Mr. Jerome A. Gorman
District Attorney
710 North 7th Street
Kansas City, Kansas 66101
E-Mail & (Fax Sent) (913) 573-2948
Dear Mr. Gorman
Thank you for your letter regarding the open meetings complaint filed with the
Kansas Attorney General's office.
I would ask that you appoint a special prosecutor and investigator to investigate
the violations of Kansas Open Meeting Act and other violations as it relates
to the conduct of the Unified Government Officials on April 29, 2010.
As District Attorney you cannot exercise the duties and responsibilities of your job because you have received benefit from both parties who attended the meeting and violated the KOMA. The Unified Government of Wyandotte County determines your salary and terms of employment including your budget. RED and other consultants working on the RED Legends project have or will have an opportunity to contribute to your campaign fund.
Based upon the foregoing facts surrounding the violations of law, it may be best that you remove yourself from any involvement of any investigation that may take place. Any involvement from your office in the investigation, of this matter, would be unwise and could generate ethical and legal complaints against you and your staff. The laws and regulations governing conflict of interest are well established and should be closely adhered to.
The violation of the open meetings act and various other violations that occurred on Thursday April 29th, 2010 at 1:00pm and 3:30pm at the Unified Government 9th floor conference room should be prosecuted because the intent of the meeting was to privately negotiate terms of the development agreement between the UG and RED Development. The development agreement has cost taxpayers millions of dollars and was the subject of a Federal lawsuit, Oppenheimer v. RED Lawsuit Within
By cloaking in secrecy the public development agreement negotiations in a ninth
floor conference room, both Dennis Hays, Doug Bach and Mayor Joseph Reardon
sought to gain the necessary support to change the development agreement to
benefit RED Development. The original development agreement contained restrictive
covenants and public subsidies totaling more than $300 million. The decisions
made in secret by Hays, Rick Worner, Joseph Reardon and others involved in the
management of this agreement have monumental financial consequences for taxpayers.
The 1:00pm meeting was attended by Dennis Hays, Doug Bach, Mike Kane, Tom Cooley,
John Mendez, Mark Mitchell, Bill Miller and staff from RED Development. Additional
city staffs were present to privately negotiate and discuss terms of the development
agreement at the meeting, which was not properly noticed nor legally called
to order. It is a violation of the KOMA to have a voting majority present at
any meeting in which public business is discussed. Clearly these elements of
the KOMA were violated. Public access to this meeting was denied.
The 3:00pm meeting was attended by Doug Bach, Dennis Hays, Nathan Barnes, Pat
Petty, Benoyd Ellison, Mark Holland, Ann Murguia, John Jurcyk, Alphonzo Zarate
and Staff from RED Development. The terms of taxpayer support were discussed
along with other material elements of the agreement. The purpose of the meeting
was to renegotiate a public development agreement. Public access to this meeting
was also denied.
Marilyn White and other citizens were told they could not attend the meeting.
Marilyn personally talked to RED executives and Dennis Hays.
Beyond the obvious violations of KOMA regarding this situation, the more disturbing
fact is the lack of apparent concern of both your office and the Kansas Attorney
Generals Office in pursuing these violations. After you read the pleadings and
transcripts in Oppenheimer vs. RED, maybe you can get a sense of the financial
hardship to taxpayers. Millions of dollars are paid to "consultants"
for access to public officials who in turn vote for development agreements that
are cooked up in smoke filled back rooms, costing taxpayers millions.
All the while, there is not enough money available to hire prosecutors and law
enforcement officials to pursue criminals in Wyandotte County. Is this an accident
or part of a vast conspiracy to defraud taxpayers? Politicians are bought off
like boxes of popcorn, while the poor pay for more and more "development
agreements". While collar crime pays if you donate to the right candidates,
it is all written on paper in closed ninth floor conference rooms and that makes
it legal.
I realize that your pursuit of these matters will be purely, "going through
the motions", I have a duty to the public to report the violations and
when they occurred. After a thorough white washing of the events and no enforcement
of the KOMA, I fully expect to receive a letter stating that due to blah, blah,
blah... no further actions will be taken as everyone that is involved is above
the law. Past and present actions as this must award Grand Jury Investigations
to stop corruption, public mistrust and political greed.
At your request, you and I had a meeting in your office May 11th, 2009 and we discussed what the problems of this City were. You agreed with me that corruption and greed was the outline, public mistrust was the subject and the most basic of problem was that this City would spend any amount of money to cover up mistakes rather than expend $10 to fix the problem. The consensus of the meeting we had was the agreement that this City was killing the taxpayers financially by continuing to throw $ Billions of good money after bad money and have done so for the past ten years. We agreed that taxpayers are not being treated as a first priority even though they pay all and every City bill including salaries of the corrupt.
At the end of the day, I know I have done what is right and reported this matter
and that may have to be satisfaction enough. Good Luck in the pursuit of Justice.
Sincerely,
TJ Reardon
Elected Official
Just incase you have never seen or had forgotten here is a excellent outline of open meetings requirements http://www.ksag.org/files/komaoutline2009.PDF
CC: Steven Six
Media
Political members of State