Kansas City one step closer to naming new City Manager
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The search for Kansas City's next City Manager is nearing the finish line.
On Wednesday, the City Council, along with Mayor Quinton Lucas, conducted public interviews with the three finalists vying for the city's top administrative role. All three candidates bring significant experience in city government, and two are currently employed by Kansas City.
One by one, the finalists faced a panel of 13 council members in a high-pressure public interview process.
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Kimiko Gilmore, currently serving as interim city manager and deputy city manager, was the first to take the hot seat.
She emphasized the importance of listening to residents citywide during her first 100 days and underscored the urgency of preparing for the 2026 World Cup, a global event that will be the biggest Kansas City has ever hosted.
Mario Vasquez, assistant city manager, focused his interview on strengthening community partnerships. He, too, highlighted the importance of being present in neighborhoods and hearing directly from residents.
Patrick Klein, the city's former aviation director who led the new KCI terminal project, said he came out of retirement to give city leaders another option. His interview largely focused on his past leadership overseeing the massive airport redevelopment.
A common theme across all three interviews was rebuilding trust between City Hall and the community.
The candidates pointed to the fallout from a lawsuit filed by the city's former communications director, a controversy that ultimately led to the firing of former city manager Brian Platt.
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Each finalist offered a different approach to restoring that trust.
Gilmore said she would bring in a consultant. Vasquez promised to establish clearer expectations. Klein described the issue as 'an easy fix.'
Mayor Quinton Lucas praised the fact that all three developed and honed their leadership skills right here in the City of Fountains.
'I'm proud of Kansas City today – I'm proud of leadership we've been able to raise over the last generation and a half and I look forward to whomever the candidate being someone who supports that.'
City officials are expected to make a final decision by next Thursday.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Graffiti at night. Cleanup in the morning. The night-and-day difference of L.A. protests
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A city-ordered 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. downtown curfew that began Tuesday — along with many protesters' calls for nonviolence — appeared to quell some of the late-night violence and property damage. Trump this week called the nation's second-largest city "a trash heap" that needed rescuing from so-called foreign invaders and rioters. He wrote on Truth Social that "if our troops didn't go into Los Angeles, it would be burning to the ground right now, just like so much of their housing burned to the ground" in the January fires that devastated Pacific Palisades and Altadena. But if the president were to visit the city center during the day, he might be a little bored. On Wednesday morning, a veteran LAPD officer sitting outside City Hall said the days have been mostly calm — and the protest schedule predictable. The officer, who said he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the department, said crowds trickled in around 1 p.m. each day. 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Early Monday evening, after a few hundred people ignored dispersal orders near the Federal Building, police — firing less-lethal munitions and tossing flash-bang grenades — pushed protesters into Little Tokyo, where businesses and the Japanese American National Museum were heavily vandalized. Daylight Tuesday brought a starkly different scene: volunteers scrubbing graffiti from the exterior of the museum, which highlights the painful lessons of Japanese Americans' mass incarceration during World War II. After seeing images of the vandalism on her social media feeds, Kimiko Carpenter, a West L.A. mom and hospice volunteer, stopped at Anawalt Lumber to buy $50 worth of rags, gloves, scraping brushes and canisters of graffiti remover. She drove downtown and rolled up her sleeves. Wiping sweat off her brow with the elbow of her white button-down shirt, Carpenter said she had no official affiliation with the museum but was half Japanese and had volunteered there years ago as a teenager. 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