The Royals strike out in Johnson County.

More on the big story this week that backfired on the media.

Why this frustration and disappointment about slow progress on the Plaza mo protests over slashing bus service?

If you're in Kansas, get ready for a big voting change.

Also, this half hour is the city manager about to get a lottery sized payout?

And five months after voters approve a minimum wage hike and paid sick leave.

Missouri lawmakers walk it back.

Those stories and the rest of the week's news straight ahead.

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of Dave and Jamie Cummings, Bob and Marlese Giurley, the Courtney as Turner Charitable Trust, John H. Mind and Bank of America Na Co trustees.

The Francis Family Foundation through the discretionary fund of David and Janice Friend and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello and welcome I'm Nick Haynes.

It is 26 minutes of the week's most impactful, confusing and downright head scratching local news stories.

Hopping on board the Weekend Review bus with us this week leads your Kansas City Star editorial board Yvette Walker, Kevin Collison led City Scene KC.

He's now contributing writer for our digital newsroom flatland KC Pete Mundo just finished with John Sherman and Quinton Lucas on his program, and he's with us from KCMO Talk Radio 95.7 FM.

I'm Dave Helling is a former Fox four news reporter, Kctv five news anchor, former reporter and editorial writer for The Star, but for short.

We call him News Icon on this program.

Now baseball is finally back, but instead of Opening Day, another Royals story line seems to be topping the headlines.

Several news stations reporting this week that the royals have settled on a site for the new ballpark.

According to 610 sports.

It's going to be next to the Jewish Community Center in the former sprint campus in Overland Park.

In fact, it's such a sure bet they claim the deal just needs the I's dotted and the T's crossed.

So how come then Pete Mundo did the head of the Jewish community Center say he knows nothing about it?

And how can management at the former sprint campus put out a strongly worded news statement saying, we are not in any discussions with the royals about being a potential news site for the stadium.

How could they get it so wrong?

Well, they get us wrong because you jump to a conclusion before you actually are close to being there.

I mean, everyone basically denied the story.

It doesn't mean that there might not be some truth to some interest at that site, but it's a long way from being a done deal.

And John Sherman alluded to as much this week.

In fact, the key word to me he used in our conversation was not about downtown.

It was about density.

They're looking for density in their location to build up an area of the Kansas City region.

So I think that's now the buzzword that he appears to be going with.

But yeah, they they really screwed that one up.

Nick I'll tell you that though.

I think this is also an interesting thing about the media themselves.

But I also think, though, that, you know, there's often some smoke here.

Usually people feed you stories.

There must have been somebody well placed, possibly an elected leader on the Missouri side who said, hey, this is what's going to happen to try and light the fire under elected leaders on the Missouri side and Jackson County and Kansas City to get a deal done.

And we don't know, of course, but generally, stories are not made up out of thin air.

So you may be right.

I just want to say, are you happy with my blue today?

Oh my goodness.

This is just perfect.

Kevin, I'm glad to have you back because the last time you were on here, we were still, you know, we were talking about the stadium and all of the drama that took place.

And a year on after that vote, are you shocked at where we are now in the city?

I'm a bit shocked, that the royals have been totally 180 from the way they were a year and a half ago, where they were almost too public with their search to now saying nothing, which of course is creating this atmosphere of speculation by people.

John Sherman said this week he's very happy, very happy with the progress that's being made so far.

And, we're just not going to see anything yet until we have it completely buttoned up.

Yes.

And he said that probably will be in June or July, which is after the legislatures in both states have adjourned for the year.

So as we've talked about on this show, if there's a significant state component that might have to wait until 2026 to be executed, which delays the timeline.

But, Nick, I think the most important story this week wasn't John Sherman.

He didn't say much.

In fact, I've never seen a person say no comment and a two minute answer as he does so often.

But the most important story, I think, was Quinton Lucas, telling, I think channel 41 that he has put aside $1 billion in state and local aid for a Kansas City stadium for the Royals.

That's a fascinating statement.

And it leads everyone to believe where can you find $1 billion in the budget, for such a project, when, for example, you're telling the bus people, no, we don't have money?

Yeah.

you know, we have to pay a little bit of attention.

He said he wants to do it without a vote and without a tax increase.

That was fascinating.

Well, he was on your show this week.

Did he reveal the details of where?

More than $1 billion was coming from?

From City Hall without any tax increases?

Well, basically, it'll be a star bond without a star bond name to it.

So it'll be a tiff, essentially, and they'll create a district and they'll take the additive sales tax revenues and pay off the debt with it was basically his pitch and my understanding of it.

So, that's the plan.

They've just put a different name on these star bonds in the name of TIFFs.

And they've done this before on projects.

But the question is, can they generate the revenue off of this unknown project to pay back a billion and a half dollars in debt?

How much risk.

To the heavy?

And I agree with what Pete's saying.

I mean, we saw this when they did the Power and Light District and the other major investments downtown.

They use tax increment financing.

They use, community improvement districts.

They had the state weigh in on what they called modesta, which also plowed back state tax, new state tax revenues into the deal.

So there are many ways that they can do this without, having a public vote without taking cash out of the Treasury.

These would all be tax incentives.

And, there is a possibility.

And what's been fascinating, and I'm kind of assuming that this Washington Square Park site still has legs, that, you know, you've got Crown Center and all the benefits they would receive if a ballpark was built there.

Well, perhaps a bit of tiff that would take in some of the additional revenues that would go to the Crown Center might help.

It's not only Crown Center.

You've got two major hotels there.

You could scrape some tax money from the hotels, from the parking garages, from Crown Center.

Hallmark is just up the hill.

Union station is on the other side.

That's why I think the Washington Square location has been so popular.

Because you had.

I thought they were closing the door on that this week.

I saw, you know, that Blue Cross and Blue Shield that was going to be part of that site, too.

They said they've waited so long.

It's now back on the market that they vacating.

Working with that particular developer now.

Okay.

All right.

But that doesn't mean the site is not being.

Can I just.

Quickly okay.

You need $70 million a year to build a stadium in Kansas City for about 30 years, 2.1 billion would build the stadium.

So you get 20 from the Royals, you get ten from the state, you get five from the county.

Now you're down to about 35 or 40 million.

You have to come up with if you can scrape money from the hotels, the parking garages, Crown Center, a new community improvement district, all of which don't need a vote of the people.

You could probably cobble together enough money to put it together.

Lucas is $1 billion idea.

Also said or are fixing up.

Kauffman didn't it was it was either or.

So I don't know what we're going to see.

Well he just he John said in his press conference this week.

And I'm a you know, Kaufman's done.

Okay.

They're done.

They're all right.

But just remember to power and light still losing $10 million a year.

So they they've been losing money on that since the get go.

Well, the other thing I mean, Lucas might be just trying to avoid the, hot of the hot support of Kaufman.

I mean, you know, because, yeah, I agree.

I mean, Kaufman off the table, but there's still a lot of people clinging to that idea of renovating Kaufman and keeping the team there.

Yeah, well, and one other quick thing, Nick.

There's a lot of quick things this week.

I said one more quick thing.

The fact that the Royals may be in serious discussions in Kansas City makes it easier for the Chiefs to go to Kansas, because if the Chiefs are in Kansas, the city doesn't have to do the same thing for the Chiefs that it's doing for the Royals.

And that simplifies the financing.

I think all of this discussion of a Kansas City side makes it more likely, not less, that the Chiefs will go.

Okay, there's lots of other things happening, and we could just focus on Kansas City and do a three hour show this week.

However, I'm very conscious of the fact that many of you do not live in Kansas City, Missouri and want to know about other things.

We to we know, for instance, that Bryan Platt has been fired.

The city manager will get to that story in a moment.

But you should also know that five months after voters approved a $15 minimum wage in Missouri, lawmakers are now walking it back.

While the minimum wage will stay in place, the Missouri House has voted to remove the paid sick leave mandates.

Those go into effect in May, according to the Missouri House Speaker, John Patterson.

The requirements are too burdensome on Missouri businesses and will result in workers being let go, companies going out of business and some corporate leaders thinking twice about opening or relocating to Missouri.

Is there any evidence that's already happening?

I don't know if there's any evidence that's already happening, but I have to say that the paid sick leave for many employees probably more important than than the a few extra dollars they're going to get per hour.

Yes, people, if they can walk back one component, why just walk back to $15 an hour as well?

Like what I send everything.

Yeah, I think that would they know it's a step too far.

Could be political ramifications even in a deep red Missouri for something like that.

where do you draw the line?

I'm not even sure they might be tiptoeing right up to the line right now.

Legally, I don't know the answer to that, but if you just went out there and totally rolled that back, you'd have a mess on your hands.

But the argument has long been, you know, Maryville is not Kansas City, and, you know, you have a state with a lot of different economic levels and cost of living differences.

And yet, just to be clear, the people of the state of Missouri approved that measure by a 57% margin, double digits.

That's that's overwhelming.

And and for the legislature to once again and I mean this once again turn its back on what the voters really want.

They should play and may pay, pretty high political.

Speaking of voters, if you live in Kansas, get ready for some big election changes.

Kansas lawmakers just bend to the three day grace period for Mail-In ballots.

Governor Laura Kelly, who had earlier vetoed the measure, says it will result in thousands of votes being thrown out due to slow arriving mail at a time when the Postal Service is being sharply criticized for woefully delayed mail delivery.

Why was this measure so important for Republican lawmakers, Pete?

Well, it's, listen, since Covid, obviously, the mail in usage has increased.

It is something that, the base of the Republican Party has been passionate about.

But the reality is, part of the reason Republicans had success, Donald Trump won the election this past year is because of improvements in early voting and mail in voting.

So they've realized the games being played a certain way.

We got to play the game this way at the state level.

there's still something that's generally not popular, but I think Fedex and UPS are the answer on the ballots, too.

It sounds dramatic, as some people are making it dramatic.

But isn't Mail-In balloting at this point in time a very small sliver of the electoral?

The mail in ballots and the early ballots are actually, fairly popular.

In fact, I live in Lenexa.

As many people know, we just voted entirely by mail on a on a sales tax measure.

So mail in voting is, voting remains popular with the public, but the ending, the deadline three days after election day probably won't impact that many votes.

And that's why I think people aren't quite as exercised as that.

Election day is election day.

Why is it in Kansas, for instance?

You know, instead of a Tuesday, you can get your ballot in by Friday?

Aren't the rules clear enough?

You should be able to make a decision before that.

Well, you should be able to.

You can't make a decision.

I believe that, but I believe the other things that you cannot, that you can't personally impact is if I get it in on this day, will the slowdown affect getting there on time?

That may not be my fault.

If I do use something like Fedex or another service.

Are they going to bring those prices down?

Are they going to have kind of a a ballot rate because that's going to be more expensive than using regular postal.

So there's some things that I think out of our, ability to do anything, even if we know who we want to vote for or what we want to vote for.

Let's return now to Kansas City, where the Kansas City Council has just fired beleaguered City Manager Brian Clark.

The question now is, will he be getting a lottery size settlement?

Dave?

Well, there will be a settlement and it'll be in a well into the six figures.

but that's typical, Nick.

no one should be critical of Brian Platt for trying to get the separation agreement, that he believes he's earned.

All city managers get that kind of money, in part because it's difficult for them to find another job, but mostly because the city doesn't want to become entangled in endless litigation with a former city manager.

You just pay him with taxpayers money to go away.

He must have done some things good as city manager, though.

Kevin, you were focusing on development in downtown.

I mean, this is he came in here five years ago.

All of the attention seems to be focused on negative aspects of him.

Did he do anything good?

I think Brian, from the times I've talked to him, was very, very proactive when it came to try to encourage greater development in the city, particularly in the urban core and downtown.

I think most people would agree he got city services improved.

I think snow removal has improved under his, time here.

you know, he had a very dynamic attitude.

He oftentimes in my mind said he was a little too candid, said a little too much, did not have quite as many filters as a successful executive should have.

And I think that's one of the things that got him in trouble with his former press secretary.

what's interesting is this, you know, we all know about the, the lawsuit about him, telling, Chris to, to lie for him.

You can have your opinions one way or another about the merits of that.

The subplot was interesting, though, where you had the black community somehow think he was not, fair to them, etc..

I'm not sure where that came from, because the city has been making some significant investments in the at least in the 18th and vine area and providing other services.

So, I think, again, I hope the city finds somebody who can get that workforce to do a better job because there is lots of room for improvement that he didn't even manage to make, progress on.

But given this episode, does it make it harder for them to find somebody else to take that job?

I saw one clip from Mayor Quinton Lucas this week, saying that, City Hall had now become like a reality show.

Pete.

Well, I don't know how the search is going to go if it's internal or it's going to be a national search.

But, in terms of filling the role, I think it's a desirable role.

It certainly paid very well at 308,000 to say he's making over 300 grand by the end there, someone will gladly take that role, especially because you don't handle the police, you don't handle the schools.

You're basically development potholes, trash pickup and snow removal.

So it's an appealing job.

The question, though, is you got a World Cup 18 months away.

you've got this Royals deal that's still trying to figure itself out.

There's a lot to do, and it could actually impact some of those things as well.

Your colleague on the editorial board, that, Melinda had and Bill got an interesting story today about, well, a new side that we didn't know about this relationship between the mayor and the city manager.

And that relationship had been a lot rockier than we we have been led to believe.

Well, it certainly appeared more fractured.

I think we have to realize for that $308,000 a year, you've got to have someone who can get things done, but also, be able to get things done within your circle, within your culture and whether or not it was a toxic culture, as many people are alleging, that's going to be an issue if you can't talk to people and you can't, and if you can't be an influencer, that's going to be a problem getting things done.

And it sounds like some of that was an issue here.

There's been some suggestion you could get more than $2 million as a result of a payout of this.

That was it would actually be more than double what the city had to pay out.

to Chris Hernandez, the former communications director, in his whistleblower lawsuit.

I think 2 million is a little stiff, but if it gets close to $1 million, I would not be surprised.

And by the way, whoever the next city manager is, he or she will make far more than $308,000.

You're going to have to pay much more to convince someone, either to come here or to take the job.

Based on what happened to Brian Platt.

That pattern goes back 50 years.

The, you know, the when you fire the city manager, the next one wants a lot more money than your one God.

So it's an expensive process, which, by the way, is why it has taken so long despite these disputes of two years ago.

Because if you ever pull that trigger on the city manager, you're going to have to write pretty big checks.

And I think the council knew that.

Well, you've heard of a bus pass.

What about the bus impulse?

More protests this week over plans by the RTA to eliminate nearly half its bus routes, scaled back operating hours and lay off 170 workers.

that's.

The sound of.

Democracy.

City Hall has agreed to provide some money to the Cata and its new budget, but it's not enough to call off cuts that would impact more than 6000 riders.

Week in review.

Watch a John emailed me this week.

Couldn't Kansas City fill all the holes in the bus budget by pulling the plug on the South Loop project?

Isn't it more important to have a bus service than a park for out-of-town visitors?

Kevin.

Well, this is one of these common errors people make.

All right.

Tell us about that.

Okay.

It's nothing to do.

It is being funded by, federal.

And there's no there's no city money.

There's a little city money in it, but but certainly nothing near what would be required to fully fund the cata.

People always say, well, there's $1 billion for a ballpark.

Why can't we fix the schools?

They're just different pots of money.

the sad thing about the.

But they're still money from taxpayers pockets.

So you have priorities.

You have to.

Yeah, but.

You know, this one is a very different hybrid.

Okay.

Funding.

I am worried that that South Loop lid project is probably going to have some real problems, especially if the feds pull back whatever money they've pledged to it.

I mean, that thing could be indefinitely held up, but, the cat, sadly, our transit, our bus transit here has just been a mess, at least as long as I've lived here.

And, as far as the mayor claiming that, they're immune to the desires of City Hall.

Well, he had the previous director replaced because he complained that the city was diverting money to, streetlights.

So it's it's it's a patronage pit.

Just take a look at the name of the leader of the CTA and be.

White as a as the son of Frank white, the Jackson County executive, I have to say, we're also being blasted by the way we were.

Joyce says she was extremely disappointed with our conversation on the bus cuts last week.

She says it was too focused on the money and not enough on the human misery those cuts would cause.

I isn't part of the problem there, is it?

The the media, by and large, is not riding the bus that well.

So I do have a question for the panel.

I think your question was to us.

Absolutely.

We ride the bus.

I'd like to know, has anyone, lived or grown up in a city with a strong public transportation culture?

Because I have.

Yeah.

And I think and I don't think we have that here.

So I'm, I'm from Chicago.

And I went back I went back to try to find out what they're doing there.

The RTA there is imposing a 1.25 sales tax.

So when I hear the mayor talking about this new plan, it's going to have these different parts.

I mean, I think we have to I think we have to perhaps look at some successful, cities.

I know Chicago's very, very different than Kansas City.

I get that.

but I just don't think we have a culture here of public transportation that people maybe care enough about people.

Well, I would add to that and say Kctv five did a good feature on this, looking at the budget for the quarter, and it was really hovering 75 to $85 million for about a decade.

Covid hits, and now they're looking up to 120 million has been the ask has the service improved 40 to 50%?

Or anyone can say suddenly if we now cut this or roll this back to where it was, we're laying people off and the whole thing blows up, just like egg prices costs go up.

Well, I understand inflation is a 20% hit, but you're talking about a 40 to 50% increase over less than a decade.

And don't forget to no fair.

Why is there no fair?

Because there was outrage over the streetcar having no fair.

Why are rich people downtown not paying for a streetcar where the working poor is paying for a bus?

That's cause a whole nother slew of issues in this town.

Kevin.

I'm not quite sure that was the rationale for no fare on the busses, but there are is a proposal now by the council to reinstate the, at least a minimum of $2 bus fare and give waivers to people who can prove that they have, you know, it's an affordability issue.

and getting back to Yvette, I mean, I'm familiar with two cities that are fairly similar.

Minneapolis and Denver have always had outstanding public transit.

Neither one of them have this major issue that confounds the Kansas City metro state line is a state line down the middle of it.

They can have a much more robust public support because they don't have the politics we run into here.

Just quickly, the, the, the I wrote the editorial for the Kansas City Star endorsing zero fare because I think it's important.

I think transportation is important based on the letter that you got about the human cost.

I wrote an editorial that said the city manager should establish a Department of Transportation so he or she could promote bus transit, fixed rail transit, you know, oversee the, taxi service, such as it is Ubers and others.

So transportation is an essential part of Kansas City.

But to govern is to choose.

And we have talked today about bus service stadiums, you know, with a lid on the highway.

We can't have everything we want.

We have to choose.

And, when you choose stadiums over bus service, you have some explaining to do.

Or schools, by the way, schools are on the ballot.

But we also have, you know, a situation here where the state of Missouri has done nothing right to help the city and in many other major communities, the state does provide some funding to help transportation, public transportation.

unfortunately, Kansas City has to deal with a hostile state of Missouri that really has no interest in helping solve some of the city's problems.

And, we also, you know, unfortunately, one of the, side effects of No Fair was the busses turned into a rolling homeless shelter, and we can deny it.

But it was a major hassle for people.

The ridership has not gotten to where it was pre-COVID.

So even with all these additives after the fact, look at the ridership numbers.

They have not reached pre-COVID levels already.

There's tons of stories I didn't get to because this has been such a robust conversation.

But the reality is when you put a program like this together every week, you can't get to every story grabbing the headlines.

What was the big local story we missed?

Let the voting begin.

Okay, there may not be as many people as in this file footage, but early in-person voting is now under way ahead of April local elections across the metro.

In Kansas City, voters are being asked to approve a new municipal jail, and the Kansas City School District is trying to pass its first school bond in nearly 60 years.

President Trump invites the chiefs to the white House after Covid blocked their visit when they won the Super Bowl in 2020.

And Ku and Mizzou may have quickly faded from March Madness, but there's one local team left to root for.

The K-State women make it to the sweet 16.

And pick a story that they've just briefly alluded to.

So we've got elections coming up and we've got two big bonds.

We've got a school bond, and then we have the public safety bond.

Very, very important.

It's going to be a hard sell, I think, for people who are already taxed and have a lot of issues.

But we've yeah, I, we're talking about it now on the stars editorial board.

We'll have a recommendation on that soon.

So I'm not going to play.

We're going to talk more about next week.

The election is April 8th.

Kevin.

Well, I'm going to go with the, briefing and some of the news that has not been coming out of our favorite shopping district, the Country Club Plaza.

I was just did a breakfast meeting the other day with the Plaza District Council, in which the new manager said essentially, we're getting we got big plans.

There's lots going on behind the scenes, but we are not going to go public with what our master plan for redeveloping the plaza is until some unforeseen time.

The only other thing is they are really taking security seriously.

They already have shown that they're much more proactive.

Now, beginning in May, they're hiring a firm, that actually has armed guards, and as well as the power to detain people, which, again, everybody emphasizes once people feel safe, the plaza, that will be a big part of it.

Pete.

Well, you mentioned the reality show at City Hall earlier, the reality show that would be the Chiefs in the white House with President Trump is a fascinating potential development.

Obviously, as you noted, because of Covid, they didn't make it the first time around.

And, you know, you think about the politics of the hunt family, what you think might be the politics of Patrick and Brittany Mahomes throwing maybe a Taylor Swift visit to the white House with Travis Kelce.

And you've got the makings of a great docu series on one single day and probably be happening day.

Excited about that for sure.

the Kansas Legislature is nearing adjournment, except for the veto session and has yet to come up with significant property tax reform.

In fact, a measure was defeated this week that would have capped appraisals in the state of Kansas.

property tax reform is on the lips of everyone who lives in Kansas because of the increase to appraisals and high mill levies, and they will be blamed for that failure if they don't come us.

And on that we will say.

All week has been reviewed courtesy of the stars of Ed Walker and 6 to 10 weekdays on 95.7 FM compete.

Mundo flatland contributing writer Kevin Collison and former star reporter and editorial writer Dave Helling.

And I'm Nick Haines from all of us here at Kansas City PBS.

Be well, keep calm and carry on.