Man of Many Hats

Attorney Tim Kristl wore a tan suit and a badge to the Kansas City, Missouri, Council meeting on July 20. The badge identified Kristl as a city official: He sits on the Parks and Recreation Department board.

But on this day, Kristl was not tending to the public’s business. Instead, he represented a developer seeking incentives for a proposed shopping center at North Oak Trafficway and Vivion Road. The plan, which the Council approved, provides the center’s developer about $10 million in public assistance through tax-increment financing (TIF), a tool the city uses extensively to promote growth.

As a development lawyer, Kristl often negotiates with the city and its affiliated agencies. As a parks board member, he sets policy for a city department with a budget of $51 million.

“I wear lots of hats,” Kristl tells the Pitch.

On occasion, it’s difficult to tell which hat Kristl is wearing. A joiner, Kristl is deeply involved in civic affairs. At the same time, he represents a number of clients who have more than a passing interest in the decisions city leaders make. His days might be mapped like a Venn diagram, with volunteer work and the pursuit of commerce intersecting at different points.

Kristl the parks commissioner, for instance, sits on a committee that advises the Tax Increment Financing Commission on how to spend money captured by the North Oak TIF plan. Kristl the attorney represents the developer of a project within the plan.

Kristl insists that he operates in an ethical manner. “Anybody who sits on a board or commission who is a lawyer will occasionally have a client show up in front of them,” he says. “You have to recuse yourself at that point in the ballgame.”

City ethics rules forbid public officials from engaging in business that is “incompatible” with the proper discharge of their duties. In addition to abstaining from votes, Kristl says he tries to make sure that his purpose and allegiance remain clear. He sat on a steering committee that worked with the City Planning Department on a development plan for the North Oak Corridor. At one point in the process, the committee listened to the developers of North Oak Village, the shopping center that recently received city approval.

North Oak Village is Kristl’s client, and he assisted with the presentation by describing how the TIF component might work. But a fellow North Oak Corridor committee member finds no fault with the way Kristl handled himself. “There was no backroom activity,” says Jim Rice, the executive director of Northland Neighborhoods Inc., an organization the city supports with Community Development Block Grant money. “It was Tim Kristl clearly disclosing his role as the attorney for the developers and being part of the presentation. He simply stepped out of his role as a steering committee member and helped with the presentation.”

Rice and other civic leaders say they appreciate Kristl’s expertise. Prior to joining the parks board, Kristl served for 11 years on the TIF Commission. A resident of Kansas City, North, he also chairs the Clay County Economic Development Council and a Paseo Bridge improvement committee. He is recognized as someone who follows through when he volunteers. As Kansas City Councilwoman Deb Hermann puts it, “Tim’s going to show up.”

As a parks commissioner, Kristl makes profound decisions. In addition to fixing swing sets and planting flowers, the Parks Department builds and maintains the city’s 132 miles of boulevards and parkways.

Kristl represents developers who own property near existing or future parkways. For instance, Kristl represents Briarcliff Development Company, which is completing an office, retail and residential project north of the river at Briarcliff Parkway and U.S. Highway 169. The project will stand less than a mile away from a new parkway the city will build in place of Briarcliff Road.

But Kristl insists his clients do not derive direct benefit from his work on the parks board. Kristl says Northland leaders have been trying to get Briarcliff Parkway built for 25 years, long before he began representing Briarcliff Development Company. “Do I perceive that I am benefiting [Briarcliff Development CEO] Charles Garney or his development by putting that road in? Not really.”

But the fact remains that Kristl the development lawyer and Kristl the parks commissioner often speak with one voice.

Last year, Kristl represented a group that wanted to knock down an office building at Chouteau Trafficway and Interstate 35 and build a hotel in its place. Kristl asked the TIF Commission to incorporate the building in the Chouteau TIF plan. Kristl’s client hoped to take advantage of the TIF Commission’s power of eminent domain. The owner of the office building, Randy Robb, was unwilling to sell at the price Kristl’s client had offered.

The TIF Commission balked at the request, and Robb ended up selling to another buyer. Robb tells the Pitch he received a “substantially higher offer” than what Kristl’s client proposed.

As a parks commissioner, Kristl has kept alive the notion of using eminent domain to take private property along Chouteau Trafficway. The Parks Department wants to turn the road into a parkway. Earlier this year, Kristl and other city leaders talked about using the parkway alignment as a means of eliminating the tattoo parlor and used-car lots that line the trafficway. Kristl told The Kansas City Star that parkway construction presented an opportunity for “neighborhood revitalization.”

Kristl says he wants to build parkways in the Northland to improve the quality of life, not enrich developers. “Am I in a conflict of interest because I’m trying to cause growth to occur in the Northland? How far do you go with that? I’ll guarantee you I’m trying to cause growth. If that means that my law business gets better because I’m causing growth, maybe. Does that mean it’s a conflict of interest? Boy, that’s a pretty remote way to look at it. But I suppose you could look at it that far if you wanted to.”

If boulevard and parkway construction is connected only remotely to Kristl’s law practice, his appointments to TIF advisory committees provide a more substantial link.

Kristl sits on the advisory committee of the Shoal Creek TIF plan, which uses the taxes generated by new development to pay for $86 million in street work north of the river. Kristl also represents developer John Ferguson, who’s building a retail project within the plan.

Kristl says Ferguson asked for his help in getting the city to pay for road improvements that would benefit Ferguson’s project. “During that process, I didn’t vote on anything related to him,” Kristl says. “I did participate on the committee but not on anything related to him. He’s now no longer directly involved in the TIF plan, and I’m still on the committee.”

Kristl’s defenders say knowledge he brings to civic boards outweighs concerns about conflicts of interest. “When Tim is involved in a deliberative body, the learning curve improves for everyone involved,” Rice says.

Councilwoman Hermann says she calls Kristl when she has questions about TIF. “He knows where all of the holes are,” she says. Parks Director Mark McHenry calls Kristl “a valuable member of our park board.”

Even people who disagree with Kristl respect his abilities.

“He and I have been on different sides at times, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think he does a good job,” says community activist Anita Gorman, who opposed the North Oak Village plan. “I don’t always agree with him, but that doesn’t make him wrong and me right, either.” Gorman says she sees no evidence that Kristl abuses his position as a parks commissioner.

Kristl is effective, but occasionally abrasive. At a parks meeting last December, City Auditor Mark Funkhouser presented a report critical of the lack of competitive bidding for the Starlight Theatre management contract. Kristl felt the need to remark on a 7 percent raise that Funkhouser had received. Kristl asked the auditor if he was wearing “a 7 percent tie.”

Kristl serves on the parks board without pay. He says he gives away half his time. His knowledge and ability to get things done can be a curse, he says.

“I could probably make more money if I just sat and worked,” he says. “My wife says to me all the time, ‘Why don’t you give up some of these damn jobs and make more money?’ She’s probably not wrong, either. But, you know, I get my high by making an impact. I really do.”

Kristl leaves the second-guessing to others. He does not, for instance, see a problem with his wearing his parks badge when he’s conducting private business at City Hall.

“It gives me an ease of getting in the door. That’s really all it’s for,” he says.