Royals stadium.

“They misled us about what it was for…and then weren’t honest with the public about who paid for it,” Keating said, “when they knew who paid for it. It was their own PAC.”

Johnson said Lucas takes pride in the team he has assembled to help in public office and for civic efforts.

“Like almost any elected official, the majority of the mayor’s time is consumed not with compliance…but with governance and, during campaign seasons, fundraising,” she said. “As a result, he relies on staff to resolve any internal disagreements concerning compliance. The mayor has confidence that staff resolved disagreements in a manner that aligned with all applicable rules and regulations.”

In a statement to The Independent, Said agreed with the mayor that attorneys had signed off on the nonprofit’s spending and called Keating’s concerns “baseless.”

‘Push poll’ in the Northland

Emails show that in August of 2023, a staffer for the mayor’s reelection campaign, which had concluded less than two months before, asked the treasurer of United We Stand PAC to approve an expense “for a poll we are wanting to run in the Northland regarding taxes.”

The expense was forwarded to Keating to process payment, and a week later, a poll was released by Bold Decisions LLC showing Clay County voters would overwhelmingly oppose a new sales tax to help finance a stadium.

The poll was seen by officials in Clay County as an attempt to stymie their chances of landing the new stadium.

“The only reason why you’d try to put out something publicly like that is to both suggest to the public and specifically to a team that you won’t win, therefore you have to come over here,” Clay County Commissioner Scott Wagner said in an interview last week.

Wagner is also a former Kansas City City Council member.

When the poll was released last year, Lucas side-stepped questions about whether he knew who paid for it.

“You know what I’ll say is this: What I understand is that I think these polls, and I think hopefully one in Jackson County — I hear there have been those done, too, and maybe they haven’t leaked, maybe they have — but I’d like us to have a good set of all of the information possible that’s out there,” Lucas told a Fox 4 reporter at the time.

Months later when United We Stand PAC’s quarterly filing was due to be filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission, Said reached out to Keating to ask that the expense be described as “research” instead of “polling” in an attempt to keep the public from learning the PAC paid for the poll.

Asked about Said’s efforts last week in an interview with The Independent, Lucas still denied involvement in the poll, saying, “I don’t actually know that what you just said is true.”

“I help raise money for PACs,” Lucas said. “And that’s the full extent of my involvement in a political action committee.”

Lucas acknowledged the PAC paid for the poll in a conservative talk radio interview two days later and told a Fox 4 reporter that he learned about United We Stand’s involvement after the poll was released.

Johnson called the issue “stale political intrigue.”

“The mayor has been asked and answered poll questions in several forums, including The Missouri Independent,” she said. “The community has moved on and so have we.”

Patrick Tuohey, a senior fellow at the conservative Show-Me Institute, said Lucas’ campaign staffer’s involvement showed the mayor was likely involved in the effort to move the Royals from their current stadium at the Truman Sports Complex to downtown well before the public knew.

Lucas endorsed a ballot initiative meant to pay for a downtown Royals stadium only three days before the vote. The initiative failed by a 2-to-1 margin.

It seems unlikely, Tuohey said, that Lucas’ campaign acted without his direction to ask the United We Stand PAC to pay for the poll.

“That seems the clearest thing is that he directed his campaign to seek a poll that concluded that the people of Clay County would not support a Royals stadium north of the River,” Tuohey said.

Mayors Corps

The mayor’s spending has drawn scrutiny since The Independent reported last week that he and Said spent more than $35,000 on travel, Chiefs tickets and dinners through the Mayors Corps in his first term.

Keating, who was processing reimbursements through the Mayors Corps, said the expenses didn’t strike him as problematic at first. But he became concerned when Said sought reimbursement for more than $20,000 for tickets and hotel costs for her, Lucas and two security personnel to attend the Super Bowl in Phoenix last year.

The day after the 2023 Super Bowl, the Mayors Corps took in a $24,000 donation from the Heavy Constructors Association, making Keating concerned the exchange might run afoul of the city’s ban on high-dollar gifts for officials.

The charge was on Said’s personal credit card. Keating said he felt rushed to process the reimbursement so she wouldn’t incur fees.

Keating said he consulted an attorney who said the Super Bowl expenses were reasonable. But out of concern about a possible gift ban violation, he recommended that the Mayors Corps refund the Heavy Constructors Association donation and suggested Said seek reimbursement for the trip through the United We Stand PAC.

“That’s what I pushed them to do, but they really wanted to do it from Mayors Corps,” Keating said. “I didn’t get an explanation for that.”

Said was also given a debit card tied to the Mayors Corps bank account, but Keating canceled it when it was used for gas and meals in Phoenix during the Super Bowl.

Johnson noted Keating signed off on the expense when legal counsel said it was likely allowable, but did not address Keating’s later emails expressing concern about the expense and recommending that Said seek reimbursement through the United We Stand PAC. She said the expenses had subsequently been reviewed by attorneys at Husch Blackwell and Elias Law Group and “found no compliance concerns.”

She declined to detail Lucas’ expenses to attend this year’s Super Bowl and referred questions to legal counsel.

Lucas told The Independent last week that Mayors Corps had a board of directors with members who are attorneys that could review expenses. But he said he did not know who was on the board.

As it turns out, he and Said are two of the three members, according to filings with the Missouri Secretary of State’s office.

Past and present members of the Mayors Corps board during Lucas’ time as mayor who were mentioned in Mayors Corps’ documents told The Independent they were never involved in approving expenses and had little involvement with the organization at all.

In March 2023, Said was informed by Charles Renner, a partner at Husch Blackwell, that the Mayors Corps had been administratively dissolved in the fall of 2022 for failing to file a biannual report with the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office. The notice had not been forwarded to Keating or Said — as neither of them were the registered agent for the nonprofit on file with the state — at the time it was dissolved.

State law dictates that a dissolved organization cannot conduct business activities “except those appropriate to wind up and liquidate its affairs,” raising questions about the legality of the Mayors Corps transactions during the five months it was dissolved.

Johnson said the mayor was confident any past issues had been resolved.

At the time, Keating recommended an attorney to help bring Mayors Corps back into compliance, but emails show Lucas preferred to use Husch Blackwell. Said worked with Renner to get the organization reinstated.

By May 2023, Keating informed Renner he could no longer be involved in the organization.

“I’m not able to be more involved with Mayors Corps than this,” Keating wrote in an email to Renner along with the earlier recommendations he sent to Lucas and Said with a ledger of financial activity. “I put a lot of time and energy into advocating that it be used differently, and I’m out of time to spend on it.”

Missouri’s chief medical officer on Tuesday said the state needs to raise awareness among physicians about the prevalence of radioactive contamination in the St. Louis area to catch rare cancers.

Dr. Heidi Miller, who last year was named the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Service’s first chief medical officer, spoke to an interim committee of Missouri House members studying St. Louis’ long history of contamination from World War II-era radioactive waste.

“I’m as alarmed as you are,” Miller told the committee.

Miller, who has worked with nonprofit health-care agencies and is a primary care physician, said she once had a patient with rare appendix cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. In 25 years practicing medicine, she’d never seen appendiceal cancer.

“I understand that there are rare, awful things happening,” Miller said. “We need to raise our awareness for that, and we need to study it in order to figure out what to do about it.”

Miller’s remarks came during a four-hour inaugural meeting of the Missouri House Special Interim Committee to Address Health and Environmental Impact of Nuclear Weapons Work.

Records reveal 75 years of government downplaying, ignoring risks of St. Louis radioactive waste

Chaired by Rep. Tricia Byrnes, a Wentzville Republican, the committee is tasked with studying St. Louis’ longrunning radioactive waste problem, collecting testimony from the community and recommending legislation for consideration by the Missouri General Assembly when it reconvenes in January.

The committee’s first hearing included testimony from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Missouri Department of Natural Resources and Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services — along with some affected members of the community.

Byrnes, who swam in a contaminated quarry as a teen and whose son suffered through a rare cancer, said it was beneficial for lawmakers to get to question state agencies outside the time constraints of the regular legislative session. She noted legislators can’t compel action by state agencies, which are part of the executive branch.

“But with a committee,” Byrnes said, “we can compel follow-up workshops, follow-up reports…This is a great format to say Missouri has a problem here, and we need everyone to come together on what we should do next.”

The St. Louis area was pivotal to the development of the atomic bomb in the 1940s and is still grappling with radioactive waste almost 80 years after the U.S. dropped the weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

During the Manhattan Project, the name given to the World War II-era effort to create the world’s first nuclear weapons, uranium was refined in downtown St. Louis.

After the war, waste from that effort was trucked to parts of St. Louis and St. Charles counties and dumped in a quarry along the Missouri River and in heaps on the ground. From there, leaking barrels of radioactive material contaminated Coldwater Creek, a tributary of the Missouri River that runs through now-busy suburbs.

In 2019, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry found that exposure to Coldwater Creek increased the risk of developing cancer for children who lived near or played in the creek.

One of those kids who grew up playing in the creek in the 1970s and 1980s is Kim Visintine, whose son was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor as a newborn. He died at six years old.

And while Visintine attributes her son’s death to Coldwater Creek, she said research can miss cancer clusters because the illness is reported according to the patient’s place of residence at the time they are diagnosed. Her family wasn’t living near Coldwater Creek by the time her son was born. And classmates of hers who suffered illnesses they believe came because of exposure to the creek had also moved away.

Visintine and peers who lived along Coldwater Creek and lost loved ones pushed state and federal agencies until the 2019 study took a closer look at the cancer rates around the creek.

Visintine said she hopes to see Missouri added to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, a federal program that, for more than 30 years, compensated miners and individuals exposed to radiation from nuclear bomb testing in the southwest. Lawmakers are trying to expand it to more states, including Missouri, but in the meantime, it has lapsed.

The important part of joining RECA, Visintine said, is gaining access to a federal screening program for radiation-related illnesses. With screening, Visintine said, maybe illnesses would be caught early before they become terminal.

“At the end of the day, we have to help the folks that have been exposed,” she said, “and the way to do that is to keep them from getting the terminal diagnosis.”

While Byrnes said she intended for the meeting to feature more members of the community, the committee was learning so much from the testimony of state and federal agencies that those officials spoke for the bulk of the four-hour meeting.

Ashley Bernaugh was president of the Jana Elementary School Parent Teacher Association when a researcher found radioactive contamination inside the school. She expected to speak Tuesday, but the committee ran out of time.

“I do hope that there will be a follow up that will center community voice on another day,” she said, “but the testimony was absolutely necessary. We do need those folks on the record.”

Rep. Doug Clemens, a Democrat from St. Ann, does not sit on the committee but attended Tuesday’s meeting. He said he knew some members of the community were upset they didn’t get to speak.

Tuesday’s meeting, he said, didn’t get into the “nitty gritty” of contaminated sites in Missouri but provided a good introduction to the issue.

“There are people in harm’s way every day because of this in Missouri,” he said. “It’s intolerable. It’s unacceptable.”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and X.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey does not believe it was improper to meet with a Jackson County official as his office sues the county, he told The Independent Thursday.

Bailey’s comments came after a judge ordered him to sit for a deposition about the meeting, which may have violated legal ethics rules. In an interview, Bailey said his office was “weighing legal options to correct the mistake that we feel like the judge made in that case.”

“There’s nothing unethical for two Republican candidates for office to meet and talk about politics,” Bailey said.

Judge orders Missouri AG Andrew Bailey to sit for deposition over possible ethics breach

A Clay County Circuit Court Judge Karen Krause ruled Tuesday that Bailey could be questioned under oath as a form of sanction for meeting with Jackson County Legislator Sean Smith.

The attorney general’s office is suing the county over its property assessment process, and the rules of professional conduct laid out by the Missouri Supreme Court prohibit attorneys from communicating about a lawsuit with individuals represented in the case without their lawyer’s consent.

The judge has already determined that one of Bailey’s deputies violated the rules.

Asked if he would sit for the deposition, Bailey said he was “going to do whatever the law requires.”

“But we don’t think it’s proper for the court to essentially attach a form of liability for two Republican candidates for political office who have a campaign-related meeting,” Bailey said.

Krauser’s order stems from meetings Bailey and one of his deputies, Travis Wood, had with Smith this spring.

Attorneys representing both the county and the county legislature said in a motion for sanctions that Bailey’s office showed a “blatant disregard for the Rules of Professional Conduct” in meeting with Smith without their knowledge. They asked for several sanctions, including dismissal of the case, disqualification of Bailey from litigating the case or for permission to take Bailey’s deposition.

“Based on what is known today, it is clear the Attorney General’s Office has been working with Sean Smith on trial strategy against Jackson County,” the county’s filing said.

Krauser, who is handling the case after all of the Jackson County Circuit Court judges recused themselves, ruled on Tuesday that attorneys for the county could require Bailey to sit for a deposition.

“The Missouri Attorney General’s Office is not exempt from the requirements of the state ethical rules, and this court finds that Travis Woods…violated the Rules of Professional Conduct,” wrote Krauser, who is handling the case after Jackson County judges recused themselves.

The attorney general’s office has been in litigation with the county since December when Bailey sued over Jackson County’s property assessment process. The lawsuit names as defendants Jackson County and its legislature; County Executive Frank White Jr.; director of assessment Gail McCann Beatty; the Jackson County Board of Equalization; and Tyler Technologies, a software company hired by the county.

The lawsuit claims the county violated the law when it assessed property values last year resulting in an average 30% increase in value across hundreds of thousands of properties. The lawsuit says more than 90% of residential properties saw their values increase, and values increased by at least 15% for three-quarters of properties.

The increase in property values means owners will have to pay more each year in taxes.

The attorney general claims Jackson County failed to notify owners of the property value increases and their right to a physical inspection — which is required before the assessor can increase a home’s value by more than 15% — in a timely manner. The county didn’t conduct all the required inspections before hiking values more than 15%, the lawsuit says.

Jackson County has denied the accusations and accused Bailey of waiting too long to file the case since tax bills have already been paid and money distributed. Beyond that, the county argues, the attorney general can’t file a case unless the State Tax Commission has attempted to resolve the issue first.

Requiring the state’s top lawyer to sit for a deposition is exceedingly rare, according to legal experts. And the admonishment from the judge drew criticism from rivals vying for Bailey’s job.

“It is absolutely outrageous that this important litigation against Jackson County is now imperiled because Andrew Bailey wanted a quick hit for his campaign,” said Will Scharf, who is running in the Republican primary for attorney general against Bailey.

Elad Gross, who is running for attorney general as a Democrat, said on social media “we need to fire our corrupt attorney general.”

“Attorney General Andrew Bailey repeatedly violates Missouri ethics rules,” Gross said. “He takes money from opponents. He makes up facts. He sells out the people of Missouri for campaign cash and uses taxpayer resources to support his campaign.”

Developers planning to expand a Kansas City facility manufacturing nuclear weapons components will get a break on sales tax under legislation Gov. Mike Parson signed Monday.

Parson held a signing ceremony at the site, currently a gravel lot across from the National Nuclear Security Administration’s south Kansas City campus. The expansion is expected to cost more than $3 billion and add more than 2 million square feet of space to the campus.

Lawmakers present Monday predicted the expansion would add about 2,000 high-paying jobs in south Kansas City.

“To have that kind of investment anywhere in the state, especially here, is a big deal for the entire state and a big deal for this community,” Parson said.

For years, Honeywell International Inc. has operated the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plant manufacturing non-nuclear parts for the U.S. nuclear weapons program.

But proponents of the tax break say the facility needs to expand to accommodate work the NNSA will need to modernize and refurbish the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.

“You’re talking about securing the country and making sure that this country stays safe,” Parson said Monday.

Lawmakers passed the tax break overwhelmingly this spring, largely citing the potential economic boon of the new jobs. The sales tax exemption on construction materials for the project is expected to divert more than $150 million in state, county, city and Kansas City zoo sales tax revenue over 10 years, according to a fiscal analysis that noted the exact cost couldn’t be verified.

Legislative staff wrote that the bill’s “fiscal impact could be significant.”

The legislation had support from both Democrats and Republicans and was championed by now-former Missouri Sen. Greg Razer, a Kansas City Democrat.

At the signing event Monday, Razer called the tax break a “no-nonsense piece of legislation.” He said the Honeywell expansion would be “transformational” for south Kansas City, Grandview and surrounding communities.

“This is high-paying jobs in these communities,” Razer said, “and as Kansas City continues to grow and have a renaissance, we’ve got to make sure that every corner of Kansas City grows and is involved in that renaissance. That’s what’s happening here today.”