TKC EXCLUSIVE!!! KANSAS CITY INSIDERS WARN OF 12TH & OAK UPHEAVAL AFTER ENGINEER WES MINDER RESIGNS!!!
Mostly behind the scenes, Wes Minder worked diligently as the Chief Innovation Engineer for the City of Kansas City, Missouri. He is a licensed Professional Engineer with a Master’s in Business Administration and over the course of his career he has earned a sterling reputation as one of the top 12th & Oak problem solvers.
Yesterday he turned in his resignation and fired off this public tweet:
"Well it's official now. After 16 years of slashing red tape, my last day with KCMO will be 3/13. It's been a fun ride. Words cannot express how I've enjoyed working with and meeting a lot of you."
Social media offered about a hundred likes and a couple of dozen comments but absolutely no context.
Here's what we know right now . . . The Heavies are worried and they've been on the phone with Council and the Mayor trying to figure out the problem and, more importantly, how it will impact their business.
Reality Check: An employee crisis is underway at City Hall. There is more turmoil amid lawsuits and resignations now than in the past 8 years. Remember that our blog community was FIRST to report a discrimination lawsuit against the Office Of Culture & Creative services. Today, the newspaper follows-up our reporting with a few more deets. Overall morale is fading quickly and infighting among workers seems to be spiking with a tragic undercurrent of racial animosity slowly building. No matter who gets the job, the new City Manager must mend fences across departments and throughout the entire workforce.
But better than our deep background . . .
FIRST ON TKC!!! HERE'S INSIDER WORD & DETAILS ON WES MINDER'S RESIGNATION AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR KANSAS CITY!!!
Here's the insight and preview of the future . . .
City Hall Community Stunned
The Brain Drain is beginning at City Hall with one of the brightest lights extinguishing this week.
Chief Innovation Engineer Wes Minder is leaving 12th & Oak after a decade plus of making things happen.
He was known as someone who plowed through the layers of BS at City Hall, and got projects done on time and under budget. When the rubber met the road and Council needed something done, the smart ones called Minder because they knew he didn’t care about credit… he just wanted results. While some thought Minder a jackass, there was no denying he got the results.
The construction community and business leaders, as well as many at City Hall who appreciated Minder’s work ethic and creative solutions, are now left wondering how many more good people are going to stay around in this hot economy and who's going to pull the strings behind the scenes.
Unlike other City Hall lifers like Bob Langenkamp and Randy Landes who went out the revolving doors to "do nothing" agencies and won't be missed, the capital improvement program will suffer as one of the best people in the metro at bringing outside money to City Hall will now be consulting for other governments.
It's the canary in the coal mine. If someone like Minder who has stayed through bad budget times when he could have jumped ship earlier has now jumped, how many more good people are getting fed up with 2% raises and will bail, leaving us with only the unemployable?
Unless the mayor and council get a city manager who will clean house and jettison a bunch of helpless and ineffective directors, this is just the beginning.
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Developing . . .
You're just scratching the surface here but it's appreciated. City Hall is losing a lot of good people now and they're the only ones who kept the place running. At this rate they're going to have to transfer people OUT of the water department and back into the old jobs they were transferred from. It really is a mess down here.
ReplyDeleteThis insider is 100%, we need a capable city manager but we all know that's not what we're going to get.
^^^ Just more political patronage and back scratching. That's what runs KC.
DeleteSo now we know a little bit more about why Troy was so desperate to get our of that place.
DeleteSay what you want but they are running white people out of management positions throughout the city and filling them with “those people” that we can’t speak of or you’ll get called a racist. Many many positions are being filled with “those people” and no real experience is required. I and many others have no idea why any of this is happening and I’ll tell you this much, things are falling apart in a hurry.
ReplyDeleteThis is bad... really bad news.
ReplyDeleteHe stayed even though he could have made much more in the private sector.
Totally respected by all.
It’s not all bleak though.
KC will go downhill and bankrupt within a short amount of time and then rebound. Times will be tough and very hard for a few years with people moving out into safer communities.
But the upside will start in about 2033 or 2035.
They will start to reduce the earnings tax back to 1% from 5%. They will also quit listening to the star editorial board... since it won’t exist as the paper folded... and actually hire more policemen.
Six Light and Seven Light will be turned into Section 8 and compete with the other Lights... so that the poor can be taken off the street and give back the King of Homelessness back to San Francisco.
Since the Chiefs and Royals moved to Johnson County... KC will pitch ideas to win them back- like ground breaking ideas such as tax abatement and armed guards at games provided for free with machine guns the guards will carry.
Good times.
Diversity is never a strength and only creates shitholes like Baltimore.
ReplyDeleteThen why is your mouth a shithole?
DeleteThe reasons why the best and brightest and some of the not best and brightest of City Hall leaving can be attributed to a racist, sexist climate that has been allowed to breed over the last eight years of Sly James and his minions.
ReplyDeleteHis exclusionary,cronyism "leadership" was fueled by his obvious disdain for East side leadership and concerns (and in the case of Jermaine Reed and Freedom Inc., it was warranted), all people that opposed him which led to a lot of competent people either leaving or being removed from important boards and commissions because of his OBVIOUS penchant for so-called "power elite" families unleashed an avalanche of division that is part and parcel to what is happening today.
As we sit and watch as James' "consulting firm", code words for a business that will continue to suck up city resources because of all of the favors done while in office, continues to make change difficult on the East Side, (think 18th and Vine!)has precipitated the lawsuit against the Office of Culture and Creative Services, has claimed the careers of great, effective administrators in City Hall and NOW threatens to divide this city further by meddling in things like a useless downtown sports field and an arts community sorely in need of being cleaned up and funding sources re-distributed so that KC can truly claim itself as a cultural mecca for the mid-west.
Heads out of the sand everyone! There are more suits to come if we don't rid ourselves of the cronies instilled by the last mayoral administration, DEMAND that the present City Council act in the best interest of the public in all things bought to them as a cause of Sly's presence as Mayor and most of all, HIRE a new City Manager that will not be afraid to remove ANYONE who cannot demonstrate how they have made a bottom line difference economically to this city by their high, six figure positions.
One more thing, the Office of Communications could be more effective if it were run by millennials who for half the salaries, higher technological abilities and more willingness to report the good in City Hall would be more valuable to the city than Chris Hernandez who's outdated, so-called "journalistic" approach is merely another money drain no longer needed.
If this is Wes Minder from Line Creek Loudmouth he is a really good guy. He will be missed.
ReplyDeleteHow did this schmuck last 16 years that is the real mystery. The whole premise behind a Chief Innovation Engineer goes beyond useless to completely and utterly counterproductive. If one person is in charge of innovation, everyone else are not.
ReplyDeleteSo after 16 years we now have Killer Shitty.
It's the same old bs, SJW's complaining about "diversity" lacking on the panel to cure coronavirus. As if there would be a quicker cure if we just had more Affirmative Action 'scientists' looking into the problem.
ReplyDeleteDiversity kills innovation, creativity and progress.
Good man and will be missed. A rare capability for City Hall. Somebody good snapped him up I hope.
ReplyDeleteThat Wes Minder had a tiny dick. Looked like one of those little golf pencils.
ReplyDeleteWhich Public Works employee are you?
DeleteProbably leaving because his $400 million in bicycle lane money is not going to come through.
ReplyDelete"You left the city better than when you found it---and that takes some doing."
ReplyDeleteROFL
Oh yah KCMO the worlds most modern and shiny and innovative infrastructure on the planet. The envy of the entire world!
ReplyDeleteAll thanks to Wes!
"Wes Minder worked diligently as the Chief Innovation Engineer for the City of Kansas City, Missouri."
ReplyDeleteOh come on Tony you really think us readers are that stupid?
Please refrain from reading this blog if you don't have a sense of humor and a good looking mother.
ReplyDeletePlease refrain from being a retarded faggot.
DeleteOb-la-di-ob-la-da, life goes on, yeah. Na, na, na, na, life goes on
ReplyDeleteKC is a great town, but the government is terrible. Government, as usual, is the problem, not the solution.
ReplyDeleteIncompetents like Minder, Landes and Shulte are bailing now because the mess they made during the boom economy is about to be exposed as we head into a worldwide recession.
ReplyDeleteThe debt Sie, Wickam and these frauds left us, will cripple KCMO for a generation!
This is bad news for the City and the citizens. Minder was a hard worker and somehow managed to secure millions in outside funding for projects. He got things done and you could count on him... rarities at City Hall. The nasty comments are likely from Public Works employees who didn’t like having the light shined on their incompetence which is plentiful. Projects are going to languish and money is going to be wasted. Sad.
ReplyDelete^^^^"Projects are going to languish and money is going to be wasted."
ReplyDeleteYou mean like it has for years now?
How could this guy have been so great as the Chief Innovation Engineer if something as rudimentary as filling potholes can be remedied?
ReplyDeleteIf Minder had been in charge of the department responsible for the potholes, they would have been remedied. Thank the brilliant Public Works director and her team for those numerous tire-blowing potholes.
DeleteWhat does Councilman Les Wynan think about this?
ReplyDeleteOh jeeze. You’re just crying because one of your sources is leaving.
ReplyDeleteChad, it was 11:28. Shouldn’t you have been working?
DeleteWho knew there are "problem solvers" at 12th and Oak? You mean it could get worse?
ReplyDeleteThanks stupid dave, but since you don't live in KC your opinions about don't count for shit. Go cry like a bitch about the shitty town you live in OK?
ReplyDeleteKeep 'em coming, Dave. We don't care where you live, your opinions are generally on point and well reasoned.
ReplyDeleteKickback arrangement "Genius". The FBI should take a look at the no bid shell companies related to prior management that got free taxpayer money.
ReplyDeleteStop posting Dave. We find your posts idiotic and childish. Your opinions are utterly irrelevant and full of shit.
ReplyDeleteNah. Yours are, though.
Delete^^and yet his aren't, yours and dave's are though. Weird.
ReplyDeleteLook at lil' Chimpy playing along. Lol
DeleteThis is all good stuff. The guy did a good job but city hall won't stop without him. The comments show how messed up 12th & Oak can get and why taxpayers keep having to pony up money to pay for one lawsuit after the next.
ReplyDelete12th and Oak is a hot zone for many poorly understood diseases of the mind.
ReplyDeleteVery amusing piece! I thought for sure today’s top post would be about the long-awaited crash in the stock market. Looks like it may be the big one we’ve been waiting for for many years now.
ReplyDeleteWith all that education and credentials under his belt, he decided to waste time working for them government, City Hall, Kansas City. Sounds like his credentials are smarter than he is.
ReplyDeleteSome people believe (or start out believing) that working in the public sector for citizens can be meaningful. As you go along, enjoying your work and accomplishing things but growing to hate the politics and the swamp, you still hope you can affect change. Finally, you throw in the towel and take your talents and skills where they are appreciated. It doesn’t make you less smart. It means you cared, you tried, you got frustrated and tired of the crap, and then you left.
DeleteEconomic development csar Kerrie Tyndall will solve it all. No worries with her in charge.
ReplyDeleteThe antics of Quinton Lucas. No end game to speak of but carnage enough to keep the trash service busy for decades. He doesn't get along with council members, including the ones that elected him. He doesn't get alone with the east, or the north, or the west or the south; and central Kansas City wants nothing to do with him. The kingdom building is a kingdom of nothing. The end game is a higher office but he peers with envy at the member of the state government. Missouri wont elect a gay black man as governor, unfortunately. In the interim he is left with free buses and selfies with the vagabonds.
ReplyDelete