Andrew Champlain of Platte County has been engaging in some back and forth with Platte County officials as he seeks some background public information on, among other things, the county commission’s recent decision to exit the Clay Platte Ray Mental Health agreement. Recently he has been copying in the local media on his correspondence with county officials, which has made for some fascinating reading. See one of Champlain’s letters to the commissioners at right, which we are reprinting in The Landmark as a letter to the editor.
The topic of his letter in this edition focuses on the county commission’s budget line item for legal services for Sunshine Law matters, which has more than tripled from $50,000 in 2024 to $180,000 in 2025.Champlain makes a great point in his letter when he says: “When outside counsel are inserted into the Sunshine process, it delays citizen access, adds unnecessary legal expense, and creates the appearance that the county is paying lawyers to obstruct disclosure rather than facilitate it.”
He’s not wrong.
Champlain, in a later email exchange between the two of us, provided some context.
“The commission has stopped responding to basic questions on several important issues–such as why county business is being conducted through private Gmail accounts, why outside counsel is directly to Sunshine requests with statements that only the elected county clerk is legally authorized to make, and why routine county records are being redacted as if they were federal secrets,” he told me.
“Based on my Sunshine requests and the county’s own responses, Platte County is not operating transparently. Records management is careless at best, and we’re now spending taxpayer money to pay outside counsel for work the clerk is already paid and obligated to perform. The cost of outsourcing these statutory duties is roughly equivalent to the clerk’s own salary, a clear sign of inefficiency and misplaced priorities,” Champlain says.
It would not be shocking if legal action eventually arises from Champlain’s frustrations at getting public information from the county. In his exchanges with county officials it is clear that legal action has crossed his mind.
“In short, taxpayers are paying twice for the same job, while accountability and transparency continue to erode. And when Platte County eventually faces a lawsuit for Sunshine Law violations it will be the citizens who pay yet again for the county’s failures. Ironically, this is the very outcome the commission claims it is increasing legal spending to prevent. Yet, based on my own Sunshine requests, those very issues remain unresolved and may be growing worse,” Champlain told me.
We’ll keep you posted.
We’ve been sitting on this confirmed news a while for no particular reason other than the chance to give it some noticeable front page space. As you’ll see on our front page this week, there’s a major data center complex coming to Platte County. It’ll be within KCI-29, the industrial mega site owned by Hunt Midwest, south of Hwy. 92 and east of I-29. KCI-29 is mainly accessible off of I-29 through the Mexico City Avenue exit, and accessible off Hwy. 92, via Bethel Ave. or Winan Road.
We essentially broke the news of this likelihood way back in March in this column space. My column piece in March got a bit of pushback from a county commissioner, the same commissioner who has been caught going full Nan Johnston in some of his emails to constituents by telling them to “never believe what you read in The Landmark.” It’s the same commissioner who two weeks after my report told me via text message that code name “Project Kestrel” is “not a data center.”
Lol. Well, guess what? As we reported and speculated in this column space way back on March 19, “Project Kestrel” is in fact a data center. And not a tiny one. It is, as we mentioned back on March 19, a project of six phases. It is pledging about 50 jobs per phase.
More proof that when you’re faced with the choice of trusting the words of a Platte County Commissioner or trusting what you read in The Landmark, trusting The Landmark is the wiser choice.
Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean I’m excited about a monstrous data center complex coming to Platte County. Not a huge fan of data centers, to be clear. But I am happy to prove once again that The Landmark and our sources are much more trustworthy than the words of the county commissioner whose name rhymes with Tricker.
Platte County Landmark Facebook page update. I mentioned last week the photo of the fiery vehicle crash on I-29 was on its way to a wild number of total views. As of this writing, that picture/cutline has 208,264 views.
The even bigger news is this week Meta informed us that The Landmark’s Facebook page has had 1.2 million views in the past 28 days (see screenshot above). Absolutely incredible. Thank you, readers, for your support and your constant interest in Landmark content. And big thanks to the many readers who are thinking of The Landmark when they spot news while out and about.
There has been a game of musical chairs among city clerks in Platte County.
Recently, Robin Kincaid resigned after many years as city clerk at Riverside. That started a chain reaction. The longtime city clerk at Parkville, Melissa McChesney, then left Parkville to take the open job at Riverside. Then, Melissa Bazert, who had been city clerk for Platte City for only a few months, decided to leave Platte City to accept the city clerk post at Parkville.
Bazert had moved into the role as city clerk for Platte City after aldermen fired previous longtime city clerk Amy Edwards back in April. Everybody left their previous gig for a higher paying post with another city.
(Find Foley living rent free in the minds of county commissioners. Email ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)
