Kansas City Mayor Q Challenged On Social Media Ethics

As we slouch toward midterm elections, there's already an effort to look more closely at the Kansas City mayor's social media presence. 

To wit . . .

A RECENT ETHICS COMPLAINT CALLS OUT 12TH & OAK INTERNETS SUPPORT FOR THE MAYOR'S SOCIALS!!!

Here's an apt summary . . .

The complaint is that Lucas is using a “political candidate” account for official purposes, and the city is using public resources to promote that “political candidate” account on the KCMO.gov city social media directory and linking the account from the official KCMO Government Facebook page.  

This was found when the city responded to a Sunshine request asking for a list of the people the Mayor had blocked on his official Facebook page.  

The city comms department responded that the page in question was a “political” page, and anyone making a complaint would have to ask Lucas’s campaign for that information.  The same comms department maintains the website and the Facebook page that has been linking to that political page.  

Further, Mayor Lucas does livestreams and videos on that “Political Candidate” page from City Hall using city resources to do so. Either he is using a political account for official business so he can censor and violate first amendment rights, or he seems to be violating campaign finance laws and using government resources to promote his campaign. 

Now . . .

We aren't counting on the ethics commission to do much in this regard . . . They rarely meet. 

However . . . The complaint makes a good point as local politicos haven't been accountable for much since the pandemic shut down most of the municipal conversation. 

Developing . . .