Why Is the Department of Economic Development Keeping Secrets?

At a Missouri House hearing on the stadium bill, Michelle Hattaway, Director of the Missouri Department of Economic Development, opened her testimony with a startling admission: “I am currently in negotiations with the Chiefs and the Royals. I am under a non-disclosure agreement with both teams, so I will do my best to answer your questions.”

Startling to me, anyway. None of the legislators on the committee seemed bothered.

Is there any public benefit to this secrecy?

There can be when vendors are bidding competitively for a state contract—say, road construction. Protecting proprietary financial or technical details in that context may encourage better bids and serve the public interest.

But stadium subsidies are different—there’s no obvious reason why secrecy is necessary or helpful. When public officials negotiate deals to hand out taxpayer money, the public deserves transparency. Teams may want discretion. State representatives may want to negotiate without tipping off competing states. But neither, in my opinion, is a good enough reason to give it to them.

Yet secrecy has become the norm. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas won’t release the city’s proposal for a downtown stadium to the Royals—even though Clay County released its proposal. The city also kept its 2017 Amazon HQ2 bid under wraps, while many other cities disclosed theirs.

Judging by the lawmakers’ lack of reaction, non-disclosure agreements are now standard operating procedure. They shouldn’t be. Even if elected officials are fine being left in the dark, the public shouldn’t be.