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The Chiefs are finally back and so is week in Review.

Metro's most impactful, confusing and befuddling local news stories dissected straight ahead.

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Hello and welcome.

I'm Nick Haines.

In less time than it takes to deliver a pizza to your home.

We slice and dice all the top stories making news in this place we call home.

Lifting the Hood on our Metros.

Headlines from KMBC nine TV news anchor Kris Ketz from our Metros newest newspaper.

Next page, KC l Eric Wesson, KCUR, investigative reporter Peggy Lowe, and former Kansas City Star newshound Dave Helling.

Now, while there were more stories this week about Travis Kelce's knee than pretty much any other news topic, that was some of the big local happenings worth keeping an eye on.

Was it a wrongful conviction or a just sentence?

It's been nearly two years since Detective Eric DeValkenaere became the first Kansas City police officer to be convicted of killing a black man.

But as his manslaughter conviction and six year prison sentence about to be overturned this week, the Missouri Court of Appeals revisiting the case while protesters took to the streets outside.

Here's a guy that murdered Massa.

Are you going to let him go?

We say black lives Matter.

Equal justice matters.

Because I guarantee you, if there was someone that looked like me or you.

We would be in jail already.

DeValkenaere He was sentencing, convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of Cameron.

LAMB In 2019, the former officer's defense team arguing this week there were nearly a dozen legal errors at his trial and pointed to video evidence of lamb committing multiple traffic crimes, giving ample justification for the CPT detective to come to Lamb's home on that fateful day.

But help us understand why was this such a big story warranting wall to wall local news coverage?

This week?

If you don't closely follow what's happening in the news, Peggy, can you explain why this story is grabbing so much attention?

This story is fascinating because it's not just a legal story.

It's not just a civil rights story.

It's a political story.

And the fact that the attorney general jumped in, Andrew Bailey, and became part of the team defending Dvorkin there.

That has never happened.

And Jean Peters Baker, the Jackson County prosecutor, suggests that he's doing that for political reasons.

Part of it is that his primary next year, he will face a very conservative candidate.

So he has to really show his conservative bona fides.

There's also concern, of course, about what the implications of this case are, Eric.

And if this conviction is overturned, what might happen then?

It would definitely be a black eye to justice.

And one of the things that I want to add to what Peggy said, the attorney general that representing the case on behalf of the state was the same assistant attorney general that Jean Peters Baker and the prosecutors used to put together the case in the first place.

So he helped them guide the process.

Now he's saying that there were errors.

Well, if you have to put it together when it airs in the first place.

So it's become really political and it would be a miscarriage justice to say, okay, you can follow somebody into their driveway and then shoot them and then allege that you see a gun.

I only say the two sides to a different story.

And didn't the defense lay out a very thorough case here saying there were 13 separate traffic violations that Cameron LAMB was involved in on that day, including driving 90 miles per hour, overtaking a vehicle, going through a driver's, going through a red light, moving into traffic both ways.

But they stopped pursuing him.

They stopped pursuing him.

So if it was that serious, then why weren't the original officers there to do it rather than them picking up the radio transmissions and then pulling him over and shooting him and.

Killing in the tone, the words what the Missouri Court of Appeals this week.

Did we get any hints as to how they were leaning in this case?

I don't know that we did.

But just touching on what Peggy mentioned about the the political aspects of this story, there continues to be questions about the governor's role in any sort of a possible pardon.

Moving ahead, Steve KORNACKI on an up to date on KCR had a had an interesting interview with the governor, just the other day.

And Governor Parson, I think, made it clear that he says that there's there's been no sort of discussion about a possible pardon in his office, at least up to now.

And he's on the record once again is saying that he's not going to get involved in this.

He's going to let the courts do what they have to do before considering anything moving forward.

Peggy, So what happens now?

Is this going to linger on for a while?

Could we expect a decision imminently?

It will absolutely linger on for a while.

The court has 90 days to make their ruling.

But I want to add to from your question here, too, Chris, the judges were rather skeptical.

I was there and they poked holes in every single piece of defense that Deval Kinnear's lawyers came up with and the AGs came up with.

So I think we're going to see a really reasoned reply from them.

And I think that'll be really interesting and we'll have it by the end of the year.

Keep in mind, Nick, that Eric Dvorkin here was tried by a judge, not a jury, and it was his choice.

And courts of appeal are loathe to overturn decisions made by judges unless there is evidence of clear error on the facts or the law.

And as muddy as this situation is, it's hard to see how the Court of appeals would proceed and in essence, tell the judge, No, you made the wrong decision in this case.

The politics really come in.

If the governor is asked to pardon Eric to walk in here, because that really does become an issue.

The FOP, the Kansas City FOP, he is very powerful in Jefferson City.

And my guess is they're talking to legislators who are then talking to the governor.

That will be an issue once the legal process plays itself out.

And Eric to balcony has not served a day in jail because he until this is settled, he's still free.

He is still a free man.

And Cameron Lamb's family likes to say he got to pick that bench trial.

There is no mug shot.

He has not spent a night in jail and he remains free.

So they're wondering what does justice look like here?

No fingerprints, no anything that normal people would have to go through in this same process unless you, the president of the United States.

The Kansas City.

Well, he did have a mug shot.

The Kansas City Country Club Plaza is supposed to be partying.

It's a milestone year.

It's the shopping centers 100th anniversary.

So how come the headlines seem to be anything but celebratory?

This weekend, there was another shooting on the plaza, the second in ten days, this time just outside of Shake Shack, which is already closed to indoor dining in the evenings due to threats of violence.

And if seen, a sea of police cars on the plaza wasn't enough of a PR nightmare.

The shopping centers owners are now in financial distress, defaulting on a nearly $300 million loan used to purchase the property.

So last week's conversation about pedestrian izing the plaza may seem to be something like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

How worried should we be about the plazas?

Food trip?

In the 40 years that I've been in Kansas City?

The Plaza remains one of Kansas City's crown jewels, but I never thought I'd see the day where I would hear people considering a Friday or Saturday evening out, look at the plaza and say, I feel safer going somewhere else.

And that's a narrative that that needs to be changed for the future of the plaza.

Now, in terms of retail, certainly that landscape has changed, especially post-pandemic, and there are problems as a result.

As our friend Kevin Collison reported this past week, there are some who see this default as perhaps an opportunity for new and perhaps committed management to come in and point the players in a better direction.

I would argue that whatever that better direction is, it should happen soon.

It was interesting this week, even on your own newscasts, on Channel nine, we had owners of stores on the plaza saying, if you're coming here, you should have your head on a swivel.

Be aware of what you're happening.

That's a huge change in tone, Eric.

The that must be a huge PR disaster for the owners of the plaza.

Absolutely.

And it's it gives the community a black eye as well, using that term again, because what alternatives do young people have?

Since you're so cold night hoops is closed and the activities you have for young people are closed.

They have no place else to go but to hang out on the plaza.

So what is the plan?

To keep them out of the plaza and give them something else to do?

That's the next question.

There were actually the four killings on those Labor Day weekend in Kansas City.

Remember, this was just a non-life threatening injury on the plaza outside of Shake Shack.

Are we overemphasizing the plaza when we think about all of the other crime issues and yet this gets so much attention?

Is that because it's mainly white and affluent shoppers going to that area?

Of course it is.

Of course it is.

And I've only been here 12 years compared to your 40.

But I see this every single summer.

Oh, my heavens.

People are shot on the plaza.

Well, people are shot all over town here.

And I just checked the blue sheet, the crime stats that CPD keeps before I came.

We're at 138 homicides so far this year.

The record was set in 2020 and it was 139.

So we are one homicide away from a record.

Is there a problem with the Plaza?

Yes, there is.

Is it a chronic problem?

Yes, it is.

But this is a chronic problem for the entire city.

That only that the crime problem aside, the Plaza's mix of entertainment and retail has been under pressure for years.

And we've talked about that on this show that a lot of people think, you know, what the plaza needs to do is become an entertainment venue, a restaurants and that shops retail is really under pressure.

The problem is Kansas City has lots of places now where you can go downtown included for that type of service entertainments, place to eat, place to have a drink, that type of thing.

So whoever owns the plaza, the current owners or someone who may buy it in distress, we're going to have to figure out that puzzle with the background of the crime problem, the tensions.

There is a local ownership team, perhaps in the wings.

That was from Kevin Collison said he's seen KC talking about that behind the scenes already happening.

But what difference would that make?

Well, that's the point that you might get local owners who are ready to invest more money into unique shops and businesses.

You know, The Cheesecake Factory.

Nick, you don't have to go to the plaza to eat there.

You can go to it.

There are other cheesecake factories across the metro area.

So I think there is some chat that what the plaza needs to be is uniquely Kansas City in terms of its offerings, rather than just sort more chain stores and restaurant.

No, it won't make a difference because you still have the same mentality.

You still have the same issues with young people because all these issues are taking place with young people, even if you look at the homicide statistics.

I think I looked at him yesterday, 95 of the city's 138 homicides yesterday.

95 of them are black males.

What's the fix then?

What's the fix is to find some meaningful alternatives for young people to do rather than hang out.

You know, back in the day when we were growing up, you had skating rinks, you had bowling alleys.

You had a lot of things for young people to do.

You had parents that knew how to parent.

Now you have kids raising other kids.

So you have a lot of cultural issues there.

There are a lot of issues going on in the household.

But you have to have alternatives.

So a change of management to the Plaza Pedestrianization The plaza is not going to turn the.

Place people someplace else to follow when they're shot.

As the Kennel Club Plaza marks its hundredth anniversary, Kansas is celebrating one year since the start of sports betting in the central Iowa state.

And you remember those scenes of Governor Laura Kelly waving that suspect for the Kansas City Chiefs to win the Super Bowl.

Interestingly, the numbers are also in and Kansans waged more than $1.6 billion on sports games.

So is the state now flush with cash?

Hold on to your hat.

According to the latest figures.

The state only brought in $5.8 million over the last 12 months.

Is there some mistake here?

This was on Channel nine.

That is that that's just one third of 1%.

Can cannot be right.

It can be.

And I'm reminded a little bit of when riverboat gaming was sold in the state of Missouri and it was sold and a lot of people thought that it would somehow, some way wave a magic wand and make all of the funding challenges for public education in Missouri go away.

But if you ask school district officials throughout the state, they'll tell you they welcome those dollars, but they didn't make those funding issues go away.

$6 million is not chump change.

But but, you know, the idea that we're going to use that in Kansas to lure the chiefs over to that side of the state line seems rather problematic at this point.

Because they talked about that's where the money was going to go to try and lure a professional sports franchise.

What does $5.8 million buy if it's not the Chiefs or the Royals?

Perhaps a professional darts team, Eric?

Pretty much.

It's not going to get you much of a professional team.

It's not.

Can I just say quickly?

So you need about 45 million a year to do what the chiefs want or the royals want.

$4,550 million a year over 30 years.

6 million is part of that.

But it's not all of it or even close to all of it.

That's what I think the problem is.

And even with all that, Missouri is still trying to do this and has failed to do so thus far.

That's right.

And I feel like we're back in that day.

I mean, to go back to the showboat issue, remember when they brought a lottery on and it was going to save schools and it was going to build parks and it was going to save America.

I don't see that it has.

So whether sports betting will do that is is anybody's guess.

My paper, some concession stands out.

We're now officially into the month of September, which means we are just days away from knowing where the Kansas City Royals plan to make their new home in advance of that imminent decision.

Did you see a new ad campaign is now launched to convince the royals and Clay County voters that North Kansas City is the best site?

Let's go royals.

To north Kansas City.

Clay County is on the moved.

We're a major league county and this is our opportunity to get our fair share.

The royals will spend $1 billion of private money on the project, hoping schools preserving local businesses, building a true neighborhood ball park with ample parking and tailgate opportunities.

Let's go royals.

To North Kansas City.

What influence, if any, is this new ad campaign having and changing any minds?

Not the least bit.

The ownership group of the Kansas City Royals?

I don't know that it has much of an impact either way, but you know, I think we all started this process thinking that downtown was was plan A and anything else after that would be plan B, But I just I have this feeling the longer this thing drags out.

Maybe plan B is is what they will do eventually.

Don't you think all the energy, though, seems to be on the north Kansas City side?

They're the ones who really want it.

And yet we have Kansas City.

Jackson County officials always seem to be a little bit skeptical.

They don't have the information or they're still a little worried.

Isn't all the enthusiasm on that North Kansas City side?

And it is.

And from little birdies that I've talked to, they said that the people in the North land have a lot of money on the table in Kansas City and hadn't really match their money.

But it's still going to go to whether voters in that area are going to vote for $0.01 increase in sales tax.

And I think right there, that's going to be the dividing issue.

But it's going to be interesting to watch who got the leadership.

I think that the mayor and county executive should have been on the same page with this to make this thing happen for Kansas City.

And I don't think we're really seeing that.

We just saw the ad for North Kansas City.

Where are the ads for Bill?

Downtown.

Bill, downtown.

Well, let's.

Connect a few dots here.

Okay.

If we could.

One of the one of the prime movers in the north Kansas City side is the family of Michael Merriman.

The Merriman family as a group, they own a lot of the property there.

The Americans were heavily involved in the original plan for Kansas City International Airport.

If you recall, they were the folks that were going to privately finance the airport bonds.

They were then part of the campaign, which you'll recall with George Brett, hometown Team Byrnes and McDonnell, very similar to what you're seeing here, all connected to Jeff Rowe's firm Axiom Strategies up North.

Will it work?

You know, Acxiom also ran the translational health tax campaign in Jackson County, which lost by 70 points.

I think that the owner of the team, John Sherman, has always said I want it downtown.

So I think that that's the bet right there.

I mean, I would go with what John Sherman wants.

That said, I would not bet against Jeff Rowe.

I mean, he's a very successful political operative despite the last campaign that he did.

I will also say, if you look at the drawings, the one in North Kansas City is gorgeous.

It has a huge acreage and campus plan and it's has tons of fountains.

It's actually prettier than the one they want to put downtown.

Eric mentioned that the mayor, the Jackson County executive, Frank White, were not on the same page on this, which is complicating the effort.

And speaking of that sort of cooperation or doing what's best for the entire area, did you see that Mayor Lucas just announced he is calling off negotiations with Jackson County and is now going to build Kansas City its own separate jail.

So in other words, there's going to be soon to be two brand new detention facilities, Peggy, just a few miles from one another.

What does that mean for taxpayers?

For taxpayers, they're probably going to be spending more, you know, so we can't get along county and city executives.

So we're going to build two jails, not just one.

And jails are a hard sell with taxpayers anyway.

So it does seem sort of remarkable.

That said, this has been a huge soap opera at City hall and in the county legislature.

It's also striking, Dave, that there was a time, of course, we were celebrating Wyandotte County in Kansas City, Kansas, and the consolidation of government.

And we were thinking, wow, this was going to.

Spread.

Around our metro that we can, you know, avoid duplicative services.

And yet but that fever towards consolidation clearly has never happened.

Yeah, this would have been a place to do it.

Yeah.

And actually there's been discussions over the years of Kansas City becoming its own entity outside of Jackson County for a number of reasons that they never really went anywhere.

It isn't clear how much savings would have come had the two entities here, the city and the county had gotten together on the jail because the city was always going to build its own beds.

They were just going to share kitchen facilities and administrative rooms.

And so how much savings was involved for either side is not completely clear.

What is clear is that Kansas City and Jackson County do not get along or cross 12th Street, and that has ramifications for the stadiums and a bunch of other things as well.

But it's not just the cost of building the jail.

You've got staffing issues that you're going to have to deal with now.

So the city is going to be competing with the county with that anyway.

I mean, you were going to have another 100, 200 beds.

You had to have guards.

I mean, they were, in essence, separate facilities with shared common areas.

So if they were there in the same complex, then you had guards that go from one side of the building to the other, though, because they can't because because there are different kinds of prisoners.

But okay, okay, let's finish here.

But when the transit, the transition comes from you're in the city jail, you have to go to the county jail.

So you've got transportation issues that you're going to have now because the buildings were going to be almost next to each other.

They could have walked them over there versus having to drive away.

In other words, this is a complicated issue, Eric.

Yes, but I'm on that committee to to see alternatives to incarceration and how many beds faces the city needed.

And we've been meeting for about the past two months on it and we still have other meetings to go.

And now the mayor decides that he wants to what is.

What is the city cutting its services?

What do they raise in taxes to be able to fund the new jail?

It's going to be a considerable amount of money.

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?

The Chiefs make their long awaited return and a hyperextended knee becomes one of the most searched Google terms in Kansas City.

It's a big weekend at the Kansas Speedway.

It's the NASCAR playoffs.

Bring national TV coverage to our metro.

The Guinness Book of World Records in town is a 100 hour baseball game breaks the world record in North Kansas City and all for charity.

Speaking of baseball, former Royals manager Ned Yost inducted into the Hall of Fame at Kauffman Stadium.

That was fast.

We talked about it last week.

Now, that giant observation wheel already rising from the ground next to Union Station, part of a new entertainment district called Penn Waypoint.

Public input sessions this week on the upcoming expansion of I-70.

If you think construction is bad right now around the metro model, it says it's going to be a seven year construction zone from Blue Springs to Saint Louis.

An ugly political battle over housing in Greenwich Village.

Back in the headlines, a judge strikes down a citizen petition effort that would have limited new apartments in the city.

But greenlights a November ballot measure limiting the power of the friendly village man.

If we're stopped by police, we all pray for a warning rather than a ticket.

So did you see this story, Lawrence?

Police now issuing repair vouchers instead of tickets to drivers stopped for such things as broken mirrors and tail lights is being funded by a national nonprofit called Lights On, which wants to stop drivers having their lives upended because of small equipment failures like it burned out light bulb already.

Chris Katz, Did you pick one of those stories or something completely different?

I did.

I thought, I think the privilege story is really worth watching.

Moving forward.

A judge saying no to two ballot initiatives, saying yes to a third, and the possible changes to city government.

That could happen if voters say.

Yes and nobody seems to want apartments.

We saw Shawnee as also this week rejecting a measure for a huge apartment complex as well.

Eric, what did you put up?

I had to.

Chris Jones give that man his money.

Hey, we need to understand that.

Yeah, that's what he said.

And also, Kansas City public schools were getting feedback from the community about levies and what those levies increases would mean for Kansas City public Schools.

Thank you.

Peggy Lowe I think we become really callous in watching Missouri politics and how terrible the headlines always are about social services and the safety net.

But a news story came across just yesterday on the Kansas City Beacon by Meg Meg Cunningham, and she reports that the state's maternal Mortality Review Board found that homicide was the third leading cause of death for Missouri moms.

Black women made up 75% of those deaths.

I mean, that's just appalling.

And that was just from 2018 to 2020.

So that's just another story that drops, I think, in Missouri.

And we don't pay a lot of attention to.

Absolutely.

Dave.

The Partizan feud in Johnson County, Kansas, continues with the county commission split badly on a number of issues, including closed meetings and the sheriff's department and other things.

We need to keep an eye on the continuing politicization of a commission that used to be relatively nonpartisan.

It isn't that way anymore.

And all that we will say our week has been reviewed courtesy of KCUR's Peggy Lowe and Channel Nine's Chris Ketz from the helm of Next Page, KC Eric Wesson and former star news icon Dave Helling.

Now, some people ask, What do I do when I'm not doing this show?

Yeah, I work more than 30 minutes a week.

Well, for the better part of a year, we've been working with my colleague Michael Price on a new documentary.

You can see next week on the Business of Aging in Kansas City.

We would have no idea what went on with Dad had we not had the cameras in there.

We go inside one of Missouri's private pay, a long term care facilities.

I didn't want her to have to spend another day.

With people that.

Were not sympathetic to.

Her.

And it's the care any better in a publicly funded nursing home.

And so if I had been here, it would have been one more night that she not only would have been in pain, but she also would have been hungry.

And I'm just not sure that it would have been addressed.

There are reams of regulations, but are they being adequately enforced?

What residents often tell us, I wish I would have died than to.

Live like this.

And as more of us want to age in our own homes, how accommodating is your city?

There are a number of different challenges and sidewalks we're trying to catch up.

Is it possible to grow old in America?

Only here with dignity.

We also had a real safety issue at play, let alone all my concerns around her.

Dignity, cleanliness, hygiene.

Please, I am begging you for the safety of these residents.

Investigate this facility.

You can watch.

How should we care?

Next Thursday night at seven on Kansas City PBS.

And stay with us immediately afterwards for a town hall on the state of aging in Kansas City.

We'll see you then.

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

Be well.

Keep calm and carry on.