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KC City Council Fires City Manager Wayne Cauthen

photo courtesy of KMBC TV Channel 9

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-871934.mp3

Kansas City, MO – Mayor Funkhouser dismissed the city manager Thursday afternoon, and asked him to leave the City Hall immediately. Six Kansas City council members supporting Wayne Cauthen said they were shocked today when they were notified that they'd be voting on his termination at today's council session. Councilman Ed Ford characterized it as a lack of respect.

MR FORD : "Government by ambush, is not the appropriate way for us to make what is probably the most important decision we make, which is the hiring and firing of a city manager."

There wasn't a lot of discussion about Cauthen's merits, and neither the mayor nor the six council members voting to remove him spoke against Cauthen. The City Manager has requested a hearing to revisit the decision. The council has meanwhile voted to instate budget director Troy Schulte as interim city manager.

I’ve been at KCUR almost 30 years, working partly for NPR and splitting my time between local and national reporting. I work to bring extra attention to people in the Midwest, my home state of Kansas and of course Kansas City. What I love about this job is having a license to talk to interesting people and then crafting radio stories around their voices. It’s a big responsibility to uphold the truth of those stories while condensing them for lots of other people listening to the radio, and I take it seriously. Email me at frank@kcur.org or find me on Twitter @FrankNewsman.
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