Burns&Mac running false radio ads on 4 stns! Deceives public! Lobbies KCMO Council for their NoBid "New KCI"!! Goals: a) avoid public vote b) skim addl $140M financing profits and c) head off Katy Shields' smarter plan: local revenue bonds

 Bottom line: if Burns & Mac will lie to the public NOW, what else will they conceal?  Or attempt to sneak past the KCMO City Council?

This is a clear case of deceptive lobbying.  Burns and Mac is spending thousands of dollars on what's called The Assumed Close.

They struck their deal with Mayor Sly James.  It's been blocked.  The council wisely caved into public pressure, to at least invite a few others to bid.  And best of all, Katy Shields came up with a better plan, selling Airport Revenue Bonds, which will save the taxpayers $140 million in interest, since public bonds are sold at a lower interest rate than what Burns and Mac's secret moneybags, Michael Merriman at Americo will charge rich investors, (eg backers of Sly James).

But who would be surprised  at the temerity of telling an untrue outcome?  At B&M's IGNORING the facts that is, their Pearl Harbor sneak attack to spend a billion bucks to build a SMALLER airport may have been thwarted??

Who would be surprised at Burns and Mac now lobbying falsely by running radio spots AS IF THEY ALREADY WON AND BUILT THE "NEW KCI"??????

The splash page of Burns and McDonnell's own website is our first clue to an altered sense of integrity.  It starts with some X-files worthy music, and this apocryphal quote:
It can happen right before your eyes.
And at first, you might not even notice.

I hate liars.  So when I heard this unsourced radio spot on my favorite station, 980 KMBZ, claiming the city already built a new KCI, paid by Burns & Mac, I investigated.  Because the FCC says all spots must make it clear, who paid for them.  This one doesn't.  

Turns out it IS Burns and Mac paying the bill.  But could just as easily have been a lobbying group promoted and funded by their benefactor, Sly James.  Or Michael Merriman at Americo Insurance, the secret financier who hides from all reporters, and stands to make $140 million in higher bond rates.

Mike Merriman's Americo Life secret downtown financing partner 
for Burns and Mac's No Bid billion dollar, smaller"New KCI".
He may have paid Burns & Mac to run the false radio spots.
After all, if he snags this No Bid contract, he makes an extra 
$140 million, because private investments earn 1 1/2 to 2% 
more interest per year than publicly financed Airport Revenue Bonds. 

Burns & Mac has 5 registered lobbyists, according to James Klahr, Director of the Missouri Election Commission.  He shared with me, Missouri law is very weak on disclosures--re issues coming up on a ballot or a candidate: just for printed materials.)  But the FCC says  on every spot in America for any purpose: reveal to the public, (which owns the airwaves), exactly who is paying to dish out this narrative, in this case, a false one.

The spot states, "...in 2017, Kansas City made history, with the first ever privately built airport in the nation...built and financed locally...every pilot is talkin' about that new privately built KCI..."

It's simply not true!  It's wishful lobbying.

Listen here: KCI Pilot radio spot on 
4 Entercom stations


The spots are airing this week and next, thousands of dollars on a heavy schedule on four major Entercom radio stations: AM 980 KMBZ; 98.1FM (think EJ& Ellen and Dana and Parks); KCSP610 Sports, and 98.9 KQRC the Rock (Johnny Dare et al) .