Kansas City Fire Chief Donna Lake said she has been directed by new city manager Brian Platt to initiate a six-point plan to address racial discrimination in the fire department.
Lake made the announcement in a City Council business session Thursday after her presence was called for by council members who read an investigative series published by The Star on Sunday, showing the KCFD has for decades tolerated systemic harassment and discrimination targeting Black and women firefighters.
City Council members said they were repulsed by the findings.
"Something has to change," Councilman Lee Barnes Jr. said after an emotional outpouring about an incident in which a white fire cadet cinched a noose around the neck of Black classmate at the fire academy two years ago.
In her testimony Thursday, Lake acknowledged the failings of a department she has headed for just over a year and promised to change its hostile culture.
"I have no words to say about it," Lake said, "other than I agree wholeheartedly with you."
The six-point plan Lake outlined includes investigating claims from The Star's report, hiring someone from outside the organization to ensure fair treatment of all employees, and improvements to the recruitment and promotion systems that have failed Black firefighters.
The product of a year-long investigation, The Star's three-part series found that Black firefighters have been harassed and put in danger, kept from sought-after stations through unwritten rules of segregation and passed over for promotions.
Council members and city officials have vowed to investigate and address the problems outlined in the report.
Black firefighters reported rampant racial slurs and disparate treatment, The Star found. Last year at the fire academy, a white cadet "joked" that his favorite knot was a noose and put a rope around the neck of a Black classmate. The city sought to fire him, but following a union grievance and back-and-forth between the city and union, he resigned.
The paper reported that in a city where 30% of residents are Black, only 14% of the fire department is. Sixty-two years after the fire department integrated, its stations are still segregated, albeit unofficially. At some busy, inner-city fire stations, there hasn't been a Black captain in at least a decade.
At the department's highest levels, Black firefighters are even more severely underrepresented. Of the department's 48 highest-ranking officials, only three are Black.
Female firefighters have reported severe sexual harassment, and after receiving a special sales tax for two decades, the fire department still hasn't outfitted all of its fire stations to accommodate women.
"It would be grossly disingenuous to even suggest that the issues revealed in a recent journalistic analysis are not real and pressing challenges that remain palpable to many of our minority members," Lake said in prepared remarks during a more than hour-long discussion at the council's weekly business session.
But Lake said it would also be unfair to say the department has done nothing to address discrimination and poor recruitment of minority members to the department's ranks. She cited some efforts that have either fallen short or are relatively new and have yet to prove their effectiveness.
"I'm proud to say that the current .... cadet class is the most diverse class we recruited in years," she said.
One civil rights leader listening to her remarks was not impressed and criticized Lake and Platt, who are both white, for not consulting with Black leaders before introducing the improvement plan Lake outlined at the meeting.
"We are insulted at her insinuation of the age-old excuse 'we can't find them' or 'they don't qualify,'" Vernon Howard, head of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said in a written response to Lake's explanation of difficulties in hiring more Black firefighters.
"We do not trust the direction given by the city manager," Howard said. "We were not consulted or included nor were her community leaders to my knowledge."
Lake and Platt said the six-point plan is only a beginning and will be refined.
Initially, it calls for "full investigation of all accusations and issues set forth in the Kansas City Star articles, and any others not specifically noted," Lake said. It includes development of a zero-tolerance policy with regard to discriminatory behavior, to be incorporated in the union contract now up for renegotiation.
The other four elements of the city plan: Expanding diversity and retention efforts, a review of fairness in promotion, revisions of the disciplinary system to make firefighters more comfortable coming forward with complaints, and the creation of a new position: equity and diversity officer.
That person would report to the city manager, not the fire chief, and oversee implementation of the plan to "ensure fair representation, support and advancement of all employees" in the fire department.
City Councilman Kevin O'Neill said he hoped that person would come from outside the department. Otherwise, he said, "it's kind of like the fox watching the hen house."
Lake said she agreed it should be an outsider but that person would need to be embedded within the organization to be effective.
Mayor Quinton Lucas and the four other Black members of the council stressed the need to quickly address racial issues that make it hard to convince women and non-whites that it is a welcoming place to work.
Barnes was particularly disturbed by the city's handling of the noose incident and its aftermath prior to Lake becoming chief.
"Where was the support for the brother who had the noose put around his neck?" he asked. "That's the kind of culture that needs to be obliterated. We need to blow that up."
Councilwoman Ryana Parks-Shaw agreed.
"What he expressed is what I also feel," she said. "I was sickened ... when I read those four articles."
Tim Dupin, president of International Association of Fire Fighters Local 42, was at the council meeting, but declined comment when approached by a reporter.
Gwen Grant, president of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, said the city's fire department needs better leadership.
"Frankly, I was extremely disappointed in Chief Lake's comments and her action plan. I see her as a major part of the problem," Grant said.
"For more than 20 years, she has been a silent witness to racism and discrimination inside KCFD. For the past 365 days she failed to take immediate, impactful steps to put a stop to the racial violence in her department and hold her captains and administrators accountable. Her presentation today was nothing more than window dressing.
"A thorough, external investigation of the KCFD is of paramount importance and should be a priority of the City Council if we hope to get to the root of the problem," Grant said. "The Star's exposé is merely the tip of the iceberg. Deeper issues are lurking beneath the surface."
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