Brian Platt, a former protege of Mayor Steven Fulop who rose to become Jersey City’s business administrator, was fired today from his job as city manager in Kansas City.
According to NPR, the City Council made the decision during a two-hour closed-door meeting. The unanimous vote to let Platt go followed a nearly $1 million verdict in a whistleblower lawsuit brought by a Kansas City employee who said he was demoted for resisting Platt’s directive to lie to the media.
The lawsuit sparked considerable media attention in New Jersey when Platt was quoted telling several employees, “In Jersey, we had a mayor who would just make up numbers on the fly from the podium, and no reporters ever called him on it.” It was widely assumed that Platt was referring to Fulop, his former boss who is now a gubernatorial candidate.
After denying that any such conversation had taken place for over two years, Platt said on the witness stand during the trial that he had recovered his memory and that, in fact, he had told his subordinates never to lie, citing a Jersey City mayor who had gone to prison for fraud as a cautionary tale. It was, he said, all a misunderstanding. “It’s all starting to come back.”
Platt’s trial testimony was an apparent reference to former Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann. In an interview with the Jersey City Times, McCann was dismissive. “How would he be talking about someone else when he was never there? He was never in Jersey City. Remember the last time I was in office was 1992.” Platt, who came to Jersey City in 2013, would have been approximately seven years old at the time.
Platt’s tenure in Kansas City was controversial from the start. Mayor Quinton Lucas was criticized at the outset by members of the City Council who felt they had not been properly consulted. Lucas, who is Black, was also criticized by many in the Black community for passing over Black candidates for the job who were seen as better qualified. Once in the job, Platt was accused of discriminating against Black employees.
In an interview with Fox 4 Kansas City, Platt defended his record, citing Vision Zero, road repairs and the diversity of his staff. Several organizations and developers rose to Platt’s defense, according to NPR.
Platt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
His firing comes three weeks after the verdict when he was suspended with pay.
