In Kansas City, the first decade of the 21st Century will be remembered as the decade of downtown.

It remains to be seen whether these last ten years brought the city’s renaissance or its financial Waterloo. But either way, it’s undeniably The Big Story.

Here’s my rundown of the most important events of the downtown decade.

Fair warning: They’re not the ones you’d expect. You won’t find the opening of the Sprint Center or the not-yet-completely-opened opening of the Power & Light District.

No, these are the key moments in the massive shift of power that caused billions of dollars to pour into downtown.

March 2000 – Barnes Gives Eco Devo Legal Contracts to Her Cronies

In one of the best articles I’ve ever read in the Star, Mark Couch (who moved on to the Denver Post and was replaced by Kevin Collison) reported that newly elected Mayor Kay Barnes had secretly awarded the lucrative contracts to represent the city’s economic development programs to her friends Herb Kohn and Mike Burke.

She denied it at the time, of course. Her chief of staff Joe Serviss told Couch, “She wasn't involved in the process.”

Yeah right.

Kohn and Burke are with Bryan Cave and King Hershey, respectively. Burke gave Barnes $5,000 during her election campaign. And Kohn was so close to Barnes that City Hall insiders freely spread stories about them that, if untrue, were slanderous.

I was never able to substantiate those rumors. But this much is clear: Kohn was Barnes’s right hand man during her legacy-building years and he was paid handsomely for it (Couch reported a $20,000 monthly retainer plus hourly billings as high as $250).

We have him to thank for the secretly negotiated deal with the Cordish Company, the out-of-town developers who built the Power & Light District – the deal we’re now paying $11 million to cover because the original numbers were so far off.

Without Kohn, who knows what might have happened downtown.

And without Mark Couch reporting on development for the Star. Well, we know what happened there.

Which brings us to…

September 2001 – Star Hires Kevin Collison

Every multi-billion dollar campaign to permanently alter a city needs a minister of propaganda, and the Star was happy to supply one.

The earliest Collison story I could find was from September 7 – “Construction Data Mixed for KC Area.” In less than a week he was greasing the wheels of the KC development scam with a 527-word piece about “a tax increment financing plan that would clear an industrial building and help develop an archaeological park” in the River Market.

(For more about Collison, read this.)

Columnist’s note: These next several highlights are all interrelated. I hadn’t realized they were until I started doing research for this column and I saw how they all flow together.

July 2002 – Star Announces Plans to build $200 Million Printing Plant Downtown

The Star broke the news of its own big development, of course. In his report on the announcement, Collison punched up the first sentence with two adjectives: “massive” and “dramatic.” Then-publisher Arthur Brisbane said, “This truly represents a great future for us."

August 2002 – Voters Turn Down a Plan to Spend Bond Money Downtown

Ordinarily, this would be a no brainer for voters: Approve the renewal of some capital improvement bonds and, without raising taxes, you’ll have more money to fix up streets, curbs and sidewalks, bridges, sewers, etc.

But this time around the city’s elites had secretly decided they wanted to invest a hefty chunk of that money downtown. But Kansas Citians weren’t about to let them do it.

Why?

Kansas Citians were sick of their so-called leaders – civic and business leaders, elected officials – spending so much of the city’s money on these big ticket items instead of the stuff that the city really needs: solid, well-maintained infrastructure.

In fact, just five years earlier, the KC muckity mucks were in agreement with them. They had served on and supported a blue-ribbon commission that came up with a plan to stop the dream chasing and to start paying for infrastructure.

But as soon as a new dream came along – revitalize downtown – they threw the sensible “fund infrastructure” plan out the window.

For once, though, voters saw through it and turned them down.

But the downtown boosters had little to worry about. They had the Star (and its $199 million real estate investment) on their side.

And you know what they say about folks who buy ink by the gallon.

September 2002 – Star Runs Six-Part Series on Downtown

“Mending Our Broken Heart,” debuting on September 22, was more than an in-depth series. It was an impassioned battle cry.

A sustained impassioned battle cry.

It didn’t just last a week, like the paper’s recent Pulitzer attempt about modern-day slavery.

This one went on for six weeks – the same six weeks leading up to Election Day in early November.

And guess what was on that ballot.

That’s right. The same downtown bonds voters had turned down in August.

They passed this time. The Star propaganda no doubt helped.

Coincidence? Doesn’t look like one to me.

In the big scheme of things, these bonds didn’t pump a ton of money into downtown. They were just a drop in the bucket.

But in terms of the shift in power, perception and symbolism, the campaign to pass those bonds and rob the city’s infrastructure to pay for downtown was a huge, huge victory.

November 2002 – Danaher Drops Out

After the win at the polls in early November, the downtown champions had one last foe to topple. Two-term City Council member Paul Danaher was mounting a campaign to unseat Kay Barnes.

He was running on a campaign to stop spending so much money on legacy projects and instead pay for repairs to the city’s crumbling infrastructure, which had ballooned into several billion dollars worth of broken sidewalks, crumbling streets and leaky sewer lines.

It was one that would have no doubt resonated with voters.

Problem was, Danaher couldn’t get any of the city’s super-rich people to come out and support him. (At least that’s what he told me at the time.)

Since then, other key events have occurred. Wayne Cauthen was hired as City Manager in February 2003. Barnes made Chuck Eddy head of the Finance and Audit Committee in April of that same year. They both played key roles in making this the decade of downtown.

But by then it was pretty much already a done deal. The forces that drive this city had shifted.

And now we have a bit of suburbia right in the heart of downtown.

And it looks like we’re going to be paying for it for a long, long time.