Kansas City’s 6th District stretches from the Country Club Plaza to the Cass County line. In the city’s upcoming City Council elections, former Jackson County legislator Dan Tarwater and veterans’ nonprofit worker Johnathan Duncan are vying for the open seat.
The race represents a broader political tension in Kansas City between progressives who reject the current status quo and want a Kansas City that centers the needs of its most vulnerable residents, and those who advocate for more moderate solutions.
Duncan and Tarwater were the top two vote-getters in the city’s April primary. Tarwater received 45% of the vote, while Duncan received 24%.
Tarwater served on the Jackson County Legislature from 1994 to 2022. He says he wants to bring his experience in the legislature to the City Council.
“Our crime rate is out of hand right now,” Tarwater said. “Our streets, sidewalks, roads — they all need work.”
Duncan is an Army combat veteran who served in Iraq. He’s now the Administrative Operations Director at the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a nonprofit veterans' service organization. Duncan has been organizing with citywide tenant union KC Tenants for the past three years. He says everyone who lives in Kansas City deserves to stay.
“When we look at the needs in our city, a lot of them can't be addressed unless you have a home,” Duncan said. “There are people who talk about housing people in jails and that doesn't seem right to me.”
Duncan’s endorsements include KC Tenants Power, the political lobbying arm of KC Tenants; the Kansas City chapter of Our Revolution; Pro-Choice Missouri; the Sierra Club and Teamsters Local 41.
Tarwater is endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police, Firefighters Local 42 and Northland Strong.
Duncan says the city should publicly fund housing and rent it at below market rate, instead of giving city money and tax breaks to developers charging rents that aren’t affordable to many residents.
“We need to be investing in our communities to actually build housing that people can afford,” he said.
Tarwater said he supports “helping people help themselves.”
“Right now we need to get people back to work,” Tarwater said. “We need to get people working on different construction job sites, good paying union jobs.”
Duncan and Tarwater also disagreed on reparations for Black Kansas Citians. Mayor Quinton Lucas recently appointed 15 members to the Mayor’s Commission on Reparations to study what reparations for Black Kansas City residents would look like.
“I think that when you look at the wealth transfer that happened from our Black communities, we need to reinvest in those communities,” Duncan said. “So I would support reparations and direct stimulus to our Black communities.”
Tarwater did not voice support for direct payments to Black residents.
“I think you can help by teaching a person how to fish instead of giving them fish, so I would much rather work on it through affordable loans and other things that can help them start an independent business,” he said.
Duncan said the city should invest in more community resources instead of jails. Kansas City is currently debating whether to spend $1.5 million to design a new municipal jail.
Duncan doesn’t think the police department should hire more officers, and believes the city should fund programs that focus on the root causes of crime. He supports reinstating the requirement that KCPD officers live in Kansas City; the Board of Police Commissioners passed a policy last year allowing KCPD officers to live in Kansas.
“We need jobs with thriving wages. We need housing,” Duncan said. “That's why I got involved with KC Tenants – because providing housing and actually truly affordable housing and stabilizing our neighborhoods is violence prevention. Our communities need more opportunities.”
Tarwater said the KCPD needs more officers. He said he doesn’t support a residency rule because of how difficult it is to fill positions.
“We need to have the officers there because they need to be out on patrol,” he said. “We need to do the foot patrol. We may even bring back the horse patrol downtown and make our streets safer.”
The sixth in-district seat, as well as all 11 other City Council seats, are up for election June 20. Kansas City voters in Jackson County can check their voter registration and find their polling place at the election board website. If you live in Clay County, go to the website of the Board of Election Commissioners. Platte County voters can check the Board of Elections website.
