Aside from the sitting mayor, Cauthen is probably the most contentious official in city government, but the controversy has been an aura or mystique moreso than reality. His detractors tend to be faceless, fearful, and willing to make charges that cast filthy soot over the city the same color as day-old snow coughed on by car exhaust.

Cauthen was already silhouetted in an office window, posing for photographer Phil Peterson, when I made my way up to his office. The city was recovering from a soft snow that was unrelenting and gradually ground the city to a near halt. I parked in a cold garage and trudged through a crosswalk through security up to the council level of City Hall.

Behind Cauthen and in the shot was the Sprint Center rooftop and the Power & Light District buildings still white at the edges. He spoke seldom and in a hushed voice when he did. He wore the familiar stern look, but he was cordial. From the windows, the shoot moved to his desk, and he sat with his hands crossed while Phil shot his reflection in the glass top.

Then, with the photos done, he directed us to a long desk the city communications officer, Mary Charles, joined us. He told us he’d participated in two interviews already that week: one with The Pitch just before we walked in, and another the day before with The Kansas City Star. His face broke from stone cold into a broad smile once my questions moved from the basic – about his path from Denver to Kansas City – to his life downtown. Early on, he was made a hero when an attempted outster by an unpopular mayor failed, then a year later, became the apparent villian with the city facing budget shortfall and the council and the general public demanding improvements in city services. And during the interview, I began to form my own opinions about a man who has been thrust in and out of the limelight in the last few years:

Wayne Cauthen is a man who has no apologies for who he is or what he believes. The City Manager’s role is a job to him – a public one, for certain – and yet it is also a lifestyle he has chosen to lead. In 2003, he was hired by Mayor Kay Barnes. He moved into a loft in the Library District to observe the city from the inside out and, at that time, to gauge the buy in on its eventual turnaround. Since then, he’s been taken by the city’s history and involved with the area’s youth. He imparts wisdom in a fatherly way, and he can talk as though he cares as you, a complete stranger, and he does it with a sincerity that is more than believable – it is actual.

I could also see how his straightforward approach could seem condescending to some. Directness always has a tendency to be misinterpreted. And he can easily keep the emotion hidden in his face.

While conducting further research, I determined that there are two kinds of people in Kansas City (minus from the ones oblivious to city government): those who support Cauthen and those who absolutely despise the man, but can’t seem to formulate a rationale argument to condemn his performance in office or criticize his management style. The comments I found posted about him on local blogs were shameful and are so dramatically slanted opposite him, that they couldn’t be interpreted as anything more than slander. Of course, there were the usual anonymous racist remarks. But nothing substantiated with facts or … information. I was also disenfranchised with local news coverage, which seemed to put its own angle on stories involving the City Manager. I found many suggestions as to why its reporters and opinion columnists might have those viewpoints, but those, too, were unsubstantiated guesses.

Cauthen’s real story hadn’t been told. My piece was a shot at telling it and while I think it works in its own way – as a piece that presents a level-headed view of the man – the article is still intended to laud him, so it would be possible for another thoughtful reporter to come along and attempt an even a clearer vision of the man at some point. For now, my story will hopefullly stand as a fair take. My hope is that it has worked to move some people to finally decide about the man, and at least consider the issues from his perspective.

The city buses running in the snow storm were an affirmation that the city could function well even in unrelenting weather conditions. Keeping the service online means breaking up the beauty and the stillness that follows a new snow. Likewise, roles in public positions are seldom left untarnished, either by the people in office or by the few detractors who want the good ones to resemble the worst kind. But the people in those roles have to push on and making a living for themselves, hopefully in the purest ways possible.

The flipside to those characteristics was that her professional approach had inadvertently cast a hard, almost impenetrable outer shell around her – an image that she had no soft side or that, if she did, it was nothing more than a thin veneer. To prove that she was indeed soft-hearted, she cited her close relationships with her office staff and bodyguards. At the time we spoke, Barnes couldn’t think of one employee that had left her office on negative terms.

I can’t imagine sitting down for a similar discussion with Kansas City’s present Mayor. Almost everyday, on the pages of the local newspaper that endorsed his candidacy, Mayor Mark Funkhouser is defending the relationship he shares with wife Gloria Squitiro in descriptions that go beyond what the public needs or cares to know. Worse, his ethics have come under fire as Joe Miller, Funkhouser’s former communications director, has accused the mayor of directing him to work full-time on the light rail campaign and leaving a memo about a staff discussion of Frances Semler’s appointment to the Board of Parks and Recreation out a Sunshine Law request.

Then, there’s the on-going drama with another former mayor’s office employee, Ruth Bates, who filed a law suit involving Squitiro and is now nearing settlement. Bates alleges that Squitiro created a hostile working environment by referring to her in a racially charged way and talking about sex.

The wise journalist might see it fit to steer clear from joining the discord involving Funkhouser and the law suit (or perhaps, more appropriately, the fall out.) Urban Times has wisely steered clear of the situation. Who needs another publication further promoting the city’s largest embarrassment? For awhile, I thought at the very least the situation made for interesting political theater, but the ethics investigation that Ed Ford brought to the floor yesterday and was approved unanimously by the Kansas City Council takes the situation to a serious new low.

The mayor and his wife might have gotten burned by a litigious former family friend (Bates) who might have financial motives in mind. I could buy that, somewhat. I could even understand that the mayor is more process-driven, not a politician. But integrity is a different issue entirely.

Recent national news coverage that strikingly portrayed Funkhouser as the victim in the case. Some local media outlets have asserted the Funk, along with the assistance of politically-minded Squitiro, has deliberately played his own part in whipping up the image. Funkhouser says his handlers have always told him his public relations skills are sub par, so how could he possibly fool The Wall Street Journal and Good Morning America into seeing things his way?

Given yesterday’s accusations that the mayor has broken the law, it’s apparent that there is in fact a deep separation in the mayor’s public and private personalities. As much as Funkhouser wants to believe in his straightforwardness, the “mayor at work” is not the same man as the “mayor at home.”

Funkhouser made his reputation in the City Auditor’s office, a position that showed he knew the inner-workings of city government. Government and politics, though, are two different beasts, and the latter has surmounted him. Unlike the media’s failure to tap Barnes’ motives, they’ve seemed to expose Funkhouser’s flaws at every turn, shrouding him in misery as opposed to mystery.

My opinions of the mayor, who I have not had the pleasure to interview yet, have been shaped by recent media coverage. What’s my impression? His ability to forge relationships appears not to exist. He has so far shown he is a difficult person and, in my experience, difficult people can only make great relationships with other difficult people. Anyone who is willing to defiantly host staff meetings at his own home to spite his colleagues is more than just out of touch. The ethics and the possible violations revolving around such a situation are downright dangerous.

Some Kansas Citians wonder if the mayor can recover from the debacle that he and his wife have created on their own. But there are others who were once his followers that don’t care anymore to see him recover. Barnes, a relative unknown at the time of her election, managed to reignite interest in the urban core in her tenure and she did it with a manner of professionalism that at times could sound insincere to some. In my estimation, she was were using carefully chosen words that showed she’d been schooled in the benefits of PR-sounding candor. This lesson, apparently, isn’t handed down from mayor to mayor.