Secret Disclosure: The Cauthen Contract Negotiations are sexy and mysterious

I missed an important story this morning regarding the effort to fire City Manager Wayne Cauthen.

Apparently DeAnn Smith got a hold of some top secret documents on the downlow. I don't want to think about how she got her hands on the sensitive, tingly files in light of the fact that several Latino leaders are a little peeved at her for sneaking around their meetups like a (sexy) mouse . . . But that's not important, what is interesting is that it's clear the City Council is asking the world of Cauthen:

Performance measures appear to be the biggest sticking point in contract negotiations between the Kansas City Council and City Manager Wayne Cauthen . . . The city manager currently earns a base salary of $215,000 and $60,000 in bonuses for meeting performance measures pertaining to municipal workplace diversity, management of capital improvements projects and the achievement of revenue targets.

Funkhouser and the council want new performance measures that evaluate the city manager at least in part on citizen satisfaction with city services.

The demands of the Council seem impossible in light of the fact that this country is moving closer to a full blown recession every day but here they are:

Increasing, by specific percentages, the number of citizens who are satisfied with the condition of city streets, enforcement of city codes and quality of police, fire and ambulance services.

Decreasing the percentage of substandard roads and bridges, and decreasing the amount of time it takes to resolve illegal dumping and stormwater complaints.

Boosting the number of employed people in Kansas City, increasing earnings tax revenue and the city’s reserve funds.

In essence, The City Council wants Cauthen to be responsible for their jobs. The stormwater complaints are especially laughable given that the only solution to that problem is to START work on the BILLIONS of dollars worth of sewer repair this town needs and none of the Council or the Mayor seem to want to undertake that task.

But all of that is political parlor talk . . . The most important thing to consider is that in a City with a HUGE African-American voting bloc, it's going to be a challenge to fire the highest ranking Black guy at City Hall. These "negotiations" are really just steps to get rid of the guy down the road but The Black Community should know that he WILL NOT be replaced by a person of color . . . And in a such a racially charged atmosphere, that's important. I think it's an issue of representation and the Black community has seen little under the Funkhouser reign.

To be fair, it was funny as Hell when the Council rejected the Mayor's attempt to fire Cauthen and Funky is desperately trying to move to the front of this debate despite the fact that the Council is doing ALL of the heavy lifting. I would only hope that Council folk would remember that Mayor Funky has NO SUPPORT in the urban core and if the election were held again, today he would lose by a significant margin. Therefore, his prodding on this issue can be/should be ignored. Most people in this town couldn't name the City manager if asked . . . I don't think it's imperative to meddle with his contract too much and it's clear that he should stay given that the move to replace him will only further cut off connections to Kansas City's Black community.