Issue 190: Kansas City, here we come (aka the Brian Platt story explained).
Also: JC Heights buses, NJCU's merger, Ukrainians in JC, and more! (The "more" is a feral cat!!!)
Good morning! Well, this is a long one, but I had to go long in order to unpack a bizarre-but-very-relevant story with a Jersey City/Kansas City connection. I hope you have a wonderful Sunday and as always, thank you for reading! — Amy
Buses in the Heights
If you live in JC Heights, you’ve likely noticed that your bus service isn’t great. From an email from Safe Streets JC:
SafeStreetsJC partnered with the parents’ Heights group on a petition to improve two particularly slow and critical bus routes in Jersey City, the 86 and the 9. Both of these buses serve a vital connection between JC neighborhoods and downtown, and they run once an hour on a good day and usually not operating [sic] past 7pm.
Our follow-up action will be dialing into the NJ Transit board meeting this Tuesday, March 11th, at 10:00am. These meetings are poorly attended, and usually calling in actually has an impact.
I can absolutely confirm that calling into those meetings helps (scroll down on the page that the link brings you to — there will be a 1-800 number you can call into during the meeting, just be sure to take note of the meeting code) from my campaign to help the buses on the West Side. It feels weird that you’re calling into something and just sort of sitting there on hold until they get to you, but it does seem to be effective and something they take seriously. Be sure to share your personal experiences, maybe times when you were trying to take the bus to work or school and ran into problems, or you saw overcrowding when passing by.
Our buses are crucial to making Jersey City work. I’ve gotten a bit of pushback from statewide folks because now we have Via here in JC, but that doesn’t go nearly far enough to addressing the need we have, especially during commuter hours and also for early/late shift workers. Our city runs on public transportation, and it’s worth it to make some time to ask for better service. I hope if you’re affected by these bus lines that you’ll consider phoning in as well as signing the petition.
Why everyone was suddenly talking about Kansas City last week aka The Brian Platt Saga
Oh boy, here we go. I recommend this as a musical backdrop to the following mega post, at least once.
If you saw a lot of social media posts from local folks this week about something to do with Kansas City, you might have been a bit confused. This story is more than a little complicated, especially if you’re new(ish) to Jersey City, but I’ll try my best to unpack it and explain why so many people were buzzing about a city in the midwest that seemingly has no connection to what’s going on over here. Let me start with some background.
From 2013-April 2018, Brian Platt was the Chief Innovation Officer in Jersey City’s Office of Innovation1, and then from April 2018-December 2020, he was the Business Administrator for the city. There’s no clear power structure flow chart for how things work in City Hall, but both of those positions are way up there towards the top, and Business Administrator, in particular, is akin to being the mayor’s right hand man. During his tenure, it was widely acknowledged that he was one of the most powerful unelected people in the city, and that he worked extremely closely with Fulop almost daily on all sorts of issues. Being named Chief Innovation Officer was a pretty big step up for Platt when he was named — his LinkedIn has his previous job experience being an Analyst for McKinsey for two years, and before that, Chief Firefighter in Mountain Lakes (a tiny town of about 5,000). It’s not a crazy ascent, but his is definitely a CV that escalates quickly.
He left Jersey City after December 2020 and started a new job in Kansas City, where he became the City Manager. Honestly, I kind of thought that was the end of this story arc — young guy comes to JC, soars to great heights locally, trades in experience to get a job someplace else; not terribly unusual or noteworthy, and I figured this was the way a lot of people in government jobs probably move around.
But before I go into what then happened in Kansas City, I should mention that his tenure in JC was not without controversy. He clashed for years with local activists — you could say this comes with the job, but I’ll leave that up to you — but by far his biggest controversy was one involving our local Recreation Department. From the Kansas City Defender:
As Business Administrator of Jersey City – a powerful role equivalent to city manager – Platt oversaw a 2019 overhaul of the city’s Recreation Department that would later spark a major discrimination lawsuit.
In that reorganization, all employees were told to reapply for positions in a newly created department. According to a lawsuit filed by 10 longtime recreation employees (9 of whom were Black and 1 Latino), the plan had starkly disparate impacts: Black staff were “subjected to illegal transfers, title changes or demotions” while most white employees were not. The plaintiffs – many of them veteran Black city workers with decades of service – say Platt’s reorganization created a hostile work environment for Black employees.
Local civil rights advocates in Jersey City quickly voiced concerns. “I don’t think Brian was very compassionate or even considerate of the needs of the minority groups in Jersey City,” Rev. Nathaniel Legay, president of the Jersey City NAACP, told KCUR in a 2020 interview when referring to how Platt treated the recreation staff.
Prominent community members were hit hard by the shake-up. Frank Gilmore, a well-known youth mentor who ran a popular city summer camp, was abruptly transferred out of recreation to a job managing a mobile shower unit for the houseless – essentially demoted to menial duties unrelated to his expertise.
[…]
Platt defended the reorganization as “merit-based,” a common anti-DEI right-wing dog whistle, and denied any racial intent, but the backlash was significant. By early 2020, ten employees (nine Black and one Latino) had filed suit alleging that Platt’s policies were racist and ageist, accusing him and other city leaders of pushing out older Black workers in favor of younger hires. (One plaintiff was a former councilman in his 60s who says he was reassigned to trivial duties after decades of service.)
Frank Gilmore would wind up eventually going on to become a council member, so this story was likely not going away any way you look at it. But to make matters worse for Platt, KC has a pretty lively media space. Whereas Jersey City suffers from being so close to NYC and most of our outlets being tied up there (not to mention most recently our local paper going out of business), KC has TV stations, radio stations, and a dedicated paper of note all of which cover local issues within the city (not to mention a plethora of niche/independent media/blogs/Youtube channels/etc).
So, when it was announced that Platt was going to be hired as a City Manager, the Kansas City press went to work. While in JC, the Rec Department scandal and ensuing lawsuit did show up in the Jersey Journal, Hudson County View, and other outlets, it got nowhere near the level of coverage that it did in Kansas City when Platt was headed there. The KC local NPR outlet blasted the headline Kansas City Signed A Deal With Its New City Manager Despite Claims Of Racism In His Last Job and New Kansas City Manager Starts Job Amid Allegations Of Racism At Previous Position In Jersey City (yes, that’s two separate stories — they went on for days with explosive headlines like this) with other outlets running similar stories. Meanwhile, over in Jersey City, the only article I could find2 from the midst of the 2019 scandal was from Hudson County View, with a headline of Jersey City Council fails to repeal rec department reorg, approves salary increases — not the kind of thing that really grabs your attention as you’re doomscrolling headlines. If you missed it back in 2019, I think you could be forgiven.
Anyway, when it came time for Platt to be confirmed at his new job in Kansas City, this happened:
In December 2020, Kansas City’s mayor and council were tasked with hiring a new city manager – the most powerful unelected post at City Hall. Brian Platt emerged as a finalist, bringing ivy league recommendations. But as Kansas City leaders soon learned, he brought a massive amount of baggage.
Word of the Jersey City discrimination lawsuit and community criticism had reached Missouri. “Nearly every Black Kansas City council member voted against Platt’s appointment due to his documented history of racism,” the KC Defender reported.
Councilwoman Melissa Robinson urged her colleagues to delay the vote and investigate Platt’s record, noting the irony of preaching racial equity while potentially importing a problem. “We … acknowledge the racial sins of the past, but we … continue to create a racial division,” Robinson cautioned at the time.
Despite overwhelming opposition from Black leaders, Platt was handpicked and protected by Kansas City’s political establishment.
He was approved and started the job in December 2020.
Anyway, the reason why we’re talking about this in 2025 is that Platt was just suspended from that position following a lawsuit, and what was revealed in that lawsuit could be interesting to people in Jersey City. From the Kansas City Defender:
Shortly after Platt’s arrival in Kansas City, internal turmoil began to surface. In November 2022, Chris Hernandez, the city’s communications director and a 20-year veteran of City Hall, filed a bombshell whistleblower lawsuit accusing Platt of encouraging staff to lie to the public. Hernandez’s lawsuit details a Jan. 3, 2022 staff meeting in which Platt allegedly asked, “Why can’t we just lie to the media?” Stunned, Hernandez replied, “That’s not a good idea. We shouldn’t do that.”
Platt was unswayed. “Why not?” he countered. “In Jersey, we had a mayor who would just make up numbers on the fly from the podium, and no reporters ever called him on it.”
The implication, according to Hernandez, was clear: The new city manager saw outright lies as a viable PR tactic, based on his previous experiences.
Well! I realize I’m gilding the lily a bit here but let me just repeat that for emphasis. The former right hand man to the mayor of Jersey City reportedly said in a meeting at his new job:
“In Jersey, we had a mayor who would just make up numbers on the fly from the podium, and no reporters ever called him on it.”
Right, so — good times. In case you’re thinking to yourself “well, ok — that’s just one guy’s word about what was said in a private meeting,” there’s also this:
The lawsuit cites additional concrete examples of Platt’s blatant lies in governance. In spring 2022, Kansas City launched a “Summer of Street Resurfacing” campaign touting infrastructure improvements.
City staff, looking at the budget, planned to resurface just under 300 miles of roads – a fact reflected in official press materials. Platt, however, pushed for a larger number. He directed that announcements claim a full 300 miles even if slightly less were planned. Then in May, Platt went even further, tweeting the lie that over 400 miles would be resurfaced, a 33% inflation of the true figure according to the eventual court complaint.
Hernandez grew concerned about the misinformation and lies. When he asked if he should update the official press releases to match Platt’s 400-mile lie, Platt allegedly told him, “No, no, don’t do that. Just go with 300.” – effectively instructing the city’s PR team to publicly tolerate two conflicting figures (one from the manager, one from the official documents).
Around the same time, Platt reportedly became enraged by a Kansas City Star article about potholes that presented city data he didn’t like. According to the lawsuit, Platt demanded staff call the newspaper to say its numbers were wrong, even after being shown the figures were accurate and came from the city’s own open data portal. Hernandez and other communications staff felt Platt was asking them to undermine factual reporting simply because it was unflattering.
Fascinating! Also, there’s someone else who worked in the same office who is backing up the quote:
In a major development, Maggie Green, the city’s former Media Relations Manager, along with other eyewitnesses, took the stand and confirmed under oath that Platt did, in fact, attempt to encourage city officials to lie to the media.
Green testified that in the same January 2022 meeting that Hernandez mentioned, Platt asked, “Why can’t we just lie to the media?”—the exact phrase Hernandez alleged in his lawsuit. Green also recalled that Platt referenced his time in Jersey City, where he claimed the mayor fabricated numbers on the fly, and “no reporters ever called him on it.”
Anyway, this turned into a lawsuit with Kansas City’s communications director Hernandez winning a $900k settlement and, as previously mentioned, Platt being put on leave.
But wait, there’s more!
He’s also named in a lawsuit filed by the former head of the Civil Rights office in KC, where he’s being accused of a racially discriminating against the Black female head of that office and pressuring her to resign. As part of this lawsuit, it’s also been alleged that the city hired an aggressive private investigation firm to surveil and track the employee, causing her to be “in fear for her safety and the safety of her children.”
It looks like Platt maybe tried to leave KC for Austin in 2024 (I’m wondering if it’s possible that applying for this job was a way to get leverage to renegotiate his contract in KC, but obviously that’s not clear either way), making me wonder: if the Kansas City press could dig up so much stuff on this guy, I wonder what Austin would have found? And of course, the flip side of that is, how much has our own Jersey City press missed all along? And, another question worth asking: how many Brian Platt-like folks do we have working in City Hall right now?
NJCU Merger
NJCU, which has been struggling in recent years, announced this week the intent to pursue a merger with Kean University in Union, NJ. There’s still approvals that need to be made and a lot of hoops to jump through before such a merger happens, but both sides seem to be pretty confident that this is moving forward. In a massive document/webpage hosted on Kean’s site, the shared mission of both institutions (including both being minority-serving, Hispanic-serving, and urban schools) is stressed. According to the plan proposed, NJCU would stay where it is in Jersey City, but join Kean’s growing constellation of schools, which apparently (honestly, I had no idea!) includes classes in Toms River, Manahawkin, and Jefferson Township, NJ, and as far away as a campus in China.
The news of the merger was met with mixed reviews from faculty I spoke to. In many ways, this was all very much expected — NJCU, as mentioned, has been struggling and a merger was probably the best way to save it, and the list of schools in NJ that would be willing or able to step up to merge with it is incredibly short. This is an high stress time in academia in general, with Trump making it clear he’s no friend to higher education, and many schools trying to figure out how they’re going to weather cuts. But NJCU faculty I spoke to are wary about the loss of their individual identity (the new NJCU would be styled as “Kean Jersey City”) as well as the perception that Kean is more conservative and more beholden to state politics than NJCU has historically been. For administrators, there are fears around their jobs becoming potentially redundant and their positions being eliminated. I don’t think any of these things are unreasonable concerns.
The thing is, NJCU really has to be saved for the health of the city, so while I absolutely feel for the faculty and administration and share their concerns, this — for better or worse — probably had to happen. Again, the list of schools able and willing to merge with NJCU is really short, so I’m not sure what our other options are. NJCU is absolutely integral to the economy and life of Greenville most of all, but also the city as a whole, and the economic impact of losing the school entirely is just devastating to even consider. I’m glad that there’s some kind of solution that seems to be happening, but it’s just so sad we’re in this situation to begin with. (If you’re wondering how we got here, here’s a great summary of what brought the school to be in this position in the first place. It’s also notable that many colleges and universities in the US are in jeopardy, not only because of Trump cuts, but due to declining enrollment and skyrocketing costs, and many schools are exploring merger options. So without a doubt, the trigger for all of these issues can be found in that story I linked, but to be completely fair to all parties, it’s also a tough time for a lot of schools out there.)
Again, there’s a lot of boxes that have to be checked off before this happens, but for now it seems to be the path NJCU will pursue. Bittersweet, all around.
Ukrainian refugees in JC
President Trump is apparently revisiting the status of Ukrainian refugees in the US, which will affect quite a large number of folks who have settled in Jersey City. From Forbes (largely quoting Reuters but I tried to paste that directly and it made my computer crash):
President Donald Trump is planning to revoke temporary legal status for about 240,000 Ukrainians who fled Russia’s invasion of the country, Reuters reported Thursday, following weeks of an escalating feud between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy—and a drive by Trump to boost deportations.
The revocation is expected as soon as April and could set up the Ukrainians for deportation, according to Reuters, citing a senior Trump administration official and three sources familiar with the matter.
Ukrainian refugees were welcomed into Jersey City with open arms back in 2022 (here is a cute article with lots of pics of children checking out the city for the first time) and city services were set up to help the families settle. But now, a lot of that seems to be up in the air. From NJ Spotlight News:
[I]t’s “very scary” for Ukrainians in the U.S., said Oksana Condon.
“It is surreal,” said Condon, who heads Ukrainian Jersey City, a support group for war refugees, many of whom were granted Temporary Protected Status by former President Joe Biden, who vowed diplomatic support and arms for Ukraine. That ended abruptly with President Donald Trump, who promotes a decidedly pro-Russia agenda.
“I don’t know what to expect, and honestly, yes, we are tired, you know, but we are strong. We’re like in this twilight zone for three years,” Condon said.
Galyna Perederii, who settled in Hudson County after fleeing Ukraine with her two daughters, said there’s “not too much hope.” She visited family near Bucha in June and recalls air raid sirens going off at 3 a.m., “and I was just praying, oh my God, thank God, my kids are not experiencing that.”
This is just another part of the litany of really bad news for people looking to claim refugee status here in the US and for the advocates that work with them. And on a personal note, my family is Ukrainian and I can assure you that my mother is not taking the Trump news well (it is literally impossible for me to emphasize that enough), so this is hitting especially close to home for me, personally. But no matter what, these are folks that need our support, and it’s sad to see the country potentially turn its back on them.
This is one of those occasions when I would really appreciate some clarity from our mayor and city council as to what on earth we’re going to do as slowly Trump calls for more and more people to be deported. Are we going to continue to support refugees from all over the world in Jersey City (and if so, what exactly does that mean?)? Are we going to shelter folks clearly escaping a war (we have a lot of refugees that are, not just Ukrainians) or comply with sending them back? What are we doing?
Feral of the week
Our feral of the week comes from Feral Fixers’ IG, a local Trap-Neuter-Release nonprofit here in JC!
This is St. Joe, a cat that Feral Fixers trapped in order to get health care, get him (I assume?) neutered, checked out, and then release him back to his family and friends. I am obsessed with his wide eyes and tentative stance. St. Joe looks like he could just as easily curl up into your lap as potentially bite you, which is what all good feral cats look like.
Feral Fixers is a “registered 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to supporting our neighborhood street cats through spay/neuter, vaccinations, and medical care and rehabilitation. We are 100% volunteer-run and work throughout Jersey City, NJ.” They’re a great org that is working, along with other similar orgs, to keep the population of feral cats at a reasonable level in JC, so that all the cats get to live out good, happy lives outside. I have seen the work they do in the Lincoln Park area (one of their members often knows the “real” names of the cats I post in this series and has often been responsible for getting them care!) and they are integral to making sure our local strays aren’t suffering. I’ve also seen what happens when TNR (that’s “trap/neuter/release”) isn’t happening in this area, and how quickly the population of cats can get wildly out of control.
If you’re able, please consider a donation to Feral Fixers. As much as I may snap a pic of a cute cat in our neighborhood on my way home from work, Feral Fixers (and the other orgs who do similar work) are the ones really providing genuine care to our neighborhood cats. FF also recently trapped a cat named Wikileaks, who I’m kind of obsessed with (same link as St. Joe up above, only Wiki is potentially less photo-ready which honestly made him more personally identifiable).
THANK YOU to all the folks who take care of our resident animals. Seriously. You help make Jersey City great.
Ok let’s back up a bit already because I feel like as soon as the words “Office of Innovation” hit a bunch of eyeballs, people may have already rolled their eyes back and checked out. The JC Office of Innovation was started in 2015 (so technically after Platt had already been named Chief Innovation Officer — first the title came, then the office came after) with funding from “a generous grant from Bloomberg Philosophies to tackle challenges in City government with data-centric solutions.” This was part of a wave of Offices of Innovation that got started around that time, with many cities now having them (the state of NJ actually has its own dedicated Office of Innovation as well).
What do they do? From JC’s Office of Innovation page: “The I-Team uses Human Centered Design, a variant of the scientific method, to solve challenges: a question is asked, a hypothesis is made, data is collected and analyzed, a solution is proposed, and that solution is tested” and that page notes notable projects like running a kid’s bike ride in 2022 and helping to visualize the city’s COVID data during the pandemic.
The Jersey Journal archives from that time can’t be found in a basic Google search, and when I went to the JC Library’s archives of the paper from that time, it returned that there were no articles on the topic. I can tell you that this isn’t true — I remember them covering it at least somewhat, so this result is clearly just a glitch or something — but my larger point is if you’re looking back on that time and thinking, “how did I miss this?” well… it was reported on, but just not in such an attention-grabbing and urgent way as Kansas City outlets did years later, nor with the same frequency.
Mr Murphy’s comments are on target. The one thing I’d say about the Kansas City dust up is that, by nature, Jerseyites have a greater tolerance for characters like Platt who play fast and loose. I’m not a Fulop fan but I don’t see how Platt’s behavior in Missouri hurts Fulop in New Jersey.
Slava Ukraine !