Kansas City admits, then backtracks claim that mayor ordered audit of The Star

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Attorneys for Kansas City last week briefly admitted in a legal filing that Mayor Quinton Lucas ordered a 2024 audit of The Star’s coverage for perceived bias against the city, a remarkable admission that undercut Lucas’ denial of his role in directing the report.

A day later, however, the city backtracked and filed a new motion stating that Lucas only “received an email” with the audit. The new filing came after Lucas contacted the city’s law department.

The extraordinary retraction has once again thrust into the spotlight the city’s audit, which The Star revealed earlier this year after obtaining a copy of the review. The audit was unheard of in local politics, according to a former mayor, and sparked concern from First Amendment advocates.

Former Assistant City Manager Melissa Kozakiewicz, who worked in City Hall from 2021 to 2025, conducted the audit — called “Kansas City Star Bias Report” — in 2024 and reviewed 65 articles and opinion pieces for perceived bias against City Hall.

Revelations about the audit offered a unique window into City Hall’s relationship with the media organizations that cover it. Kansas City has come under scrutiny in recent years over its level of public openness and local news organizations in 2025 called on the city to provide better access to transparent information.

Kozakiewicz has long maintained that she conducted the audit at the request of Lucas in both an interview with The Star and a subsequent wrongful termination lawsuit against the city. Lucas, meanwhile, vehemently denied that allegation and said Kozakiewicz’s report was “voluntarily suggested and provided to us.”

That discrepancy came to a head last week when the city filed an answer to Kozakiewicz’s lawsuit that acknowledged Lucas’ role in ordering the report. The response was filed by attorneys with Fisher Phillips, a firm representing the city in the case.

“Defendant admits Mayor Lucas asked Plaintiff to evaluate whether the media was treating the city fairly in their news coverage,” the filing said.

The response echoed both Kozakiewicz’s argument that she conducted the report at Lucas’ direction and a series of emails from 2024 that appeared to suggest that Lucas played a role in the matter.

In one 2024 email obtained by The Star, Lucas thanked Kozakiewicz for sending the review and directed her to write a draft letter to The Star to “address our fair concerns of bias in reporting.”

The filing also inadvertently included a note between a Fisher Phillips attorney and the city’s law office with an internal question about the case.

After the filing became public, Lucas stood by his assertion that he did not order the audit. In an interview with a FOX 4 reporter, he said he reached out to the city’s attorneys about the filing after learning about it.

“I think there will be a different filing that is now filed that’s more in accordance with frankly what the discussion is,” Lucas told the station.

The city on Friday filed a motion to correct the filing. The new answer both removed the admission of Lucas’ role in directing the audit and the internal note between the two attorneys for the city.

“Defendant admits only that Mayor Lucas and others received an email from Plaintiff regarding purported media bias,” the filing said.

But the city’s motion to correct the filing made no mention of the change to that paragraph. In explaining the need for a correction, the city called the previous filing an “inadvertent administrative error” that included “internal attorney comments and draft material not intended for filing or public view.”

Jackson Overstreet, a city spokesperson, said the original answer was filed inadvertently and the city contacted the court clerk to rescind it.

Additionally, Overstreet said Lucas’ office contacted the city’s law department about the paragraph regarding the media bias audit, which he cast as an error.

“The City’s counsel then reviewed all materials and updated the response to the averment in that section,” Overstreet said. “All errors from the inadvertent filing have been corrected.”

Lucas, Kozakiewicz stand by their positions

In the wake of the contradictory filings, both Lucas and Kozakiewicz have remained steadfast in their positions regarding the audit.

Lucas, in a phone call, stood by his argument that he did not direct the audit and said The Star and other outlets were “being used for litigation strategy.”

He said attorneys for the city did not contact him before filing the original answer. He said the filing had errors and was sloppy, pointing to the fact that it also included internal communications between attorneys.

“It’s like as big of a screwup as a lawyer can basically have,” Lucas said, referring to the original filing. “So you’re asking me why they were imperfect in such a document where the imperfections are glaring.”

Kozakiewicz, reached by phone, said she stood by previous statements she made to The Star and in her lawsuit regarding Lucas directing her to conduct the review.

“Nothing needs amending on my side,” she said.

William Freivogel, a professor and former journalism school director at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, expressed surprise that the city’s attorneys would not have double-checked a fact that’s been so contested by the mayor before filing the answer.

“I guess the question is, are they correcting it or are they just making it more in line with the mayor’s denials?” Freivogel said.

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