Did we solve the curbside crisis at the new terminal?

We wouldn't have thought about in our or just to go that last half mile.

From freeway to Greenway.

Kansas City's new push to turn this downtown highway into an urban oasis and all before the world Cup gets here.

Plus, Missouri with a new fix to violent crime, make guns cheaper.

And one signature away from a transgender sports ban in Kansas.

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

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of AARP, Kansas City, RSM Dave and Jamie Cummings.

Bob and Marlese Gourley, the Cortney S. Turner Charitable Tru John H. Mize and Bank of America and a co trustees.

The restaurant at 1900.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Nick Haines.

We are back.

Did you miss us?

I know some of you may have enjoyed Gregorian chant or a concert from the late great Luther Vandross in this slot during our spring membership drive.

But I've also loved your notes, emails and cards about how you've missed seeing the show.

And a special shout out, by the way, to Lawrence, who lives in Clinton, Missouri, who really made my week when he sent a letter directly to our CEO saying, Kansas City Weekend Review is his favorite PBS show.

I want you to know the best way to know what's happening in Kansas City is with this show.

Thank you, Lawrence.

In fact, I'm so impressed because, you know, there's a lot of negativity today.

I'm going to because you are so uplifting, send you a Kansas City PBS mug and you're going to be getting that this week.

I have your address from that letter.

Thank you.

And Lawrence, we've got the news of the week for you, too.

Lifting up the hood on our week's most impactful, confusing and befuddling local news stories.

Brian Ellison from KCUR News keeping tabs on big developments in Kansas City and the downtown scene from City Scene KC.

Kevin Collison tracking the news from behind a microphone at KMBZ Radio.

She is 50% of Dana and Parks Dana Wright is with us and completing the cozy confines of our weekend review table.

The editor and publisher of the Call newspaper, Eric Wesson.

Did you just get out of bed?

Is that okay?

Very impressive.

That's the standard.

That is actually the standard we're looking for of guests on the show.

So we'll be using this photograph of you when we bring in guests in the future.

And we appreciate that.

Now, while we were gone during our membership drive, Kansas City, of course, finally opened the new airport terminal.

But after a couple of weeks of gushing coverage, there's been one headline after another about what some have dubbed the curbside crisis.

Airport Terminal has its first big complaint traffic.

We wouldn't have thought about an hour just to go that last half mile.

Hour long waits to pick up passengers.

Vehicles backed up two exits away from the new terminal building.

Is it just early teething pains that have been now largely fixed, Dana?

Right.

Or is it still a pesky problem plaguing passengers?

That's a lot of people.

Wow.

That's a lot of piece their neck.

It's a mess and it is not the fault of the city or the design.

We are collectively just not very smart when it comes to brand new things.

There's a learning curve and we haven't figured it out yet.

My daughter use the airport last night, write down the phone number and the address in your phone right now to the cell lot.

The cell lot is not the same thing as the terminal.

And if everyone would just go to the cell lot and wait, this problem wouldn't happen.

The problem is people are driving up to the terminal and going, oh, wow, look at that.

Some people are getting out of their cars, leaving their cars.

Okay.

When you say that we were told, of course, they were changing the signs.

They're bringing in more traffic control.

But stop the presses because Dana has original reporting.

A lot of people have been calling you and sending you videos.

And we've got this video just captured from a cell phone right now at KCI.

Take a quick look.

Right.

In the middle of the park.

There's nobody in there hanging out.

See that thing?

Right.

All righty.

They just sending you these.

So it's it's it's not it's it's still not quite fixed.

I become the unofficial plans so people that this is a mess person that I don't know and I haven't even been there I know that since 1995.

You can't leave your car abandoned outside of federal property and people are doing it.

Stop parking and going inside.

But there seems to be a lot of victim shaming going on here, though, Kevin, because the reality is a lot of people this is a regional airport.

Not all of us go to the airport that often.

We might go once a year if that.

And this is the airport for the entire region.

There'll be people coming in from Pittsburgh and Joplin and Emporia who may never have seen any video footage or coverage of this new airport and they may not know what to do.

Well, I you know, one thing my wife pointed out is you couldn't do this at the old airport.

So I'm not quite sure why everybody suddenly thinks you can double park and leave your car there.

What they need is what they say they're trying to do is tougher law enforcement.

I told them they should send their security guys to O'Hare or LAX for a little boot camp because they definitely know how to move traffic along.

And the cell lot, which Dana was pointing out earlier, maybe not a lot of people are familiar with that term, but it's a great solution.

You pull in, you tell whoever you're picking up, just text me when you're getting off the plane.

When they text you, you come up, you pick them up.

This is not rocket science.

Why is it, though, Eric, that the airport officials are still offering this great grace period, as they call it, rather than just saying let's just hold those vehicles?

Well, there is a learning curve for them as well.

And I think they're trying to be somewhat flexible because it's new.

And like Dana said, people are actually getting out of their cars.

They want to go in and see the fountains and the other things in there and maybe grab something to eat at soiree or one of the other restaurants in there.

So I think it's a learning curve for them as well.

But, you know, it just goes to show how.

And if you read social media how difficult it is for people to do change.

And this is change, but it was the same situation at the old terminal.

But there is less curbside space because now we're bringing all of these people together, which used to be spread out over multiple terminals flying through.

But there is actually also a parking garage, remember, which has if you want to look at something cool and new, it has the new green light, red light things to show you where there's available parking stalls.

It's a dollar for the first 30 minutes.

I think it's $3 for an hour.

Maybe that's worth it.

If it's important to you to get out of your car and walk into the airport.

We had one of our Uber drivers call in, and if you ever want to know anything about what's going on in the city, ask a longtime Uber driver.

They think they need to change the terminology from cell lot to arrival's parking or change the signage out front to stop doing this.

Do not you know, it needs to be the signage needs to be updated and changed.

I don't think people understand the term cell lot and they do need to start towing cars.

I'm with you.

Give it another two days.

They have to get this figured out.

The NFL draft has come in that car that you just saw was double parked during spring break week.

This is the front door to our city.

We cannot mess this up for the NFL draft.

Now, you know, to piggyback off of what she said about the sale, lot, people think that's where you go to make a cell phone call because you can't make it in there because they think, you know, interference and things are going wrong.

So you go to that parking lot to make a cell phone call.

And I've had people I've actually had debate conversations with about, no, that's not.

And that was when it was the old terminal.

That's not what that's for.

Now, as we're talking about the airport.

Let me mention a program you may be interested in.

And I think it was Kevin Collison who said on one of our recent shows that the new terminal had so many paintings and sculptures, it's like an art gallery with an airport attached to it.

Well, next Thursday night, we bring you a new documentary about the millions of dollars in art at the new location and the artists who create it.

See it for yourself.

Thursday at seven.

Right here on Kansas City PBS.

Now, other than the long queues to pick up as everything else, been running largely smoothly at the new terminal, or are there some new concerns beginning to surface?

Well, there's concerns about staffing.

And I did an interview with the head of the concessions department, and they're having a difficult time with staffing, and that's for a number of reasons.

But staffing is the issue for those retail stores and the concession stores there.

But other than that, it seems like a smooth sailing.

And to add to that, I know they're also having a hard time getting enough security people on staff and maintenance people for the airport itself.

And one of the things they plan to do is when they tear down a terminal B, the one that's next to the new airport, they want to use that garage to provide parking for employees.

At least some of it will be used for employees.

So they are definitely having some staff issues, not only with the concessions but with the actual folks who are running the airport.

I see that we are adding some more international destinations like to Jamaica and to Mexican resort areas.

But you still can't take a flight directly from Kansas City to London or Paris or Madrid.

But it's coming and I think it's exciting.

And the change is exciting.

But this is a town that doesn't like change, right?

People didn't want the streetcars.

They didn't want power and light.

If you look at the history of this city, as we're moving things forward, people don't love change here.

This is a good change.

And I do think they're going to get it figured out.

Now because you simply couldn't get a decent hamburger anywhere around here.

Kansas City recently turned to Texas to help fill that huge need.

One of the biggest stores have been growing like weeds around here, sometimes with lines as long as those at the pickup curb at KCI.

Now, Kansas City is modeling Texas again.

Civic and business leaders say they want to bring the magic of this Dallas park to Kansas City.

This is the client, Warren Park, which used to be a highway until the city of Dallas built a lid over the top of that concrete jungle of lanes to create an urban oasis.

Now, Kansas City wants to do the same thing with that pesky 6070 highway that divides downtown, which is south of Sprint Center.

The so-called South Loop project would cap the main highway for four blocks to create a destination park, and soon local leaders want it ready.

By the time the World Cup comes to town in 2026.

Is that even possible, Kevin?

It's definitely going to be a stretch.

They see it as a way to heal the rift that was built back in the sixties, when I-70 dug a trench and separated downtown from the Crossroads area.

They see it as a way to provide green space, which a lot of downtown residents say they want more of.

It would obviously benefit some of the major real estate holdings along there.

Loews Hotels already kicked in 5 million.

H&R BLOCK recently put in $10 million and they've got a few million others.

And then this is.

This is a $200 million project.

And didn't the federal government just a few weeks ago turned down a $60 million grant for this project, saying in a sense, it wasn't cost effective and they were worried about our capacity, quote, to carry this project out?

That I don't know, because on the other hand, the feds gave us $30 million in the regular federal budget.

It was called a mega grant, and the backers considered it a bit of a longshot.

And they're going to go back and ask for it again.

Right.

It isn't the last time they're going to ask.

And actually, I think the timing could be really good.

We've got federal government, we've got Sam Graves from Missouri, chair of the Transportation Committee in the House.

We've got this huge budget surplus in Missouri.

There's a lot of money out there.

Dana, Right.

When you think about all of the community problems that we have in this city, you know, where does putting a lid and building a park for the highway rank in that community priority list?

The city has problems like every other similar sized city in America.

And, you know, Dana, build, baby, build.

I think it's a great idea if they can come up with the funding, do it.

Eric.

On a scale from 1 to 10 is nowhere on the radar when you look at infrastructure, things that are going on.

There are people in 2023, they're living in the fifth District, in the third District.

They don't have sidewalks, don't have curves.

So I think we could do some more infrastructure, things that are more people and community friendly rather than a Fritzy project, like putting lead over the highway.

But again, like a lot of things in Kansas City, we can do both.

There's not a lot of city money that's actually going into this project.

In fact, there's none at this point.

We got the feds, the state highway department is expected to come through, at least with a good chunk of the funding.

You know, this argument comes up all the time that, oh, my gosh, we got all these other priorities, which we do, But we can do both.

We can.

But this council can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

Well, that's a different issue.

You know, I mean, in a council, it's really not involved with this thing at this point.

Or to an extent.

Now, while many civic leaders, of course, salivate over big infrastructure projects like new airport terminals, capping highways, building down parks, Kansas City can't shake its violence problems.

No amount of headlines about the new art and restaurants in KCI can distract from the incessant number of homicides on the city's streets.

Seven murders in just the past four days, which means Kansas City is now outpacing last year's death toll, which was the second deadliest year in Kansas City history.

So what do you do about it?

Missouri lawmakers have come up with a plan.

They want to make guns cheaper.

Before adjourning for spring break.

State lawmakers advanced a bill that would remove the sales tax on all gun purchases.

It means Missouri would be the only state in the nation that taxes food but not firearms.

What do the measure's backers think this will actually do?

Many people believe this is just a knee jerk reaction to the federal government and the U.S. Constitution telling Missouri they cannot violate federal gun laws.

We had this law that was approved in the legislature which said law enforcement people don't have to enforce any federal laws that are not on the Missouri books.

A US judge, rightfully so, said That's nonsense.

And now you've got the Republicans in a petty little spat saying, oh, well, here's something we can do just to show their base.

If you ask city leaders, I think every mayor we have ever interviewed from as far back as I've been in this town will tell you we need our own set of rules for Kansas City and for Saint Louis and for Springfield.

Some of the population centers where the rules that work in Joplin or in other small rural areas do not work for the crime problems that we have in big cities.

I'm going to get to you in a second there.

Can I ask.

But while we were in our spring membership drive, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot lost her bid for reelection.

Ostensibly, we were told, because she couldn't rein in her city's crime problem.

So how come Quinton Lucas isn't facing those same questions when he ran for mayor?

Eric He promised to be he would get Moody's below triple digits.

It's only gotten worse, and yet his only opponent in the upcoming election in just a few weeks is maverick transit activist Clay Chastain.

So why isn't he being held accountable for this?

Because he can point to the Missouri legislature and their lax gun laws and what they're doing with violent crime in Kansas City and Saint Louis as the excuse for why he can't really do anything about it.

Well, I think you're right, Nick, that that voters do not tend to blame Mayor Lucas for the crime problem for whatever reason.

I think one reason is, as Eric alludes to, the police in Kansas City are under the control of a state appointed board of commissioners.

Mayor Lucas has actually tried to sit to have that changed along with every mayor before him for a long time.

Also, remember, Mayor Lucas talks pretty frequently about how he would like to be spending some of those dollars in violence prevention programs, investing in communities.

And there's disagreement over whether those those proposals would be effective or whether they're the right proposals.

But at least what he voices is efforts to stop and reduce crime.

And he he can point to the ways that his efforts are being stymied by the process and by the just as popular.

He's also just a popular guy.

I mean, you just saw him with Shaquille O'Neal, people like our mayor.

Some people love our mayor.

And I've always said this one person cannot solve the violent crime problem in Kansas City.

Not a mayor, not a police chief.

He is very popular.

And there was a line, Eric, I just saw about actually Florida Governor Ron DeSantis that said he hasn't announced that he's running for president, but he's, quote, doing a convincing job of acting like a candidate.

Could the same be said of Quinton Lucas that he is acting right now like he's actually going, you know, he can't be in this job forever.

He's not going to go back, I'm assuming to be a law professor at Q Is he eyeing a Senate run, a governorship?

A filling Emanuel Cleaver seat in Congress?

He claims in my conversations with him, he just wants to be the mayor right now.

Further down the line, it's probably going to be not governor or president, but it'll be something else.

You know, I'd like you to talk.

He deserves a challenger.

When we talk about the police department, he made a huge political blunder last year when he unilaterally tried to shove through this alternative amount of funding for the police department without lining up and doing his political homework.

He alienated the North Land Council members and alienated Jeff City and absolutely set back any hopes that the city has of getting state, local control.

The police department, probably several years.

So he deserves to be questioned on that.

And doesn't he deserve to be held accountable?

And yet he's not doing any debates whatsoever with two states very different than Kay Bounds, who did debates on this program with Stanford Glazer.

You remember him from the Comedy Store Fame and even Sly James, who who did debates with Vincent generally and Clay Chastain when he was running for reelection.

But even even to the point of what he did with the police department, he still they were trying to recall him.

They were doing a lot of things.

But here we are at election time and he has no opponent and he has no plans or needs to debate clay because Clay then live here and he can't even vote for himself because he's got to.

Have some he does have some intriguing ideas, including including Dana, that he wants to bring a monorail that would connect Kansas City to the airport.

Given everything that's happened, was it was it a misstep on Kansas City's part that we didn't have a more robust public transit option when we were considering doing that single term?

It's number one, it's a whole lot of money.

You talk about money.

Who's going to pay for that?

I'd rather have the green space fly away, quite frankly, if I had my choice.

Are you willing to bet it would have cost more to run rail to KCI than the new terminal costs?

Those projects are hugely expensive.

We just the the streetcar authority just did a study to find out what it would cost to run a streetcar line out to maybe a mile away from the Truman sports complex because a lot of people, rightfully so, would like to see the east side get served $600 million.

And that's not what it costs to operate the thing.

The numbers involved with rail transit are prohibitive, and Clay has been a master at putting out cocktail napkin ideas.

Not so good about how do you pay for them when.

You in fact could accomplish many of those same purposes with regular reliable bus service to go to those same destinations for a lot less money?

But we don't seem to have the appetite for it.

By the way, Brian, Erica, and I have been hosting a lot of these council forums and a lot of the focus has been on the mayor's race.

But really half of the council's going to change hands.

They're term limited.

Lots of brand new faces.

What's the big issue there?

Is it crime?

Crime and housing are the two major issues.

Some people, depending on what part of town you go to, economic development in their areas, again, curbs and sidewalks, infrastructure, potholes.

Yeah, I agree.

The fourth district that large debate that I debated, affordable housing and economic development were the big issues.

But what I think is interesting, Nick, is that take a race like that one with five candidates, I think it's very difficult for voters to make sense of what distinguishes these candidates one from another.

All of them have a little bit of a claim, an insight in history that would qualify them for the role.

They all agree that we need development, but it's a question of the devil's in the details.

They all agree we need more affordable housing, but their ideas are sort of specific or they don't have specific ideas.

It's really hard for voters to make sense of this.

I don't think we're going to have a lot of traction on these debates until we get to the general election.

And, you know, I was a reporter at The Star for a long time, and it's a terrific news organization.

But sadly, it is not covering local politics the way it used to.

We would have had multiple stories by now with Q&A, with different candidates.

I've only seen a couple of articles in The Star talking about city council elections.

And again, it's shows the importance and all these all of us are involved with the new alternative universe, too.

But you still miss the really thorough reporting that provides community information on important topics like city council elections.

And budgets.

And budgets.

Yeah, another election by the way, is the first week of April.

I don't want to leave this program this week without mentioning that Kansas could become the latest state in the nation to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls sports.

The measure currently sits on Governor Laura Kelly's desk as we record this program.

The big question is will Kelly use her pen to sign it into law or veto it, as she has previous versions of this bill?

BRYANT Based on past experience, we might think she would veto it.

But I will say Governor Laura Kelly is a pragmatist.

If she sees that the veto is likely to be overridden, she may determine that there's no point in picking that particular item because this one is different this time because the Republicans in the House and Senate have enough votes to override her in a veto, which makes this difference.

And it breaks my heart.

I hope that that is vetoed.

I think that this is political posturing, like all things with the restrooms and the sports and all of those issues.

Look at the suicide rates for kids in their teens and early teens who are struggling with gender identity.

And then tell me as a politician, look me in the eye and tell me this is really something important that we should be focusing on.

But when you look at The Washington Post, without with a survey that finds most Americans oppose trans athletes in female sports, 55% of Americans opposing to allow transgender women and girls to compete with other women and girls in high school sports, 58% opposing for college and professional sports.

Aren't they just responding to what the public is talking about?

Yes.

Pretty much.

It's not a.

Well, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to step on you.

I just wish they'd ring st Paul's about gun control and follow that kind of overwhelming public sentiment.

But what's interesting here, you know, I'm sure the public and they've gotten tons of weird information, misinformation, true, and whatever, but Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, every state in the country with a Republican legislature to Republican domination suddenly decides that transsexual athletes is the most important thing confronting their state.

You can't tell me this is part of a universal uniform approach to trying to stoke culture wars, to support people who don't seem to have any other ideas about governance.

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?

For many, Kansas City ends.

The biggest news story of the week is an orange ball bouncing on hardwood floors while it claims 37% of us are willing to call in sick or skipped work altogether to watch March Madness.

Kansas City Turns Green as we celebrate our second biggest street party of the year.

Funeral services this week for former city councilman and mayoral candidate Mike Burke.

He came in second to slide James in the 2011 mayor's race.

He was 73, also being laid to rest this week, Two Kansas City jazz icons Ida McBeth and Lonnie McFadden and Parkinson's and dementia, claiming the life of Otis Taylor, who helped the Chiefs win their first Super Bowl two years after it was first proposed.

The feds finally signing off on Kansas City Southern's mega-merger with Canadian Pacific.

Amid renewed worries over railroad safety.

The deal was opposed by several senators, including Elizabeth Warren, whose claims it will lead to job losses.

So it was more popular than we thought.

Missouri reporting record breaking pot sales.

Missouri now on track to become the fastest state to reach $1 billion in cannabis sales.

And as Union Station prepares to close to prepare for the NFL draft, station officials say get ready for a superhero sized exhibit.

Spider-Man arriving in May already.

Brian, did you pick one of those stories or something completely different?

I did pick one of your stories this week.

I think the death of Mike Burke is really a significant story for Kansas City.

There are few people who've had such an impact on the things that today we think of as what makes Kansas City vital and exciting.

The development downtown, the growth of of an entertainment district, even the airport.

His fingerprints are on a lot of those projects.

He also modeled the sort of civility that I think is pretty rare in today's politics that I think a lot of us miss.

Eric, I.

Chose the one with Malcolm Johnson where they decided no charges and the incident took place with the police, wound up shooting and killing Malcolm.

My issue with that is that we're missing the overlying story here.

If that situation had to transpire today on Ward Parkway State Line Mission Drive, where police have gone to a gas station with their guns drawn.

I think that's a story there.

We need to have a conversation about the difference in what takes place in the urban core versus what takes place in suburban Kansas.

Dana, everything on your list, Very important that we would be remiss if we did not mention the bank collapse in Silicon Valley and the fallout that has trickled really all over the country and the world.

But I do think we need to be asking tough questions.

And this is why journalism is important.

Where were the regulators?

Where were the regulators that were supposed to be keeping an eye on the banks sheets?

I'm going to go with Brian about Mike Burke.

He was just so important to this community and I don't think he got the notice he was due.

And now he has.

Thanks to you, Kevin, and of course, to Brian.

And on that, we will say our week has been reviewed.

Thanks to Dana Wright, 2 to 6 weekdays on KMBZ Radio's Dana and Parks program.

And from our NPR affiliate KCUR News, Brian Ellison always on call from the Kansas City Call.

Eric Wesson and from city scene KC.

Kevin Collison.

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

Be well, keep calm and carry on.