The Kansas City Council will pay half a million dollars to settle a lawsuit brought by Andrea Dorch, formerly one of the highest-ranking Black women at City Hall as the head of the Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity Department. She alleged that the city, and particularly former city manager Brian Platt, forced her out of that office because she objected to the city reportedly letting tech company Meta break diversity rules in constructing a Northland data center.
The city paid a private contractor to surveil Dorch as part of an investigation into whether she broke the city’s requirement that all its employees reside primarily in Kansas City, Missouri. She sued the city and Platt in March 2024.
The ordinance passed on a 9-4 vote. Council members Kevin O’Neill, Nathan Willett, Wes Rogers and Melissa Patterson Hazley voted against the settlement…