KC Mayor Accused of Skirting City Gift Ban

By Allison Kite, Kansas Reflector

It cost $23,518 for Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, a top aide and two police officers on his security detail to attend the Super Bowl in Phoenix last year.

The day after the game, the cost was covered by a $24,000 check from the Heavy Constructors Association, a politically-connected trade group.

Neither the price of the trip nor the donation were ever made public.

That’s because the mayor and his now-former chief of staff, Morgan Said, ran the spending and donation through the Mayors Corps of Progress for a Greater Kansas City Inc., a nonprofit established 50 years ago to help attract economic development to the city that is not required to disclose its financials.

Receipts, emails and other documents obtained by Missouri Independent 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.

While expenses filed by Said often represented costs incurred by both her and Lucas, they were primarily in her name.

In an interview with The Independent, 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,” said Lucas, a Democrat and attorney who was elected mayor in 2019. “It’s the opinion of our counsel.”

His office used the fund to “evaluate any number of different efforts,” he said, “with a primary goal of never billing the taxpayers for business prospecting and promotion.”

Lucas said the organization has a board of directors that can review expenses, but added that he did not know who serves on the board. The Mayors Corps’ most recent filings with the Missouri Secretary of State show the three-member board includes both Lucas and Said.

How Lucas utilized the nonprofit differs from his predecessor, who primarily used it to bring speakers to Kansas City to talk about various economic development proposals and other projects to benefit the city. The change has raised concerns that Lucas is using the nonprofit to evade transparency and the city’s ban on public officials accepting high-dollar gifts.

Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, a progressive government watchdog, said the Mayors Corps “sounds like a very shady organization.”

“We’ve got potential violations of the ethics code,” Holman said, “potential violations of the Internal Revenue code and we have potential violations of the campaign finance law.”

Patrick Tuohey, a senior fellow at the conservative Show-Me Institute, said when candidates or elected officials have a “slush fund,” then individuals and organizations can support them in a way that’s not transparent.

“This just feels like another way,” he said, “that moneyed interests can have access to politicians.”

Jon Berkon, an attorney for Mayors Corps, contends Lucas and Said’s travel 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.

The obfuscation of spending extends beyond the nonprofit, The Independent has learned. A political action committee established to support Lucas’ political career, called United We Stand, spent almost $1,700 late last year for a tuxedo and $9,500 for polling about a new Kansas City Royals baseball stadium in Clay County.

Unlike the Mayors Corps, United We Stand is obligated to disclose its spending. But Said requested the tuxedo be listed only as an “inaugural expense.” The polling — which Lucas said at the time he didn’t know who paid for  — was called “research.”

Mayors Corps of Progress

The Mayors Corps of Progress was established by former Kansas City Mayor Richard Berkley, but later lapsed. Lucas’ predecessor, Mayor Sly James, reestablished the organization when he took office in 2011.

According to the organization’s bylaws, it 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.”

During James’ tenure, the Mayors Corps met regularly and included members from major corporate employers, unions, hospitals, law firms and nonprofits.

Guests, including staff from City Hall and other major Kansas City organizations, spoke at quarterly meetings. While the Mayors Corps is not legally obligated to disclose its donors, it previously provided the information voluntarily to journalists. Lucas’ office declined to do so this week.

Joni Wickham, who served as James’ chief of staff, said during the James administration the Mayors Corps often paid to bring speakers to Kansas City to talk about economic development or other projects. When James was pursuing a sales tax to fund universal pre-K in Kansas City, she said, the Mayors Corps paid to bring officials from Denver to talk about a similar program there.

Since Lucas took office, the fund has been used primarily for travel and entertainment.

In addition to the 2023 Super Bowl trip, the Mayors Corps was charged $5,900 for Chiefs tickets in January 2020, though it’s unclear who received the tickets.

Said was reimbursed $2,070 for a four-night hotel stay in Tampa, Florida, for the Super Bowl in 2021. She acknowledged the mayor used the nonprofit to cover the Super Bowl trip to The Independent in 2021 in response to an inquiry about Lucas spending time in the luxury suite of one of Missouri’s most prolific political donors, Michael Ketchmark. She did not offer details at that time about how much money the nonprofit spent on the trip.

The mayor also told conservative talk radio host Pete Mundo in February that the Mayors Corps had financed his Super Bowl trips.

“That’s how we’ve done past ones,” Lucas said, “and, as always, no cost on my travel to the taxpayers.”

When Said missed her flight home from a summit at Harvard University in December 2022, she billed the Mayors Corps $578.59 for an extra night at a four-star hotel in Cambridge, Mass.

She was reimbursed $1,024 for season tickets to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2022.

In early 2023, Said received a $255.50 reimbursement for hotel charges for her and Lucas’ trip to Washington, D.C. for the Kansas City Current’s national championship game. She spent $160 on Chiefs tickets in January 2023.

Berkon said the Washington trip allowed Lucas and Said to meet with Kansas City Current and National Women’s Soccer League executives.

“Several months later, Kansas City was named a FIFA World Cup 2026 Host City, and less than two years later, Kansas City opened the first-ever purpose-built stadium for women’s professional sports and was selected to host the NWSL Championship in Kansas City,” he said.

But Kansas City had already been announced as a World Cup host city and crews had broken ground at the Current stadium before the mayor’s trip ever took place.

Then came the Phoenix trip for the Super Bowl.

Said and Lucas’ flights cost $1,427.96 each. They spent $14,480 on tickets to the game and processing fees for Lucas, Said and two Kansas City police officers serving as Lucas’ security detail. Hotel rooms for the four totaled $6,000.

Said spent another $181.96 on gas and meals in Phoenix.

She routinely picked up checks for meetings and was reimbursed from the Mayors Corps.

• $499.62 on dinner in the city’s Crossroads Arts District
• $226.05 to take the interim police chief to dinner in Washington, D.C.
• $1,718.17 for dinner and drinks with engineering  executives in Kansas City to help secure a $5 million grant to study reconfiguring U.S. Highway 71
• $125.33 at a pizza restaurant as the city worked to hire a new general counsel
• $174.28 on tapas in downtown Kansas City with two other political staffers
• $141.76 at an airport Chili’s in Chicago with U.S. Department of Transportation officials
• $96.15 at the convention center hotel bar in Kansas City to discuss the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Kansas City.

Records show in July 2021 Said was reimbursed $4,777.75  and Lucas received $1,119.14 for unspecified expenses.

Lucas flew first class from Las Vegas overnight to Washington, D.C. in November 2021 to attend a bill signing at the White House.

Berkon said the Mayors Corps also helped send Lucas and Said to Los Angeles where they met with film executives. He said the meeting helped secure a film incentive program to film a Hallmark movie in Kansas City. While there, he said, the mayor attended meetings for organizations he belongs to, toured a tiny home village, visited Skid Row and hosted a reception for former Kansas Citians living in Los Angeles.

Eddie Greim, a partner at the Republican law firm Graves Garrett in Kansas City, said while expenses for travel and dinner can be allowable, it’s important that there be a civic benefit as a result.

“That’s potentially a very problematic use of the funds,” Greim said of how the Mayors Corps was used by Lucas.

Lucas said it’s important to attend the Super Bowl and other major events to communicate with other civic, business and government interests from across the country. He said he was interviewed by Fox News when he attended the Super Bowl in Tampa in 2021.

“Lots of work and lots of meetings are actually done adjacent to sporting events just like they’re done adjacent to other cultural events,” he said.

Berkon said legal counsel had signed off on the use of Mayors Corps for tickets for Lucas and a staffer to network at Chiefs games and that a host of state and federal lawmakers, business executives and non-profit leaders had attended with him.

Kansas City gift ban

Between January 2020 and April 2021, the Mayors Corps received more than $30,000 in donations from unspecified sources, which Lucas’ office declined to identify.

In March 2022, following an email conversation with Said, the Kansas City Royals donated $15,000. A spokesman for the Kansas City Royals did not return a request for comment.

After that, the organization didn’t receive any donations until the Heavy Constructors Association’s $24,000 donation in February 2023.

The donation from the Heavy Constructors Association, which was very close to the cost of Lucas and Said’s Super Bowl trip, could be seen as a way to circumvent Kansas City’s ordinance barring elected officials from accepting gifts valued at more than $200, Holman said.

“This…appears to be an organization that’s really set up just to entertain themselves, entertain the mayor and, probably, a whole bunch of lobbyists,” he said.

Tuohey agreed the solicitation of the donation looked like an attempt to get around the city’s git ban.

“If it would have been illegal or unethical to give money to the mayor and his chief of staff to travel,” he said, “it seems to me that it’s questionable to do the exact same thing through a third party.”

Bridgette Williams, executive director of the Heavy Constructors Association, said the trade group responded to a request for a donation from Said and didn’t ask what particular expenses its contribution might finance.

“We gave the money as a request,” she said, ”and we rely on (the mayor) to spend it wisely.”

The Heavy Constructors Association didn’t view the contribution as a gift, she said, “but an opportunity to showcase Kansas City in other markets and potentially bring new companies and jobs.”

Lucas denied trying to circumvent the city’s gift ban.

“I would certainly challenge your premise that it is to get around some sort of gift rule,” he said.

Concerns about the spending and donation were raised internally to Lucas and Said at the time, documents show, along with the suggestion that to avoid any hint of impropriety the $24,000 check should be refunded and the cost of the trip be paid for and disclosed by United We Stand PAC.

Berkon did not address a question about whether Lucas and Said considered following that advice.

Philip Hackney, a professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh, said if Lucas and Said were using the trips as opportunities to network and promote Kansas City for economic development, the spending could be a legitimate use of the Mayors Corps.

“But it’s really kind of sounding sketchy to me,” Hackney said.

“It’s sounding like it’s just kind of a petty cash account that they use to deal with situations that they don’t want to put on some other (credit) card,” Hackney said, “and that would be problematic.”

Greim said while charging travel to the Mayors Corps might save the city a little money, it’s important that city expenses are paid by the city, not private sources. One way to make officials accountable, he said, is by ensuring their salaries and expenses are paid by the public they serve.

“But if others begin to pay for that, then you can argue that the city officials become beholden to the people that are actually paying part of their salary and expenses,” he said.

It’s nice to save taxpayer funds, he said, “but is it more important to save a few thousand dollars, or is it more important to ensure that our public officials owe their livelihood to the people they’re supposed to serve?”

Danielle Caputo, legal counsel for the Campaign Legal Center said the spending didn’t appear illegal on its face, but she said the donation from the Heavy Constructors Association the day after the Super Bowl is worthy of further scrutiny.

“That does raise a real question,” Caputo said, “of is that c4 operating in good faith or with the intended purpose of being the go-between to give the mayor gifts?”

Both Lucas and Berkon insisted that all spending by the nonprofit was reviewed at the time and deemed legal and appropriate. But that isn’t the only standard public officials must abide by, said Julie Allen, a former executive director of the Missouri Ethics Commission.

She said her advice is generally that in addition to “making sure you’re following the law, you should use the smell test. What will the public, voters or a (nonprofit) board think?

United We Stand PAC

Mid-way through Lucas’ first term, United We Stand PAC was established and has primarily been used to pay for fundraising and communications as well as the mayor’s second inauguration in 2023.

The PAC, which has no limits on contributions, received donations from a variety of corporate and individual donors. By far the largest was a $50,000 donation from the Heavy Constructors Association in January 2022.

It kept taking donations when Lucas began his second term even though he is term-limited and cannot run for mayor again in 2027. Since his reelection, the PAC has taken more than $110,000 and spent on his inauguration event.

It’s currently sitting on $60,000, according to its most recent filing.

One of those inaugural expenses was a tuxedo from Halls, a high-end department store in Kansas City, which cost $1,694.42.

Said, who was serving as Lucas’ chief of staff at the time, was reimbursed from the PAC for that expense.

But when it came time to file the PAC’s quarterly report with the Missouri Ethics Commission, she asked that the expense be described as reimbursement for an “inaugural expense,” not specifically as a tuxedo. She asked that the name of the store, Halls, not be listed but was told that information could not be withheld.

The PAC also paid $9,500 to Bold Decision Consulting LLC in the summer of 2023 for a poll of 300 Clay County voters that showed 70% opposed the idea of a new sales tax to fund a Royals stadium in North Kansas City. The poll was seen by many to be an attempt to ensure the stadium would land in Jackson County, not Clay.

In an attempt to keep the source of the poll a mystery, Said requested the description on PAC’s quarterly filing be changed from “polling” to simply “research.” At the time, Lucas side-stepped questions about who funded the poll in a response to Fox 4 reporters.

Greim said while he did not believe Said’s involvement in United We Stand’s quarterly filing to be a violation of campaign finance laws concerning coordination between candidates and PACs, it would be inappropriate for her to work on the issue while on the clock at City Hall.

Missouri Independent’s Jason Hancock contributed to this story.

Correction: This story was updated at 2:15 p.m. to correct a misspelling.