Your Tax Dollars Not at Work

"Hold on real quick," Riley interjected. "Never before have we had a staff member who, while the council is talking, abruptly gets up and interrupts and says, 'No, I want to talk right now.' That's totally inappropriate. I was trying to say something, and she just runs up to the microphone and arbitrarily cuts me out."

"From the finger pointing in my face earlier this morning to the interruptions ..." Riley trailed off.

"He and I have been arguing all morning," Hinsvark acknowledged.

Hinsvark left City Hall abruptly in September 2007.

Riley still bristles at what he considers to be unfair scrutiny of the project by city staffers.

Cindy Circo, Riley's fellow 5th District council member, did not return calls from The Pitch seeking comment on Citadel Plaza.

Threatt says the city has forced the CDC-KC to jump through hoops that other developers haven't had to, such as the third-party study.

"We're not trying to say we did everything perfectly," Threatt says. "We have a cross to bear. But that's not what the holdup is in this project. There are items prohibiting it moving forward."

But he won't specify what those items are.

Neither will LaTrisha Underhill, the assistant city manager working on the CDC-KC agreement.

In October, Underhill told The Pitch that the Citadel Plaza situation was "an emotional issue for a lot of people."

But when pressed for specific issues delaying the agreement, she was unwilling to provide details. "They've been various and sundry," she said.

Underhill left her job at City Hall on December 20, after news reports that she had sent sexually explicit e-mails.

Tancredi is adamant that, before the city puts taxpayer money on the line, the CDC-KC must convince the city that it can be trusted. The CDC-KC should fully explain how things got so bad, how it intends to clean up its financial and environmental mess, and how it will complete the project, Tancredi says.

"I don't think they ought to rely on the argument, 'Hey, we're on the east side, no one else is doing much over here, so back us up.' They should be able to say, 'These are our abilities and this is how we'll get it done.'"

Ewing and neighbor Janet Boggess are starting yet another year wondering what's going to happen to what used to be their neighborhood. They're thinking about suing the CDC-KC or the city — if they can figure out which to blame.