P&L District invites oversight of dress code

Acknowledging that its dress code was a public-relations debacle, Power & Light District officials announced their intention to form an oversight board.

Standing in front of the predominantly African-American workers who enforce the dress code in the district’s Kansas City Live! block, Zed Smith, the district’s managing partner, invited the NAACP, the Urban League, the Kansas City Police Department, elected officials and others to serve on the board. Smith said the board would meet in public and have authority over an independent contractor hired to enforce the dress code.

Smith said the “unprecedented” step was being taken in spite of the district’s confidence that its dress code is color-blind. “Our objective here is transparency,” Smith said. “We want to assure the community of Kansas City that the dress code is being implemented without bias, without regard to race.”

Last year, city leaders complained that the Cordish Company, the district’s developer, was using the dress code to exclude African-Americans. Denying the policy was racist, Cordish officials unsuccessfully resisted the city’s attempt to rewrite the standards of acceptable dress.