Johnathan Duncan
Kansas City, Missouri council member
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Johnathan Duncan (born 1985) is an American politician, community organizer, and Iraq War veteran who has served on the Kansas City, Missouri, City Council since August 2023, representing the city's 6th District.[3][4] A former director of administrative operations at the national headquarters of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and a leader in the tenant union KC Tenants, Duncan won the seat in June 2023 by defeating former Jackson County legislator Dan Tarwater, after finishing a distant second in the primary.[5][6]
Johnathan Duncan | |
|---|---|
Duncan in 2023 | |
| Member of the Kansas City City Council from the 6th district | |
| Assumed office August 1, 2023 | |
| Preceded by | Kevin McManus |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1985 (age 40–41)[1][2] Newton, Kansas, U.S. |
| Education | University of Kansas (BA) |
| Occupation | Politician, community organizer, veterans advocate |
| Website | Official website |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Branch/service | United States Army Kansas Army National Guard |
| Rank | Specialist |
| Unit | 1st Battalion, 161st Field Artillery Regiment |
| Battles/wars | Iraq War |
On the council, Duncan has focused on housing and tenant protections, public transit, LGBTQ policy, and opposition to public subsidies for professional sports stadiums, and he has frequently cast dissenting votes on development incentives and public safety spending.[7][8][9] He was appointed to the board of commissioners of the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) in June 2026.[10]
Early life and education
Duncan was raised in Newton, Kansas, in a family he has described as poor and working class; he has also spoken about growing up mixed race in a small town.[1][2][11] He has described himself as a "class clown" in school.[1]
At age 17, while still in high school, he enlisted in the Kansas Army National Guard in order to pay for college, at a time when the Iraq War was widely expected to be brief.[1][11] He began undergraduate studies at the University of Kansas (KU), initially taking business classes.[1]
Military service
In October 2005, while Duncan was a student at KU, his unit, the Kansas National Guard's 161st Field Artillery, was activated for deployment to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.[1] Duncan served as a specialist and M240 machine gunner on Humvee patrols based near Convoy Support Center Scania, about 45 miles south of Baghdad, where his unit searched a major supply route for improvised explosive devices (IEDs).[1] He has said the unit also operated as a quick reaction force and took part in raids in pursuit of high-value targets.[2]
During one mission, Duncan's three-vehicle convoy responded to a rocket attack on the base and was struck by a coordinated chain of three IEDs. Seven soldiers were wounded, and Duncan's friend, Staff Sergeant David Berry, who was driving the Humvee ahead of Duncan's, was killed.[1] Duncan returned to the United States in 2007 at age 21 after a deployment of roughly 18 months.[2][4] According to his official city biography, he also served in Africa, and his Iraq deployment was part of the longest continuous deployment of any U.S. military unit during Operation Iraqi Freedom.[4]
After returning home, Duncan experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including panic attacks, anxiety, and difficulty adjusting to civilian life, and he has spoken publicly about having had suicidal thoughts during that period.[1][2] He has said he struggled to obtain mental health care through the Veterans Affairs system and credits fellow combat veterans in Lawrence, Kansas, with intervening and helping him get treatment.[2][4][12]
Early career
Duncan returned to the University of Kansas after his deployment and became active in the university's Collegiate Veterans Association, a student-veteran group that assisted returning service members with enrollment, in-state tuition, and the creation of a veterans' lounge on campus.[1][2] He changed his course of study from business and graduated from KU with a degree in English.[1]
As of 2013, Duncan worked as a sales manager at a Lawrence sign company and was preparing to become junior vice commander of VFW Post 852 in Lawrence.[1] He later joined the VFW's national headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri, where he became director of administrative operations, supporting veterans' services across all 50 states, Europe, the Pacific, Puerto Rico, and Panama.[4][13] He left the VFW in July 2023, shortly before taking office, in order to serve as a full-time council member.[2]
Activism
Duncan joined KC Tenants, a citywide tenant union founded in 2019, in 2020 and became one of its leaders.[4][13] During the COVID-19 pandemic, he took part in the organization's efforts to disrupt virtual eviction hearings in Jackson County.[2] He has said that the displacement of residents from the Heart Village mobile home park to make way for a new Jackson County jail, and what he viewed as the county's mistreatment of those residents, was what prompted him to run for office.[2]
Duncan is the author of an essay titled "Representation is not Liberation and Neither is the Game of Identity Politics," which his campaign promoted during the 2023 election.[11]
Kansas City Council
2023 election
In 2023, Duncan ran for the in-district seat representing Kansas City's 6th District, which stretches from the Country Club Plaza area south to the Cass County line and includes the Brookside and Waldo neighborhoods.[13][4] The seat was open because the incumbent, Kevin McManus, was term-limited.[6]
Five candidates competed in the April 4, 2023, nonpartisan primary. Dan Tarwater III, who had served on the Jackson County Legislature from 1994 to 2022, finished first with 45.4 percent of the vote, while Duncan finished second with 24.0 percent, a gap of nearly 2,500 votes.[3][13][14] Tarwater was endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police, Firefighters Local 42, the Northland Strong political committee, and Freedom, Inc., a longstanding Black political organization in Kansas City.[13][15] Duncan was endorsed by KC Tenants Power, the political arm of KC Tenants, as well as the Kansas City chapter of Our Revolution, Pro-Choice Missouri, the Sierra Club, Teamsters Local 41, VoteVets, Run for Something, and the Sunrise Movement KC.[13][3]
The race was widely framed as a contest between the city's progressive and moderate factions, with the two candidates disagreeing on social housing, police staffing, and reparations for Black residents; Duncan supported publicly funded housing rented below market rate, opposed hiring additional police officers, and said he would support reparations and direct investment in Black communities.[13] Duncan and his supporters knocked on roughly 8,500 doors during the campaign.[2]
In the June 20, 2023, general election, Duncan defeated Tarwater with 56.5 percent of the vote to Tarwater's 43.5 percent, an outcome described by local media as an upset.[3][5][6] He was the only one of the two first-time candidates endorsed by KC Tenants Power to win a seat that year, and The Pitch called his victory the headline result of the organization's electoral effort.[5][16] Duncan did not carry any precinct south of Bannister Road in the southern, more suburban portion of the district, and after the election he acknowledged he had "some trust-building to do" with residents there.[2]
Tenure
Duncan was sworn in on August 1, 2023.[3][2] He was assigned to the council's Transportation, Infrastructure, and Operations Committee.[2] Early in his term he identified the long-closed section of Blue River Road south of Bannister Road as a priority, along with expanded public transit and affordable housing along transit lines in the southern part of the city.[2]
In June 2026, Mayor Quinton Lucas appointed Duncan to the board of commissioners of the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, succeeding Councilman Eric Bunch, who had resigned from the board.[10][17]
Housing and tenant protections
In July 2026, Duncan introduced an emergency ordinance, Ordinance 260667, in response to conditions at the North Lawn Apartments, a complex in the Historic Northeast where tenants organized with KC Tenants had reported sewage backups, pest infestations, and extended losses of power and hot water, and where the tenant union had gone on rent strike.[18][19] The ordinance, introduced and passed the same day by a vote of 11 to 1, authorized up to $500,000 from the city's Housing Trust Fund for the city to make emergency repairs itself and to recover the cost from the landlord through a special tax assessment lien on the property.[18][20][21] Duncan argued that the city already possessed the legal authority to intervene but had not used it, and that emergency repairs charged to the landlord would cost less than rehousing displaced families.[18][22] The Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors criticized the measure as a taxpayer-funded repair of private property passed without committee review.[23]
The repairs were not completed in the weeks that followed. City Manager Mario Vasquez cited contractor safety, liability, and budget concerns, and the property was sold to a new owner.[21][20] In August 2026, the council repealed Duncan's ordinance and replaced it with a measure directing the city manager to reach an agreement with the new owner to make the repairs, with the $500,000 redirected toward relocation assistance for tenants.[19] Duncan opposed the replacement, calling it a capitulation to the city manager and a betrayal of the tenants.[19]
Public safety and policing
In September 2024, Duncan cast the lone dissenting vote when the council voted 12 to 1 to spend $16 million converting part of the Kansas City Police Department headquarters into a detention facility, calling it a rushed decision made without knowing operating costs and arguing that the city spends far more on enforcement than on prevention.[9]
The Kansas City Police Department is controlled by a state-appointed board rather than the city, and Missouri law requires the city to devote at least 25 percent of its general revenue to the department.[24] During deliberations on the fiscal year 2026 to 2027 budget, Duncan proposed an amendment to shift a portion of police funding above the state-mandated minimum to bus service, arguing that it was a policy choice to fund the department roughly $20 million over the mandate while cutting transit. The amendment failed, with only Duncan and Eric Bunch voting in favor.[25] Duncan also objected, along with Mayor Pro Tem Ryana Parks-Shaw, to a proposed transfer of $6 million out of the city's violence prevention fund.[24]
Stadium and development financing
Duncan has been one of the council's most consistent critics of public financing for professional sports facilities. In July 2026, he and Councilman Nathan Willett were the only members to vote against an initial $235 million funding package for the expansion of CPKC Stadium, home of the Kansas City Current, arguing that the city should not subsidize projects that would proceed without public money.[26] In September 2026, when the council approved Ordinance 260748 providing up to $185 million in public financing for the expansion and related riverfront development, Duncan was one of three dissenting votes alongside Eric Bunch and Melissa Patterson Hazley.[7][27] He argued that bonds backed by the team were "not free money" because they redirected revenue from the city's general fund, and he and Patterson Hazley said the city was concentrating investment in one part of the city while pools, roads, and blighted properties in their districts went unaddressed.[7][27]
Duncan was also a leading opponent of the city's August 2026 agreement to provide $600 million toward a proposed Kansas City Royals ballpark at Crown Center, on the site of the Hallmark Cards headquarters.[8][28] He argued that because the city was funding roughly 30 percent of the stadium's cost, taxpayers deserved an equity stake and a share of stadium and district revenues rather than a fixed package of community benefits, and he criticized the council for moving quickly to approve the deal ahead of a deadline tied to a citizen petition seeking a public vote.[28][29][30] He said he supported downtown baseball in principle but believed voters would approve a plan that treated the city as a financial partner.[29] Duncan was one of two council members to vote against the agreement when it passed on August 20, 2026.[8]
Homelessness
In April 2024, the council voted 8 to 2 to restart the application process for the city's first year-round low-barrier homeless shelter, after opposition from Northeast neighborhoods stalled a plan to award more than $7 million in federal American Rescue Plan funds to the nonprofit Hope Faith.[31] Duncan and Councilman Nathan Willett cast the dissenting votes; Duncan said the reversal was inconsistent with the council's stated commitments to the city's most vulnerable residents.[31][32]
LGBTQ policy
In June 2024, Duncan sponsored Resolution 240530, directing the city manager to develop a comprehensive assessment of the needs of Kansas City's transgender community, identify a funding source, and recommend an implementation path within 180 days.[33] The resulting needs assessment was in draft form by mid-2025; Duncan said he felt urgency to act on its findings and, along with LGBTQ advocates, called for the city to update the assessment regularly.[34]
In May 2026, following a U.S. Supreme Court decision protecting talk therapy under the First Amendment and a lawsuit by the Missouri attorney general and a group of counselors, the council voted 7 to 5 to repeal the city's 2019 ban on conversion therapy.[35] Duncan voted for the repeal, citing the potential cost of losing the lawsuit, but later said it had been a mistake to repeal the ban without first drafting a replacement.[36][37] In June 2026, he and Mayor Lucas announced a replacement ordinance, developed with the city's LGBTQ Commission, that would prohibit compensated therapeutic practices found to increase the risk of suicide, self-harm, and depression rather than targeting conversion therapy by name.[37] The proposal remained under consideration as of September 2026.[38]
Other legislation
In September 2023, Duncan sponsored Resolution 230898, adopting the Hispanic Heritage Flag designed by Missouri artist José Garza and authorizing the city manager to fly it over City Hall during Hispanic Heritage Month.[39]
Political positions
Duncan has advocated for municipal social housing, publicly owned and rented below market rate, as an alternative to tax incentives for private developers, and has identified affordable housing as the most important issue facing the city.[13][5] He has opposed adding police officers and jail capacity, favoring investment in mental health care, housing, and other community resources.[13][9] He supports expanded public transit and has argued that transit cuts increase crime and limit access to jobs.[25][10] He has generally opposed tax increment financing and other public subsidies for stadiums and large downtown projects unless the city receives a proportional financial return.[28][7]
Personal life
Duncan lives in the northern part of the 6th District, near Brookside.[2]
Electoral history
| Candidate | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|
| Dan Tarwater | 5,304 | 45.4 |
| Johnathan Duncan | 2,805 | 24.0 |
| Tiffany Moore | 1,450 | 12.4 |
| Cecelia Carter | 1,350 | 11.6 |
| Michael Schuckman | 744 | 6.4 |
| Write-in | 34 | 0.3 |
| Total | 11,687 | 100 |
| Candidate | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|
| Johnathan Duncan | 6,903 | 56.5 |
| Dan Tarwater | 5,313 | 43.5 |
| Total | 12,216 | 100 |