Kansas City Star Hypes Burns & Mac Again

The newspaper offers another promotional bit of reporting for Kansas City's biggest engineering firm that's on the way to taking over the airport. Take a look:

Burns & McDonnell CEO Ray Kowalik: KC pride is the key for a 21st century airport

About a year ago, Mayor Sly James challenged the Kansas City business community to step up and find a way to modernize Kansas City's airport for the 21st century. We considered the mayor's challenge a call to action. The only thing Burns & McDonnell loves more than a challenge is Kansas City - and airports are a big part of our business.

Comments

  1. will they be offering free advertising to the other firms that would like to bid?

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  2. The Star scrutinizing government business is like the pot calling the kettle black. I didn't see the rag feeling all guilty when they were shifting their tax obligations to the backs of tax payers.

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  3. KC is already proud of its convenient airport!

    Save KCI!

    Say no to crony mayor-B&M-Star sponsored boondoggle!

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  4. The Star is not doing its job.

    It has not examined and not interviewed experts about the financial structure of the unique proposal.

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  5. The Star does a great job. Whatever they endorse, the opposite is the correct way to go.

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  6. When did the conversation shift from if we build it to we are and b&m is going to build it?

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  7. It'll shift back for the election and the corrupt and strange deal will help defeat it.

    Save KCI!

    Vote no!

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  8. Crawford Archtects, BHC Rhodes and others "Stepped up" a year or two before Sly "challenged" the business community and they were blown off for having a great plan that used the existing terminals and cost less.

    Likely their contributions to the mayor were not up to par.

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  9. KCI is a functional, convenient airport.

    Mayor James and the Chamber of Commerce crew like to take junkets to other cities to see what cool toys the bigger and hipper cities have acquired. Plus, it's a chance to waste money, escape their responsibilities in KCMO, and eat out a lot at nice restaurants.

    They come back home and feel envious that KCMO doesn't have the same cool toys. They tell each other that if only KCMO had the latest, greatest cool toys, then we would finally be a "world-class" city.

    Most people who live in KCMO are here by choice, if we wanted to live in NYC, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, we would move there.

    Mayor James and the Chamber of Commerce crew don't like KCMO the way it is, and are constantly looking to build shiny new toys instead of taking care of basic infrastructure, improving neighborhoods, ensuring public safety, schools, libraries, and parks. If they have their way, they will force KCMO to grow to the point of constant congestion, high crime, high crippling taxes, diminished city services, and an even wider economic divide between segments of the population. Even more so than it is already, the metro will consist of well-to-do suburbs with nice safe neighborhoods and schools surrounding a decaying KCMO core carcass which gets feasted upon by non-resident predators.

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  10. the fix us in and the deal is rigged.

    the star is a willing accomplice with its free op-ed advertising.

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  11. The column by the Burns and Mac CEO has to be one of the most poorly-written, self-serving, and childish pieces to appear in the Star in quite a long time, which is saying quite a bit in itself.
    He must have written it himself. Certainly no professional PR flack on staff could have done such a terrible job.
    The highlights:
    Burns and mac is a wonderful company of KC residents who just want to "give back" to their community.
    Kansas City has the world's attention like never before.
    It's really all about Kansas City pride.
    Everything residents and travelers love about the current terminals will be kept, only much much BETTER.
    The team will be all Kansas City. (A more parochial assertion could not be more out-of-tune after all the rah rah about KCMO being a "world class city".)
    And, of course, the good 'ol standby, jobs,jobs, jobs.
    Nothing of any substance here,just like the sales job for this fiasco has been from the beginning.
    11:50am is right on the money and the former airport director let the cat out of the bag by ignoring any maintenance on the buildings so that he could try to sell replacing them.
    It's all about toys at other people's expense so that insiders can crow about their successes and sell their crap around the country.
    And Sly is the carnival barker in chief.
    What people around the country know about KC is Royals, Chiefs, and barbecue.
    It's sad to watch the largest city in the region succumb to such self-serving silliness, lies, and outright delusion.

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  12. Ask the City Manager or the Mayor if the Burns/Mc deal goes on the City's books as City debt. The "private" financing does and simply costs millions of dollars more than is needed to pay for the improvements.

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  13. the crony deal has financial risks that might blow up in spectacular fashion. that will be fun to watch.

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  14. One has to wonder if the outside counsel is sufficiently bad faith to ignore having expert financial analysis of the financial implications.

    There's a chance they're serious and that might mean a hard look.

    But everything else about the crony deal seems so rigged.

    The newspaper running a free advertisement!

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