In January Kansas City Mayor Sly James said that Lockton Companies would not be receiving taxpayer incentives to stay on the Country Club Plaza.
However, when the official announcement was made, the Kansas City Star reported Lockton would actually be receiving slightly more than $300,000 in incentives.
Star editorial columnist Yael Abouhalkah called the Mayor’s press secretary Danny Rotert demanding an explanation.
“It was my fault,” Rotert admitted to Abouhalkah. “Rotert said he wrote the remarks for the mayor, and - in doing research - he had missed the fact that city incentives were involved. The amount will be around $300,000, he said, in foregone sales tax receipts.”
Abouhalkah accepted Rotert’s apology and immediately backed off on his potential “gotcha” story.
It is admirable Rotert fell on his sword for his Mayor boss (PR folks often do) and took full blame for the oversight. Was he covering for the big guy?
“It really was my mistake,” Rotert told Bottom Line. “The $308,000 in incentives is really not a large amount for this kind of deal, but I should have said there ‘might be’ some city dollars involved instead of saying there ‘were no” city dollars.”
Although it was likely someone at City Hall provided Rotert with incorrect information, as the front man he gets to take the arrows. It is the kind of thing that happens frequently when PR folks have to rely on others for information.
One wonders if former Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s press secretary would have provided the same explanation if Abouhalkah would have let Funkhouser off the hook so easily…