While the Swift Kelce romance still attracts huge attention, we bring you the big divorces Kansas City, Kansas and Wyandotte County about to undergo an epic split.

25 years after the two governments merged.

If the unified government had been working as promised, I personally don't believe we would have inherited $1,000,000,000 worth of debt.

Also this week, dreams no longer.

Are you about to have the chance to take high speed rail to KCI?

And yes, a streetcar to Chiefs Kingdom.

Independence Ringing the alarm bells.

A new city report says they'll lose millions if the Royals ditch Kauffman Stadium.

And the wife of the ex-cop convicted of killing a black man, now begging the governor to pardon her husband.

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 Courtney S Turner Charitable Trust, John H Mize and Bank of America NA co trustees.

The restaurant at 1900.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Nick Haines, and it is great to be back with you on the weekend review table as we lift up the hood on the metro's most impactful, confusing and befuddling local news stories rolling up their sleeves to dissect the headlines from KCUR news Lisa Rodriguez former Kansas City star reporter and editorial writer Dave Helling.

KMBC nine political analyst Michael Mahoney.

And at the helm of our metros, newest newspaper.

Next Page KC Eric Wesson.

Now, while the blossoming romance between chiefs player Travis Kelce and singer Taylor Swift continues to consume lots of local news attention, we want to discuss the big divorce.

If there wasn't already enough political division in the news, is Kansas City, Kansas and Wyandotte County about to undergo an epic political split?

For those who've been around a while, it was considered a miracle.

Back in 2007, when voters in Wyandotte County in Kansas City, Kansas, took the unprecedented step of combining their two governments into one.

In fact, it was such a big deal, it attracted national news attention.

And we even did a documentary about it.

I think we felt hope for the first time in a long time.

All of a sudden, the whole metro and the whole state, I believe, looked at it differently.

The perception of wind that county changed overnight.

Wyandotte County stopped dying and began growing again.

We've now become a destination.

Who would have thought ten years ago that Kansas City, Kansas and Wanda County would be a destination attracting over 10 million visitors a year?

Okay, stop the presses on the cheesy music.

There's now talk of breaking up.

The mayor of the Unified Government, Tyrone Garner, says consolidation has failed to deliver on its promises.

The government, he says, is $1,000,000,000 in debt and could be forced to declare bankruptcy by 2026.

If the unified government had been working as promised.

I personally don't believe we would have inherited $1,000,000,000 worth of debt.

Many have told me they struggle to see how forming the UG in 1997 by way of consolidation has positively measured up to the promises made for consolidation in the first place.

What, in the mayor's judgment, has gone so terribly wrong?

I mean, he's Mayor Garner's alleging decades of of poor spending, of mismanagement of government finances, decades of rising taxes.

Like he said, a million $1,000,000,000 worth of debt.

And he even went so far as to say that by 2026, that the that the unified government would be bankrupt.

And so these are pretty serious allegations that I think actually it's it's our job here, too, to see how those actually flesh out.

But certainly the possibility of splitting up the unified government would be a really drastic measure.

And at this point, we don't know that that's going to fix these problems that existed.

We were always told, though, this was an absolute miracle that this was happening.

We could pat ourselves on the back for doing something extraordinary with unified unification of government in Monroe County.

In fact, I remember Carol Marinovich going around the country, cities all over America were interested in following this model.

Right.

The they've got some problems here, not the least of which is that the cities of Edwardsville and Bonner Springs feel like they've been neglected by the unified government and where they've been where the government focuses all their attention on Wyandotte County and KC K. But as Lisa Boyer points out, there needs to be some some digging here and some some serious looks at the financial shape and shape of this.

There's going to be a lot of pushback on going back to a old KC K, old Wyandotte County style government, simply because there are folks that are still around that remember.

That was machine politics at its best.

Okay.

So Tyrone Garner said, yes, it was all about beating the machine.

That's why they changed the form of government.

And he says, Boy, we've replaced it with an even bigger machine today.

Yeah, and bigger machines, more headaches.

And one of the things that still comes up when you when you talk to people there in Wyandotte County, in Kansas City, Kansas, is what real progress has been made.

You've got the legends and you've got out of the glitz and glamor of the things that are taking place on that side of Kansas.

But when you get into the Wyandotte County or the urban core of Kansas City, Kansas is like they're still struggling to get grocery stores and the basic necessities.

So they're saying that it can't be any.

Worse if money is the big problem, though, Dave, how possibly could it be that breaking up again, having two governments is going to somehow save you money?

Well, it certainly won't address the billion dollar debt problem if it exists.

But you can't simply wipe out municipal debt by changing your governance structure.

Taxes have always been an issue in Kansas City, Kansas and Wyandotte County.

They were before consolidation.

They are still an issue after consolidation.

There is genuine concern that the wealth and progress in the western part of the county has not translated into kind of improvements in the eastern part of Wyandotte County that people would like to see.

And the other thing to keep in mind, Nick, is the voters would need to approve this, of course.

But in addition, the untangling of Wildcat mining in Kansas City, Kansas, contractually and physically and, you know, repainting the cars, all that other stuff is very complicated.

Putting them together was complicated.

It took about a year before everyone was was satisfied and the unified government could go forward and Ty Garner, the mayor, might have to run for reelection if there is a dissolution.

But certainly it could.

Take so long, though he could be out of office by the time that takes place.

Potentially.

And he is he's the third mayor of KC that we've had in in a certain number of years.

We're on the third of single term mayors.

We have Mayor Holland, Mayor Alvey, Mayor Garner.

And so it is when you we talk about stability and being able to fix some of that stuff, I think it is very hard for an official to fix the long standing problems like this in a single term in office.

It is, however, easy for a politician to blame the format of government for what are in essence, political decisions that have been made over years and decades.

And I think that may be at play here as well.

Now, they may not be facing bankruptcy like Wyandotte County, but City of Independence leaders ringing the alarm bells this week over plans by the royals to build a new ballpark.

A new city study finds independents will lose more than $7 million a year if they move.

The economic study finds 11% of spectators at the K spend money in independence during home games.

Half stop at a bar or restaurant.

One in four stay overnight in a Independence Motel, a hotel.

When the royals move, they say the spending of 200,000 people will be lost to independence each year.

Now, we haven't had a reporter panel for a few weeks on week in review.

Are we any closer to a decision this week?

Nick?

Your audience should know that it's about 90 days, give or take.

Is the deadline for putting something on the April ballot of next year.

It has to be done by the end of January.

No political business gets done in December.

Typically.

I mean, it's very difficult.

People are coming and going, so they really need to pick up the pace in November and January if they're going to put something on the ballot in either Clay County or Jackson County or Kansas City, Missouri.

One quick note.

Independence is right.

And eastern Jackson County really likes the stadiums where they are.

They mean it's easy to get to and they prefer it there.

It gets back to the little mom and pop stores that you have there of 40 highway that you know, Dixon Chili, those kind of places which.

We just saw some video from there.

Right Exactly.

When the royals play and the Chiefs play, you can't even hardly get into the store on 40 Highway and all the other little businesses.

So it would have an economic impact in that area.

I think it might be a little bit more than 7 million, but what do I know?

While finding a new House speaker has frozen work in Congress for the better part of three weeks, the Biden administration has been finding an awful lot of spare change in the back of the SOFA to help fund a lot of big projects in Kansas City.

This week, Matt Lucas announced a new partnership with the US Transportation Department that will help the city check off a number of big ticket items on City Hall's wish list.

That includes a high speed rail link from KCI to downtown.

Can you picture yourself taking a train from the new terminal to Union Station or your downtown hotel?

Apparently, it's no longer just a dream.

Neither apparently is a new East west streetcar line that would connect CU Hospital to the sports stadiums that's back on the front burner.

These are huge projects.

A new rail line to the airport, Leigh, So is expected to cost more than $10 billion alone.

Is that all going to be picked up by the federal government?

I think any time you have a sweeping announcement that says this is going to solve all of our transportation infrastructure problems in the city, there's a there's a lot of questions that need to be explored.

So I do have more questions about exactly how this funding works exactly how much of it is guaranteed to Kansas City.

But the idea, at least the city officials presented is that they put together a package of $15 billion worth of projects because that's what that's what the federal government wanted to see, and that this partnership would essentially put Kansas City closer to the front of the line to get federal funding for those projects.

So it is a wish list here.

I want to see more details about how it works.

You know, will there be a local funding match required or an ongoing source of funding that Kansas City has to come up with?

But but certainly it's exciting and I have a lot of questions that I want answered.

But we were told this was like a really special deal, though.

Michael only Austin, Texas, is in front of Kansas City.

We are very special here and we're going to get greenlighted for all of these billions of dollars of major transportation projects.

We'll see.

I've got the same sort of questions that Lisa has on this and the fact that I mean, if you take a look at this, the ideas of reconnecting neighborhoods that have been separated or isolated by the interstates is that's $3 billion.

And we're already talking about the 1010 billion for a rail line out out to the airport, the line that would go from CU out to the Truman Sports complex.

Well, that's going to be, I think, predicated a lot on what happened with the stadium.

So I don't think that's in anything.

And they're saying that in the same at the same time that there's talk that it the the rail car the streetcar to the KC current stadium is kind of it cost so much money they don't have the money for it's going to cost $12 million more than they have and yet they feel they can do this.

This is not a $15 billion check to Kansas City.

Buy it by no means it is, as Lisa, I called it, a wish list, a It'd be really interesting to see how far the discussions have taking two thirds of that money and buy and putting it towards a rail line to the airport.

Go And, you know, one of the things that's out about the rail line was where we see it in our lifetimes, because they're going from the downtown to 55th and is sinking like seems like forever, especially when our main But one of the things that I found really interesting in it is connecting the neighborhoods and what that would look like.

A lot of talk has been resurfacing about 71 Bruce Watkins Drive going through the city and separating east of Bruce Watkins to Western world.

So I guess but there are streets that go in between there that connects them.

So what are they talking about, connecting the neighborhoods together?

Housing.

Are we going to talk about building more housing in that area?

Because if you look at that area in there, most of the houses in there are apartments are rental properties.

People aren't buying properties there.

So how will connected those neighborhoods and enhance people moving into those areas?

They're not talking about taking the streetlights from the Bruce what can 71 highway.

That.

Now.

Those lights work sometimes sometime they don't and I know it was an issue with them several weeks several months ago about the color of the lights being real dim and they were saying that that was what was causing homicides in that area as well.

So I don't know.

Let's hope nobody calls Clay Chastain and tells them $10 billion is available for light rail from downtown to the airport because the press releases will fly.

And anyone who thinks you can do it for $10 billion over the next 20 years is probably being very, very optimistic.

The costs are going to be astronomical.

You have to acquire right away.

You have to do engineering, you have to buy the rolling stock.

You have to have some mechanism for paying for ongoing maintenance and use refurbishment.

Look at the metro in Washington, D.C.

They're perpetually broke.

The subway in New York City is has been out of money and has needed money from the state to just stay afloat.

So it's extraordinarily complicated and may take some time before it comes to fruition if it happens.

And we do know though, that the streetcar down to you MKC in the plaza will be open in 2025 we're told, and the KC current streetcar that will take it right to that stadium it will be in 2026.

Now speaking of KC, current, there was a lot of big news there for the Kansas City Women's Professional soccer team this week.

The franchise has announced its hired the former coach of the U.S. Women's World Cup team to be head coach here.

And the team has snagged a naming rights deal for its 11,500 seat stadium going up on the Kansas City riverfront.

It will be called a, c, p, c, p, k, c Stadium, the short form for the newly named Canadian Pacific Kansas City railway line.

Now c p KC Stadium doesn't roll off the tongue, does it, Eric?

But neither does a field at our head stadium.

No, always Arrowhead or the stadium.

We don't go to the g e j but it's a good concept.

I'm glad they got somebody to buy into those rights, but it'll be kind of like people still call Sprint Arena.

Sprint Arena instead of T-Mobile Arena.

So how long does a branding last?

And we're also going to have to be thinking about a new name for the new Royals ballpark, because they've said Kauffman is not going to be on that.

Name or sell the naming rights as part of the financing.

We need to keep an eye, though, I think, on the KC current, because women's sports, particularly women's soccer, is exploding across the country and it's led in some ways by KC Current, their own stand alone stadium.

The WNBA, which was always an afterthought, has become extraordinarily popular across the country.

Volleyball, other things, women's sports.

If Kansas City would be well advised because I think everybody's talked about an NBA franchise for the Arena or maybe a hockey franchise, a WNBA franchise, a women's basketball franchise might make some sense there.

Keep an eye on women's sports in Kansas City.

Now, just days after a missouri court denied his appeal, the wife of convicted Kansas City police officer Eric Dvorkin.

Here is now asking for the governor to pardon her husband to balcony areas.

The first Kansas City police officer to be sentenced for killing a black man.

He was finally transferred this week to a missouri prison.

Please just keep calling.

He does not deserve to spend one more night in jail.

We are getting ready to celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary here.

And you know, it's coming up really quick and he deserves to be home with me and he deserves to be home with our kids.

Now, anyone can ask for a pardon from the governor.

Any evidence, Michael?

Governor Mike Parson is taking the request seriously.

From the outside looking in, I would say yes.

There's a couple of things involved in it.

Number one is just Mike Parson's general outlook on government, his outlook on law enforcement and the fact that he's a former sheriff.

I think he'll take a serious, serious look at a clemency request.

You know, it was kind of offensive for her to say that he deserved to be home with her and her kids.

Cameron LAMB deserved to be home as well.

He was at home.

His kids have the same right to have him around and not have to go out to 12 Gates Memorial Gardens to visit his grave.

And it's still being appealed now to the Missouri Supreme Court.

It is still being appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court.

And governor person has said he would wait until the legal process plays out, until he decides either way on a pardon, the legal process is playing out.

I do think that that Mike that Michael's right, that there's reason to consider that he's to think that he is going to consider a pardon.

And he said this week that his office received hundreds of calls asking for one as well.

So that would add to that.

But I also think Eric is right as well that the reaction in Kansas City would be swift, it would be powerful.

I think we would see Kansas City and State taking to the streets in protest of this decision and that there would be a moment of real civil unrest in Kansas City that would likely get national headlines.

To things quickly.

It'll be interesting to see if this public pressure campaign on the governor actually has any effect or if it backfires.

You know, it raises it to such a level that maybe the governor feels like it would be wrong to intervene because so many people are paying attention rather than sort of a quiet discussion.

If people come to believe that justice is based on how much pressure you can put on an elected official, then our justice system is in real trouble.

The other thing to keep an eye on, Nick, is the governor has commutation power as well.

He might decide not to pardon Eric to walk in there, but commute his sentence or reduce it.

Maybe the time served or maybe to a shorter term that might get past some of the objections that a pardon would carry, because a pardon would, in essence, say you did wrong and now you're no longer considered a criminal, whereas a commutation says look at the conviction is still in place, we're just going to shorten the sentence, we'll see.

He would have the mandatory three years for the armed criminal action.

I don't think that there's a way that you get around that.

Under Missouri law, he would also have the option to go to the federal court system.

But I don't see, you know, the court of appeals pretty much buttoned it up.

They whatever argument that he had, they knocked in the head because there was one key thing that they said throughout it.

If they if he wasn't on the property in the first place, none of this would have happened.

The other quick thing is, you're right, he has a federal option, but the feds also have an option to charge him criminally with civil rights violations.

And so there is jeopardy in all directions involved in this case.

And if he goes down that street, that would be a very winding road.

Now, we've heard a lot in the last several months about giving our young people something to do.

So they are causing problems on the plaza or at other attractions, including worlds of fun, where we've seen some disruption.

This week, the Kansas City Parks Board gave an initial approval to a new $39 million youth entertainment district along Brush Creek.

Is just something to keep them out of the streets from going to seeing out of fast money and giving them an opportunity to actually be out here reacting.

Just imagine if these kids had something else to do.

Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department's review committee just gave approval for Clark and others to move forward with plans for an entertainment center with a bowling alley pool zip line, skate park and amphitheater.

The city owns the land and mentions there are location specific needs to address part of the areas and a floodplain.

I got 39 million.

You just can't see it yet.

All righty.

A bowling alley, a pool, a zip line, skate park, amphitheater.

Where does all that money come from, Eric?

I don't know that he got 39 million.

You just don't see it.

I don't know where he would get it from, but he might have private investors.

The new people that are buying the plaza, they might say, Hey, if we get this to go, and maybe that'll keep some of the kids off the plaza, here's $10 million to help get that project going.

But it it would be interesting to see.

It's always talked about, of course, that we need to do something like this never quite happens.

Is this the solution?

I think I think it's an interesting idea.

I think it's an exciting idea.

And the city is in talks about how to make Brush Creek itself more of an attraction rather than an eyesore, which it becomes once you get to far east of the plaza.

So I do think the city would have interest in this.

I do think it's an innovative idea.

It's something after years of saying we need something.

So it would be exciting.

But I think the biggest issue is money.

Well, and the other issue is whether kids would go and whether it would justify the investment, because I do think there's an impetus to find some alternative for the kids.

But it's a very organic thing.

You know, kids don't show up at the Plaza just because it's the plaza.

It's a place to see and be seen.

And whether an entertainment center would provide that option.

Is it not clear?

Well, not just to this point, a point there.

It's got to be someplace that kids feel is cool for them, someplace that they want to be.

And if they don't have the attraction to that, draw them there.

Then $39 million plus the bowling alley and everything else, that will just not happen in.

A movie theater.

There's yeah, yeah.

One in the urban core.

They used to go to the movie theater on the plaza and they said, Well, that's where they go and hang out.

So they shut that one down.

So now they have to go out to Independence or War Parkway and that's not a good look most of the time either.

So it probably would have a movie theater in there as well.

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?

Early in-person voting begins on both sides of state line ahead of the November 7th local elections events 6000 miles away, causing anxiety in the metro.

Q issues warnings to its exchange students overseas.

And they were your synagogues and the Jewish Community Center stepping up security.

Kansas City turns pink And here's a blast from the past.

John-Boy Walton in town playing the leading role in To Kill a mockingbird at the Musical.

And Union Station's latest blockbuster is literally made of blocks reactionary The Ultimate Lego A to Z opening this weekend.

Pink slips go out at Park University as enrollment declines more than 30% since the start of the pandemic.

Fill your prescriptions now.

Local pharmacist at CVS and Walgreens expected to walk off the job again starting Monday.

And the Chiefs take the field one last time before flying to Europe for their first regular season game in Frankfurt, Germany, next week.

Now, some might even say this week, forget about the Chiefs.

What about Sporting Kansas City becoming the first team in Major League Soccer history to lose its first ten games and still go on to make the playoffs?

Chevrolet and Sporting Kansas City advance.

All righty.

Lots of excitement at Children's Mercy Park.

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

The Johnson County Health Department this week confirmed four additional cases of tuberculosis, and that's this is after mass testing in the late the school district after one active case was detected.

It's just it seems small and there's further testing needed to see if these are active cases.

But tuberculosis is not something that we really should be dealing with right now.

And that is a huge, large headache for the school district.

Hundreds of people need to be tested, hundreds that haven't been tested yet.

And so it's interesting to follow.

And and I think a warning to.

Parents, Eric.

I'd say something completely different.

Katie has a election coming up here shortly and there's been whispers in the black community about the governor, I mean, the mayor and City hall not being more involved in it.

They say the mayor is sitting on $1,000,000 in a federal campaign war chest.

Why isn't he helping raise money for this?

And Katie and the bus system has a significant impact on people in the third and fifth District, which are primarily black people and why he's not supporting getting out that tax cut.

We will dissect that next week ahead of the election, along with the other ballot questions on both sides of state line.

Michael Mahoney The brouhaha going on down in Jefferson City with the Missouri House speaker, Dean Plucker.

He's accused basically of double dipping, charging the state for some travel expense expenses.

And that should have and that should have come out of this campaign account.

And there are now some calls for him to resign.

Keep an eye on it, Dave.

Our old friend Mark Alford, now a congressman, used to sit right there.

Absolutely.

Periodically on this program has announced his candidacy for the vice chairmanship of the Republican Conference in the House.

He's been in the House for about a year.

So his his political aggression in terms of his career is very evident.

He says he deserves the spot because of his long broadcasting career and he can bring those talents, he says, to the Republican Party.

And on that, we will say our week has been reviewed thanks to KCUR's Lisa Rodriguez and Channel Nine's Michael Mahoney.

From Next Page, KC, Eric Wesson and former star newshound Dave Helling.

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

PBS.

Be well, keep calm and carry on.