Pete Fullerton is the latest in a line of embattled EDC honchos (or, can anyone fix the EDC?)

Pete Fullerton had a nice job for more than two decades when he ran the Platte County Economic Development Council.

Up there, he helped cities in western Missouri’s most prosperous county strike deals to lure new businesses or expand existing ones. It was a job largely free of the political push-and-shove that typically accompanies economic-development positions. Fullerton seemed perfect for that job with his folksy, aw-shucks demeanor that plays well in a county where development partners and political subdivisions work fairly well together.

That’s why it was something of a head-scratcher when Fullerton accepted the CEO job at the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City in 2012, a job that’s fraught with the political machinations relatively absent in his previous position. 

The EDC is a nonprofit that contracts with KCMO to run various agencies that administer tax incentives, like the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority and the Tax Increment Financing Commission. The TIF Commission is the EDC’s most prominent agency, and the one that’s the subject of most of the tension that’s causing problems for the EDC (more on that later). The EDC’s functions amount to inside baseball for most people, even though what goes on within its walls is important stuff — it influences the flow of millions of dollars of tax money going to development projects.

Fullerton came into the job with grand ideas of building trust with taxing jurisdictions, improving morale within the EDC’s staff and making the organization more competitive. 

None of that really happened. Taxing jurisdictions are as suspicious as ever of the EDC, staff there keeps turning over and the organization is in financial distress. 

So it wasn’t a big surprise when Kansas City Mayor Sly James announced that Fullerton was out of the EDC, off to pursue some other unspecified career. The change was immediate; assistant KCMO city manager Bob Langenkamp will run the EDC on an interim basis. This will be Langenkamp’s second rodeo with the EDC; he filled in when Jeff Kaczmarek resigned in 2011.

This latest departure is another in a line of EDC honchos who have left abruptly, and amid dissatisfaction from the various factions that have an interest in the EDC’s business, of which there are many. The lineage of embattled EDC chiefs goes back to Mark Bunnell and then to Andi Udris to Kaczmarek and now to Fullerton.

Maybe the EDC’s problems are bigger than Fullerton, someone who had a strong touch for working economic-development deals but seemed uncomfortable managing a turbulent organization that lacks clear direction.

Consider the EDC’s place in Kansas City’s political universe. There’s an organization called the Kansas City Area Development Council that’s supposed to recruit businesses from outside the region. But the KCADC works for the region, not only for Kansas City, Missouri. Same deal with the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. While most cities in the metro have their own chambers of commerce that recruit businesses and facilitate tax incentive deals, the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce accepts dues from any business in the metro, whether it’s in Olathe, Lee’s Summit or Northmoor. Mark Funkhouser used to lament the fact that KCMO lacked its own dedicated chamber of commerce, but he was lampooned by the civic community and members of the Kansas City Council for speaking out about it.

That makes for plenty of overlap and duplication with the EDC from other organizations that serve many different masters. So what exactly is the EDC’s role? Is it supposed to simply analyze and craft development deals? Does it go out and try to attract businesses? Some combination of both? Those answers seem to change like a Kansas City springtime wind.

What’s clear is that the EDC staff is supposed to support statutory incentive agencies like the TIF Commission and account for money going in and out of the organization. It’s also clear that they don’t do that job well. Last month, the Kansas City Business Journal had the details of the EDC’s dire finances. The part that sticks out: The EDC at that point had $30,000 in its bank at a monthly burn rate of $275,000.

That bit of news caused TIF Commissioners to recoil at the prospect of paying the EDC for services, which hasn’t been done for seven months. TIF Commissioners — an 11-member body of which six are appointed by Mayor James and the rest are populated by school district, county and library officials — didn’t want to reward the EDC with cash when its staffers couldn’t give a clear answer on where the money was going.

That’s a big problem for the EDC because the TIF Commission makes most of the organization’s money through a percentage of revenues from the deals it strikes (an apparent conflict of interest that people seem to be OK with).

An auditor has been hired to try and sort out the organization’s finances. But even that process has been a challenge; its release has been continually delayed and is rumored to be a disaster.

The audit may answer when the EDC’s financial ship wrecked and whether that coincided with Fullerton’s arrival more than two years ago. If it did, then maybe it was time for Fullerton to go. But independent sources tell The Pitch that EDC board members have meddled in the EDC’s affairs, influencing decisions, like personnel that Fullerton should make on his own accord.

If that’s the case, then the entire organization probably needs a good system flush.