A city leaders getting worried they're about to lose their biggest cash cow.

The earnings tax they need.

To know snow is going to be removed.

The trash is picked up.

And this week, Missouri moves one step closer to eliminating income taxes.

We're looking to put.

Your money in your.

Pocket to let you decide how it's spent.

Are we ready for another street name fight?

Kansas City is reevaluating what is the next step.

But I didn't expect his name to be on the street in Kansas City in the near future.

Kansas bans cell phones from schools.

This really is designed to work better for kids and really better for the teacher.

Missouri already did it.

Has it made a difference?

Plus Ice agents and airports to a new wave of departures your week reviewed next.

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of Bob and Marley Gourley the Courtney S Turner Charitable Trust, John H. Mai, and Bank of America na Co trustees.

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

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Nick Haines, and thank you for being with us on our journey through the week's most impactful, confusing, and downright head scratching local store news stories.

While hopping on board the Weekend Review bus with us this week.

Columnist for the Missouri Independent and regular guest contributor to the store, Patrick Tuohey, at the helm of our metro's newest newspaper.

Next Page Casey Eric Wesson on the political beat to Kshb.

41 News Charlie Keegan and Kansas City Star opinion columnist David Hudnay.

Kansas City is already cash strapped, but is it about to also lose its largest single source of cash?

Early voting is now under way on the earnings tax that funds nearly half the city's budget, from emergency services and snow removal to pothole repair.

Public concerns over rising costs from gas to food, and anger over property taxes and the stadium issue, is making city leaders sweat.

But are they worried they're going to lose their biggest cash cow, Charlie?

I don't think they're really too worried.

No, there's no.

I have never had that many public officials wanting to be on this show, but find themselves not in the debate format just to articulate why they need this.

Yeah, well, they're definitely coming out in the tricky while they need this, but there's no organized opposition campaign that's out there buying commercials or sending out fliers door to door.

So I don't think and it's passed with 70% approval the last three times.

So I don't think they're too nervous.

Where there may not be organized opposition.

But Patrick, to you, to EU did certainly write a strongly worded op ed in the Kansas City Star saying that this was a regressive tax.

What is the biggest reason for voting no to the earnings tax, in your judgment?

So many, ultimately, what Kansas City needs is to learn some spending restraint.

Kansas City doesn't have a revenue problem.

It has a spending problem.

And even with the earnings tax, the city tells us we're running a deficit.

We spend more per capita than any of the cities around us.

And the tax that we're collecting is horribly regressive.

It hits the working poor, and it allows the city to lavish subsidies on wealthy people across the city.

So, they want to say that this is a revenue problem and we need this money.

What they need to do is restrain their spending.

That's what is keeping Kansas City back.

You actually wrote another op ed you have of your own saying, boy, hold your nose.

So you're recognizing that there are concerns, but you should vote for it.

Yeah, I mean, I it's not an ideal.

It is regressive.

It's not a great tax, but it's kind of what we got.

And it's a it would blow up $380 million hole in the budget.

But more than 40% of the people actually pay into the earnings tax right now.

Don't even live in Kansas City.

They're in Lee Lee's Summit and Leawood and Lenexa, and they driving in every day going back.

They're paying for that tax to.

Absolutely people and the royals, the people who come in and play baseball here come in and play football here.

Those athletes.

Pay to Taylor Swift.

The Taylor Swift, Beyonce, they pay the tax.

The biggest thing is what happens if it goes.

What do you do with the $300 million deficit in the budget?

And if you think the streets are bad now, they would be atrocious.

I was looking at the figures.

They're saying $373 million a year coming to for this tax.

Patrick.

So what is the solution then, if there's no tax, where does the city make up that money.

So if it's voted down it is phased out over ten years.

So it's not a $380 million hit all at once.

The city will have ten years to slowly phase it out.

But understand and everybody who's who's watching this program gets this.

Kansas City is less and less an attractive place to live.

The reason why people are moving out to Leawood or Lee's Summit, because they can give themselves an immediate 1% pay increase by moving out of the city.

If Kansas City has a long term strategy, they have got to figure out a way to demonstrate that this is a good place to live and work and raise a family, and taxing people at the exits as they flee the city is not a long term strategy.

Now, we heard that very few cities are doing it, but the earnings tax is now being considered in Wyandotte County, and that might be a good deal for them because they're also going to be getting these huge athletes.

So you think about the payroll of the Chiefs.

That's an awful lot of money that would be coming in that Kansas City will also be losing.

I think this is a yeah, this is a direct result of the Chiefs now moving to Casey K and Casey K wanting to, you know, line their pockets to some degree with an earnings tax that comes from the professional athletes that play there and come there to play from other different cities.

And and this would also and Casey k leaders eyes maybe give them a chance to lay off property taxes which are high and hike and which have been a point of contention for a lot of folks.

Now, you say, by the way, that they would phase out over ten years or they want that ten years to figure this out, but isn't it the case in the Missouri law that they can't actually go back and have an earnings tax?

They will be banned for life from ever having an earnings tax after this?

No.

And good for.

You.

The consequences are quite great on this.

It's a bad tax.

You know, Wyandotte County is the only municipality growing slower than Kansas City.

If they adopt an earnings tax, it's not going to help them grow.

Now all these the same arguments, by the way, they're also playing out in Jefferson City this week as plans to wipe out the income tax moves.

One step closer to the governor's desk.

We're looking to.

Put your money.

In your pocket to let.

You decide how it's spent, rather than giving it to the.

Government and we decide.

How it's imagine a tax on our rent, haircut, higher taxes on groceries.

The wealthy won't be footing the bill.

We will.

How about 60% of Missouri's general revenue comes from income taxes?

What would Missouri do to fill that budget hole?

David.

Sounds like they would tax a lot of stuff that they don't tax right now, like haircuts, like plumbers, like car repairs.

And, you know, and apparently education cuts, according to a lot of studies that I've read.

So it's not like we're just going to be living in this magical world where we don't have to pay taxes.

It's it's got to come from somewhere.

So where does it come from, Patrick?

Well, Missouri, over the last few decades has become an absolute tax mess.

We built a tax system assuming that, two thirds of taxes would be on goods.

But in modern day Missouri, two thirds of spending is on services.

We don't tax services to the same degree.

If you go to the Missouri Department of Revenue's website, you'll see lists of hundreds of items that are exempted from the sales tax.

So I know people want to focus on the income tax cut, but what Missouri needs to do is modernize its entire tax system.

And that includes getting rid of all the jurisdictions.

Now that that, you know, nickel and dime people with 1% sales tax here and there, it's not going to be easy.

And I don't.

Want to it seems like an awful lot of haircuts off a lot of plumbers, right?

Appointments to get to a 60% of the entire.

Just like but just like Kansas City of Missouri wants to be a place that attracts people.

We've got to do better.

And cutting the income tax and cleaning up our sales tax regime is part of that.

Well, and then part of that would also have to be cutting services too, right?

If we're, you know, if we're talking about Kansas City, maybe having a spending problem, I think you can look at Missouri having a spending problem to where its budget is now over $50 billion, where just a few years ago, it was nowhere near that but.

My roads, guys.

So while they're moving into Kansas City because of the income tax cut, they would be going out.

I 74, 35 and falling through the potholes that are in the highway.

That would not be very attractive either.

But I don't want to have to pay sales tax on everything.

And I at Kansas City they tax you to death.

You get into the state, they tax you to death.

I'm just taxed out.

So I would rather just pay the income tax and all of these other little taxes.

You said the earnings tax was regressive.

People of lower income pay more than people of wealthy income.

Wouldn't you be concerned, then, if they're you cutting the income tax to elevate the sales tax, which also lower income people are paying?

That's absolutely true.

I want to go through and widen our tax base in Missouri.

I want to look at all these exemptions we offer people.

I want to get rid of the tax credit system.

I want to clean up our our we have 20 different taxing jurisdictions in the state of Missouri.

And it's because at the state level, the legislature has been asleep at the wheel for decades.

We have to clean this up.

And again, it's not going to be easy, but it must be done.

If Missouri is going to be a competitive place to attract business.

Now, I don't know how you feel about it at home.

The good news is, though, even though Jefferson City is working this this week, will have to go to voters first.

Exactly.

And I would expect a huge campaign leading up to November.

Is that what are we thinking about this year.

On the ballot in November from both sides trying to get you to vote yes or to vote no?

There's going to be an organized opposition to this for sure.

And then, Governor Kehoe, it will be in full support.

Of the citizens of the state.

Vote no.

Will the, General Assembly come back and overturn it?

Because I'm not confident that people really have a voice, because the legislature has overturned so many different things that people have voted for.

The will of the people is just a joke now.

Well, in another big news story this week, the Missouri Supreme Court greenlights the state's newly redrawn congressional map that slices up Kansas City and likely squeezes out our longtime local congressman, Emanuel Cleaver.

What now?

The deadline for running for Congress is on Tuesday.

There's Quinton Lucas, now officially announced his candidacy for Congress.

He's been teasing that move all week.

I even talked to him on Monday about it, and he gave me a lot of word salad right about, well, I want to be a voice in the conversation to make sure that Kansas City is represented somehow in DC.

But yeah, time is ticking.

Tuesday is the deadline for us to see who applies for for that seat.

To Charlie's point, I think the one thing we've all learned in Kansas City is that you cannot determine what, Quinton Lucas will do based on what Quentin Lucas says.

So we'll just have to wait until Tuesday.

Okay.

Now.

But interestingly on this, by the way, the court, said Missouri's constitution requires redistricting after each census, but does not, quote, prohibit lawmakers from doing it more often.

So does that mean it's possible for the legislature to basically redraw the map every year?

They could redo it every six months, basically, according to what the judges said, in their opinion, that is supposed to be by census now.

It's like whenever they want to redo it, they can redo it.

So if we get Democrats in there, we can do it.

If we got Republicans, if we get independence, Green Party, we can always constantly be redistricting.

What about the referendum effort that is already taking place?

I mean, does that mean that this map will still be used for this next election?

And if that referendum is successful, if it gets on the ballot in November, that a future cycle will be the old map, right?

Yeah.

There's a lot still to be worked out here.

The people who are collecting those signatures for the referendum said this week that they got some preliminary numbers back from the secretary of state.

That point to them having the successful amount to freeze this map from go into effect until voters approve it.

But that's just preliminary numbers.

And there's a whole lawsuit pending in Jefferson City about the signature gathering legalities.

Now, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, because there are things going on on the Kansas side, has just signed into law this week a new ban on cell phones in schools.

The new law extends beyond class time to include lunch, recess and passing periods.

This really is designed to work better for kids and really better for the teachers.

Now, local districts now have to figure out how to store the devices, enforce the rules, and absorb the costs.

But didn't Missouri do this last year?

What were the results?

Did students just find clever workarounds?

The teachers give up trying to enforce the policy?

Or did test scores skyrocket and discipline problems nosedive as a result of that change?

I don't think they have a test result yet.

My kids go to the Raytown school district.

Yeah.

They don't.

They're not allowed to have their phones, but they can have them in school.

They just can't use them.

You know, you got shooters going off in school.

You got a lot of things going off in there.

So I think it's a good idea.

But I don't think academically they've been able to prove that this is a successful print.

So we've got to add a case study now for close to a year on the other side of state line.

And we still haven't got enough evidence.

Yeah, that's but Governor Laura Kelly told me that she looked at other states like Arkansas, where the teachers said that they noticed a huge, huge improvement in their students behavior.

And that's part of the reason why she wanted to go forward with it.

What Missouri did was, you know, enact the ban, but allow school districts leeway in how they enforce it.

Kansas is being much more restrictive.

And so I think in parts of Missouri, you will see where schools are more rigorous in enforcing it.

You'll see better results than places that just say keep it where I can't see it.

And by the way, a lot of the school districts in Kansas, including Shawnee Mission, were opposed to this because they already have their own policies.

And, we always told that, you know, it should be local school boards that decide these issues, not bigger government.

And in this case, they are right.

No, in this case, the governor thought it was best to have a statewide mandate.

She likened it to like a no smoking policy, like we all thought smoking is bad.

And then we needed the state to finally come in and make that blanket.

Remember all those fights in Kansas City over the renaming of Paseo Boulevard?

Are we now headed to another contentious street name battle?

Kansas City is.

Reevaluating what is the next step, but I didn't expect his name to be on the street in Kansas City in the near future.

Mayor Quinta Lucas referring to a one mile stretch of road just west of Union Station, named after civil rights leader Cesar Chavez.

Rape and child sex allegations are now tarnishing the image of the migrant label champion after an explosive New York Times exposé over the weekend, one California city had already removed his statue, and more than a dozen other cities have begun the process of removing names from schools and public buildings.

Is Kansas City going to make the same change, or are they going to let the scandal go?

Sounds like the a lot of institutions on the West Side are having those conversations right now about, and I think there's kind of a rift there between kind of old timers who would have a hard time not seeing Cesar Chavez as a hero and sort of the younger generation.

That is, let's tear down.

Essentially, you actually live on Cesar Chavez Avenue.

A lot of people didn't even know we even had one.

Yeah, well, it's fairly short, maybe a mile long on the West side, and they only renamed it about 30 years ago.

So, I mean, I'm generally not a huge fan of these street renaming, but Chavez isn't from here.

It's not local history.

We went through the process of trying to rename Paseo after Martin Luther King Boulevard.

We realized there was a lot more complicated than we thought.

You have to go to all of the people on the street to get their permission first.

And then there was a big public vote against it.

Right?

And then you tried it again with Troost, and there was some pushback on that.

And the mayor didn't want to change the name, to of Truce Avenue.

It is a lot to that.

It's not just pulling change in the street sign and just calling it something different.

It has to go through a process, and you got to get people in those areas to sign a petition to say that, they want to go ahead and change those street names.

Think we we got way too much because a lot of these streets do have an urban core.

They're honorary streets.

So they're just there temporarily, and they have to keep renewing.

Yeah, that was a permanent street sign.

But it's a big difference, though, between the Paseo that had a lot more history in Kansas City, than this road.

It sure is a lot of big difference.

The last month during the truce truth debate, the city established some sort of, like, street renaming task force, some bureaucracy thing.

So I wonder how that organization might play into into this debate here on the Avenida Cesar Chavez.

All right.

We head into our viewer mailbag next, as we answer your questions in the news, Janet wants to know whatever happened to those plans to turn the midtown Costco into a business center.

The mayor said he met with company officials several weeks ago.

And then we heard nothing.

Did Costco reverse course, David?

No.

It's going to be a business center.

Costco's changing.

I went up there a couple of weeks ago and talked to everybody there.

The optometrist has been told she has to be out by October.

Pharmacists are out by October.

Tire center.

They're going to renovate it from, I think, November to February of next year, and then it's going to be no more rotisserie chickens, no more hot dogs, no more clothes.

Is it surprising?

Yeah.

Well that's it's I'm for and certainly for Kansas side customers.

Will they get their alcohol in there.

Because that's why they go to that one.

By the way, Patrick, I mean, how do you feel about that, that the city is engaging in really basically what the offerings are at a private store in Kansas City?

Well, this goes back to what we talked about earlier about the earnings tax is the city wants to deal with the city.

It thinks it is, but the businesses are dealing with this, the city it really is.

And Costco, whose job is to make a profit, looks at their customer base, looks at revenue, looks at other things and says this is not good for us anymore.

And all the talk from City Hall doesn't change the reality on the ground.

But they see I.D., they get to see I.D.

money.

So the improvements in their parking lot, they're lining all of those things taxpayers pay for, and then all of a sudden they say, well, we don't want to do that anymore.

So we want to pay for our parking lot and lights for private business.

When you're making a profit, pay for it yourself.

Well, city should probably do a better job of negotiating sides.

And I agree with you.

Which is, by the way, a community improvement district.

Right, Charlie?

That's exactly right.

Absolutely.

All righty.

On another story in our mailbag, President Trump deployed Ice agents to U.S.

airports this week to assist overwhelmed TSA officers working without pay.

Several viewers, including Lisa, wanted to know, will there be Ice agents at Casey?

I know there's been under the indication there'll be no Ice agents at Casey because they don't really use TSA.

And Bush also surprised other viewers.

Why is it that Kansas City actually does not use TSA agents, but it has a private contractors that actually do that service.

They use something called the TSA Screening Partnership Program, and this is something the TSA launched after 9/11, back in like 2002, as part of a way to beef up security or try different security measures.

And Kansas City was chosen as a pilot airport back in those days.

And this program has worked well for KCI that they've just kept with it over the last 24 years.

So San Francisco is one of those also, Atlantic City, there's only about two dozen.

Yeah, yeah, two dozen.

And so they're still getting their paychecks right during this period of time.

And story I wanted to bring up last week but didn't have time for but it came from the stars.

David had no who made a splash last week?

Yes.

As he walked the entire length and breadth of the country club Plaza and discovered, according to the headline, Kansas City Plaza's blight debate once seemed laughable.

Not so much now, he lamented.

The growing number of empty storefronts.

And here's the money line.

Several times people have stopped me to ask where the busy part of the plaza is.

They think that may be in the wrong place.

Ouch.

Is that what you expected when you started your reportorial visit to the Plaza?

My shoe leather reporting on the plaza.

Kind of, I mean, I first of all, that's a that's what a street musician told me on the plaza.

So that wasn't even my quote, but, you know, I hadn't been going to the Plaza as much in recent years, so maybe that was kind of a hint.

But when I got down there, it was just a little bit even more grim than I thought it would be.

The whole West Side is I mean, it's anchored by this dirt patch where the Nordstrom was supposed to be.

The movie theater is gone.

There's whole half blocks of empty storefronts, locked ins leaving on the other side of the plaza.

You got the Intercontinental that's underwater on its loan, apparently.

And so it's just it's not going to be.

It's certainly not going to be good for the World Cup.

Right.

There was a little bit of action and there's some roadwork going on.

A few like coming Soon signs.

But it's going to be kind of embarrassing.

Since you went over the Intercontinental Hotel.

The Conde Nast Day magazine this week listed all the luxury hotels in Kansas City for people to come to for the World Cup.

That wasn't even on the list.

So that giving a sense of of the challenges there.

But two years ago, Patrick, we were told there was going to be a huge renaissance there on that transformation on the country Club Plaza.

No evidence of that is happening.

No, not at all.

And it's tragic.

Country club is beautiful.

But we've been promised these things for years, you know, Mayor Cleaver at the time told us that it was going to look like the Riverwalk when they were going to redevelop it.

But again, the reality is, is that Kansas City is losing population, and it's losing business.

People are heading outside of the city limits.

All the subsidies, all the wish casting, all the fear mongering about the earnings tax isn't going to change that.

We've got to address the fundamentals.

It seems like most of the people that I talked to say that, the Plaza kind of started declining when they let Houston's restaurant leave.

A lot of people feel like that was a foot traffic.

People went there was a great restaurant, and since they closed, it moved, it has been downhill ever since then.

Now the city has been trying to invest big time in this.

And that might mean tax money going towards the plaza, but even that seems to it that's the conversation is dying too.

It's it was gaining a lot of momentum like it toward the end of 2025.

Right.

And then a passed through a couple of hurdles or didn't pass, just kind of got tabled with the Port Authority.

But yeah, because there's a lot of sticking points there on working out how much tax dollars to give to the Plaza, how many breaks to give to them in an environment where we're asking folks to renew an earnings tax and where people are fed up with Jackson County property assessments exercise.

And just as people are coming in in droves for the World Cup and what their experience would be on the plaza at this point.

I mean, are you talking about the storefronts that they were saying they were going to sell?

Well, yeah, they were going to pay $10,000 for businesses to come in and take over those storefronts.

I thought, whatever happened to that?

I think I should maybe do a column about it, because I'm pretty curious, because I didn't see very much evidence of it on the plaza when I was walking around.

Yeah, it wasn't a lot of it on the plaza.

I think they've got some some sprinklings of it throughout the city, but the plaza wasn't really the focal point of where those businesses were going to go.

I just said we did hear from Dionne, who writes this week, if Kansas City wants the Plaza to be a national tourism destination, it should rebuild Brush Creek into a cafe lined riverwalk along San Antonio.

Is that the solution, David?

I feel like Patrick had some thoughts about this.

Well, we we've heard it before again.

Okay, Kansas City is big on promises, low on delivery.

Now, 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?

Does cue need to put out a help Wanted sign for a new head basketball coach?

Bill self says he's uncertain he'll return, citing health concerns.

The head of the World War One museum is calling it quits as the Liberty Memorial marks its 100th anniversary.

The mayor of Prairie Village is also heading for the exit doors.

Eric Mickelson says he will not seek a third term this year after being forced to endure multiple recall efforts and big clashes over affordable housing.

A Kansas City councilman is vowing to block gender neutral bathrooms at KCI after an airport restaurant worker is discovered recording multiple women in states of undress.

State of Kansas has already banned multi stall, gender neutral bathrooms in public spaces, so it looks like Kansas City's iconic Western auto sign will stay dark for the World Cup as an ongoing dispute threatens its future.

It's been a glowing symbol of Kansas City skyline for more than 70 years, but it's been turned off indefinitely because of maintenance issues.

The Royals are finally back in the earliest start of the season in MLB history, and three years later than advertised, the Rock Island Bridge is scheduled to open on Wednesday.

All righty, Charlie, did you pick one of those stories or something completely different.

About something completely different?

That's what.

We love.

Yeah.

Of course.

On Thursday, county executive here in Jackson County, Phil, the voter announced a task force that's going to take a look at the future of the Truman Sports Complex.

We know the Chiefs and supposedly the Royals are going to be moving out of there.

And 2031.

So it sounds like he's trying to be proactive and at least start thinking about what to do with that job.

That's not what I was expecting.

You know, they said there was going to be a big announcement.

I'm thinking there's gonna be a new Taylor Swift museum that's going to be on the site.

Nothing.

Nothing concrete on this.

We're still so kicking the can down the road a little bit, but at.

Least talking.

About it, at least talking about Eric.

I said something different.

I said the mayor is trying to push an ordinance where the city council will be involved in lawsuits pertaining to the police department and how that process will work.

It's interesting because the mayor sits on the board of police commissioners, and number two, the city has no jurisdiction whatsoever of the police department.

So why try to implement something that you're going to wind up in court with?

Patrick.

Well, KMBC did a story this week reminding us that the Linwood Shopping Center is still vacant, but they've got somebody coming in that will operate it a new.

And of course, the city is shoveling in more taxpayer dollars to support it.

And it just demonstrates that Kansas City will not learn any lesson.

I thought they had opened the new grocery store.

That's supposed to open in May and June.

Okay.

So now, yeah, that's a new grocery store is getting ready to come up there.

Good luck.

Because the city hasn't fixed the problems around the grocery store.

So it's going to be phase two of the same situation.

All right.

Yeah.

And on that we will say all week has been reviewed courtesy of Charlie Keegan from Kshb TV and Patrick Tuohy, columnist for the Missouri Independent and a regular contributor to The Star.

From next page KC, Eric Wesson and Kansas City Star opinion columnist Dave had no.

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

Be well, keep calm and carry on.