So no victory parade after all.

Instead, all we get is bad backs shoveling snow while we look at the rest of the week's news.

From sports to politics, next.

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of Dave and Jamie Cummings, Bob and Marlese Gourley, the Courtney S Turner Charitable Trust, John H mine and Bank of America, and a co trustee, the Francis Family Foundation, through the discretionary fund of David and Janice Francis and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello and welcome.

I'm Nick Haines, and thank you for joining us on our weekly journey through the impactful, confusing, and downright head scratching news stories in Kansas City.

Hopping on board the Week in Review bus with us this week, KCUR news director Lisa Rodriguez, former star, reporter and editorial writer Dave Helling at the helm of our metro's newest newspaper, Next Page KC Eric Wesson and tracking the region's top political stories for KCUR news.

Brian Ellison now it was a super painful week for many Kansas City fans.

Who was very disappointed and disappointed.

Definitely wanted to see them win.

You know, and then they booked to come back here to see my.

Parents and hopefully a parade, but no parade.

Already.

If the Chiefs fizzling out on the NFL's biggest stage wasn't enough, shoveling out from another winter storm did nothing to boost our collective mood or that of parents who had to juggle work and trying to take care of their kids.

The schools closed down, so no victory parade.

Instead, just a sore back from shoveling snow.

I'm going to force our reporters this week to do something we're not traditionally good at as we start the show, and that's to give us one positive good news story that happened this week.

Brian, it is no problem at all.

Nick, I am happy to pivot from football news to the start of spring training for the Kansas City Royals and surprise Arizona pitchers and catchers reported this week.

Not only the weather is a contrast, but I think there's also great prospects for a very successful season.

There's a lot of enthusiasm.

spring training.

Is it makes me happy every single year.

Okay, Dave, you are great at spotlighting problems on this show, but how about something positive?

Well, the two things.

First, February is half over.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah, positive.

And second, The Athletic has a story that Kansas City has made a formal application for.

And W NBA franchise.

And that application, includes construction of a basketball training facility down by the soccer stadium as well as other, parts of, improving, the, T-Mobile center downtown.

And so I think that, you know, if we could land that franchise, I think we would all see that as good.

You're probably the hardest person on local elected officials on this show.

Was there any positive news story you could point to in what has been a kind of a bleak, painful week?

Absolutely.

The city saved $900,000 on not having a Super Bowl parade.

I mean, they could spend money, could spin.

Some of the potholes that are.

Excellent.

Spent at least said were you able to dredge up something positive that happened this week?

First of all, I will not stand for February.

Hate.

Okay, I love this month.

Some really wonderful people were born in the month of February, right?

No accounting for taste.

But I've got a little Valentine's Day story for you.

from from one of our reporters at Kcrw, highlighted a queer dating event called Where to Find Us.

Where friends pitch their friends Shark Tank style to a group of people with PowerPoint slides and everything.

Why you should date my amazing friend.

It's a charming, wonderful story and brought me joy this week.

We all deserve some joy.

Here's another good news story for you.

Thousands of people in Mongolia and Ukraine are going to think the Chiefs just won the Super Bowl because they're going to get all those preprinted shirts that couldn't be sold after the Chiefs lost in Philadelphia.

There is a lot of gear.

That was preprinted for.

Them should they have won.

And that is the gear we're talking about that we are getting in the hands of those who need.

To know that they're going to a good place, not.

Waste the garments, go to a good use.

Isn't that good to know we can have people out in Mongolia who are going to think that the.

Chiefs of Ukraine suffered a.

Knock out.

After sending, which.

I thought it could be a tremendous fundraising opportunity for them.

I think those would go for quite a lot on eBay.

Okay, I know a lot of you tuned in to it to look at what the problems are in this community and connect the dots on those big issues you need to know about.

I can tell you that Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas has just escaped a snow covered Kansas City.

He's now in California leading a meeting of the nation's mayors, who are now fretting over funding freezes from a string of executive orders issued by President Trump.

What is Mayor Lucas most worried about?

Lee?

So are some projects simply not going to happen now because of funding freezes?

I think that's a legitimate fear from the mayor.

Now, there are some, projects underway that have already been allocated federal funds.

And and a lot of agencies right now are just waiting to see.

Did the check make it to the bank, did the check make it to the bank, and can we move forward?

Some of these projects the mayor's talked about refreezing certain aspects of it, certain contracts, taking away some terms like diversity and minority and assigning zip codes particular to them instead.

But we've got a lot of big projects happening here.

The South Loop, park project to cover, a portion of the downtown loop with a park that involves federal funding, a project, 71 highway that would reconnect neighborhoods split by 71 highway that relies on federal funding, almost any major infrastructure project happening.

That's millions and millions of dollars.

Probably has some bit of federal funding.

And that's true if you're living in Shawnee or at least summit all of those cities facing the same thing, what about the World Cup?

They're also expecting quite a bit of federal cash coming in here.

Well, and I think the answer to that along with really to the rest of it as well, is uncertainty.

We really just don't know.

The announcements from the white House have come with such sweeping language and, with such rapidity that I think, local officials are understandably left to wonder, what does this really mean?

What is going to happen?

I think a lot of that is going to be sorted out, not only in, further actions from the white House, but also in, the court's ruling on which of these, actions are being taken with legitimate constitutional authority.

A lot of housing projects in the urban core use Cdbg, which is community development grant money, for blighted areas.

Those those are federal dollars is going to be a question of will those pass to make it to the finish line as well.

I'm also wondering, does Mayor Lucas now have something new to worry about as a judge rules that President Trump can move forward with the plan to force federal workers to take a buyout or be fired immediately?

Let's remember, the federal government is Kansas City's largest employer.

Are you going to see an emptying out of downtown?

And let's face it, a potentially massive new hole in the money Kansas City gets from its earnings tax.

Yeah, just.

A bit of clarity to begin with.

The judge who said this can go forward said that the unions who had sued originally just didn't have standing.

They'll find someone who has direct impact and refile that suit.

And so at some level this will be figured out in court.

But generally speaking, next year, right on the mark.

The Kansas City depends on the federal workforce.

The General Services Administration, which is headquartered here, all of the people who work there who work for the U.S. Attorney's office, the IRS, all of them, are living in this sort of weird limbo land in terms of whether their employment can go forward and if they if there is a significant reduction in the federal workforce, Kansas City will feel that pain.

There's no question about it.

You know, I've also seeing that while folks here, local elected leaders are worried about what's happening in Washington with the Trump administration, with funding, what about in Kansas and Missouri?

I see they've also adopted the sort of Elon Musk department's, of government efficiency, too.

And in fact, in Kansas this past week, their online portal to get public input on where they could start slashing, state government services, got so many responses it actually clashed.

I'm of two minds about what the potential impact of that move at the state level.

Is it on the one hand, I think it might be of actually greater significance in the sense that it is coming from government officials, both, on the executive side and also legislators who are putting these efforts together as opposed to Elon Musk, who's, who's sort of status as a government official is a little bit, questionable, I think, though, in reality, the, this is an effort that's actually been going on even before Donald Trump took office there.

So they're not just copying him.

Well, it's a regular part of political rhetoric, especially in states like Kansas and Missouri, that we're going to cut government waste.

That is the the definition of why that is the explanation for a lot of government actions.

they have done that in certain ways, but largely not, mostly government services have expanded even under Republicans during those times.

So I think it's an interesting question to see whether something has really changed.

Now, you know, three homicides in 24 hours pushes the murder count in Kansas City to 21.

And we're only six weeks into the new year.

Remember, at this time last year, there were just 12.

So it's almost doubled.

Eric.

Yes.

And, this is like a four year high in this time over the past four years.

So what's the solution?

We've got more money that's going to be poured into the police department.

The new budget calls for 7% more of an increase in their already, expanding budget.

So what do we do?

We've got these so-called new programs coming on board.

Is supposed to help fight, violent crime and crime in general.

We've got a public safety sales tax coming up, but the numbers just don't give people any security that something is being done.

I don't think I've seen any definitive explanation, Lisa, as to why we're seeing almost a doubling now of the homicide rate, in Kansas City this year.

Have you seen one?

I have not I have not seen not from the police chief nor the mayor or elected officials.

Any explanation for an increase in in deaths and in gun violence?

And I certainly couldn't offer one myself.

We do know that most, most shooting deaths and most violence like this happens as a result of an argument and that when guns are available, and, and handy that that's when arguments can become deadly.

They do not become deadly nearly as much, when there's not a gun.

While we might not have had an explanation, we didn't really get a full explanation of why they even went down last year, though, did we?

Well, I think that's right, Nick.

And I think that's a good reminder to us that when we're looking at numbers and statistics that we you can't look at too small a sample size and draw any dramatic conclusions from it.

When when everyone celebrated that the homicides were down 20% last year, that and then we had six in the first week of the new year.

I think that was a good reminder that the calendar, the beginnings and ends of a calendar year are pretty arbitrary.

The problem may or may not actually be solved.

You know, one of the chapters in the community has been social media, the mayor, other elected officials down and joined a Super Bowl, having a good time, smiling with all the pictures.

In the meantime, people here dodging bullets and burying loved ones.

I think it's a bad look and it kind of looks like, you know, I know they got to go represent the city and all of that, but it looks like is not an important thing when you're out having a good time when people are having funerals.

You mentioned the, sales tax that will come up in April that would, provide for a new jail in Kansas City that they're looking at.

But we have people out on the streets saying human caging.

We don't want human caging facilities in our in our Kansas City area is it is it's passage in jeopardy?

I think the the public excuse me, the public safety aspect of it is that people fear that people will be running around on the streets, lose versus locking them up in jail.

The issue is going to be whether or not the people that want it have a good campaign, because it's like, well, we don't have to have a new jail.

We can just use the old police station as a jail.

But then you got a third district representative said, we don't want another jail in our district.

Put it someplace else so downtown would be better.

And the overall scheme of it is during the World Cup.

They don't want people out walking around the streets that committing crime so they can lock them up in the downtown city jail.

This would be an election in April.

She's only just two months away.

But it's not just having a sales tax or extension of a sales tax for a new jail.

The Kansas City, Missouri school District also asking for what will be a tax increase to to to help improve classrooms as well, is that is that too much at 1 in 1 ballot measure?

it may be that anti-tax sentiment, which is broad and deep, will extend to the sales tax and perhaps to the school district tax increase, which, you know, Nick, the Kansas City Board of Education has struggled for decades to raise the mill levy, outside of the courts, for programs in schools.

So I think it's in more trouble, than maybe people think.

And I think Eric is exactly right.

You've got to make a case for it.

We're two months out and no one has said anything, which was the strategy for the stadium tax last April.

And then suddenly in the last two weeks, everyone focused on it and said, no, we don't have enough to tails to approve it.

And there is a danger the same thing will happen.

This and I agree with Dave.

I think it was a bad move for the city on the city's part to put both of those taxes on the same ballot.

I just don't see voters voting to taxes in at the same time.

And for politically speaking, I am not sure I agree with Dave.

I'm not sure why we don't have, a mailbox full of fliers explaining what the school bond and what the, what the jail tax would be for.

I think that should already be happening from a political standpoint.

Now, amid rising concerns over Ice raids in the metro, a Jackson County lawmaker says he'll go undercover this week to see whether federal agents are acting legally.

Manny Abarca, who is one of our metro's highest ranking Hispanic elected leaders, says he will ditch his suit and tie and work in the kitchens of several area Mexican restaurants.

Can anybody tell me, did he do it?

And what did he find out?

I mean, I was just on his Twitter page.

There's no mention of it since then.

No, I can't help you.

I don't think it's happened yet.

You know it.

We all chuckle about it.

But if you start interfering with ice, you could get yourself in real trouble.

So maybe cooler heads are prevailed and convinced, Mr. Abarca to think harder about what he was talking about.

He was certainly getting a lot of aggravation saying this was a publicity stunt.

I.

And I'm not sure I that what restaurant, or any place of work would, would call him up and take him up on his offer.

That seems to me like something that might put a larger target on one's back, than than running things as is.

So I'm not exactly sure what the, what the legislator was hoping to accomplish with this, but, we're talking about it now, so I suppose he succeeded, right?

I think exactly one person's publicity stunt is, is another person's, act of public protest.

whether you think it is noble or wise probably depends on whether you agree with with his position or not.

I thought his goal was to see.

Were they doing it legally?

Yeah.

And I think, you know, by them not knowing he's there and they coming in and they could be violating rights.

I think that was his goal to see exactly how they were doing it.

But again, we have a lot of Mexican restaurants.

Which one where do you go to?

Well, cast your mind back ten years.

And one of the biggest problems in Kansas City was considered to be a massive border war over businesses.

In fact, we even became a national news story.

Many states fight each other for business and jobs, spending lots of tax dollars in the process.

Kansas and Missouri have been waging border war for years.

Instead of bringing in businesses from outside of this area, they were used to encourage businesses to move just across a street.

Well, since then, the governors of Missouri and Kansas have signed a highly publicized cease fire agreement to end the practice of business poaching on both sides of state line, but hold the front page.

Is it all about to end?

The truce is about to expire, and apparently Missouri lawmakers aren't interested in continuing it.

Are we about to create a business Wild West again on the border?

Bryant.

Well, I think one important reality is that the on the Kansas side, that agreement was signed by the governor on the Missouri side, it was passed by the legislature.

And so what I think is causing this immediate question is the fact that the the legislators legislatures act five years ago is now up for renewal, and that is why there's this conversation happening.

I do think, however, that the, the conversation is greatly complicated by the recent discussions around whether the Kansas City Chiefs and Kansas City Royals might move to the other side of the state.

And I heard some of that testimony in and was in the Missouri legislature this week that somehow there's the view that, because the Chiefs are in or the Kansas is looking to potentially land, the Chiefs are the royals of that has been a violation of that truce.

Yeah, that seems to be a matter of some dispute between the two states.

But the broad question, yes, indeed, it does violate the spirit of the idea that you're not poaching, businesses from one side of the state line to the other.

whether the Chiefs and Royals situation will exacerbate the broader border war, though, I think is an open question, in part because the tools that the states have to give abatements and other, goodies to businesses that move across the state line, are not quite as popular as they used to be because they cost the Treasury money.

And so there has to be some balance here.

You think, you know, Mike Kehoe is seems less interested in that than other governors who might have been in the past.

Certainly.

Jay Nixon, for example, was all about trying to lure businesses across the state line.

So I think there might be less of it if the Chiefs and Royals situation resolves itself than people fear.

But we do forget sometimes that it wasn't that long ago that we did have businesses who would literally just go from one block to the other across state lines and get millions of dollars for doing it, even if they were moving just 100 workers.

What you're talking about is exactly what this legislation was intended to stop, which is that there was no benefit to taxpayers for the same 100 people who worked at a company to to go from one place to another, they're not moving.

They're staying exactly where they are.

They're eating at the same places.

They're the it's just a matter of where they're commuting to.

And so it really was a waste of taxpayer money.

Well, last week we mentioned that John Sherman had said that now his new deadline for making a decision on a new Royals stadium would be mid year.

That could be June or July.

Now that the Chiefs season is officially over, the postseason is officially over.

Can we expect an announcement in the next few days from Clark Hunt about what the Chiefs want to do?

I think they're going to go through, their free agency first.

That's a.

Priority.

Okay, getting people signed and getting that done.

And then I think probably maybe around August or September, they'll come back in the beginning of the season to start talking about where their next higher tome is going to be.

And if that turns out to be the case, then 2026 will be the year of action on the two teams, not 2025, because why not?

Because you can't.

First of all, the legislatures of both states will long be in adjournment by the time September gets here.

August or September of 2025.

Second, putting something on the ballot in April of 2026 would require action by the end of January of 2026.

That's a difficult, difficult thing if you're announcing in September.

So the timeline is getting stretched.

And I think, again, as I suggested last week, they're realizing how much money is involved and how hard it is to raise it.

But the Chiefs won't go to a ballot again.

Well, right.

But but you still need the legislature to help, one assumes, unless now the Chiefs and the Royals could say tomorrow, hey, we're going to pay for it ourselves out of our own pocket.

Boom!

They do it whenever you want to.

I don't think that's what they have in mind.

I think they've said forever that a public private partnership is needed.

And if that's the case, the year of action, it seems now will be 2026.

And not 2025.

Well, just months after Kansas City green lighted the return of red light cameras, Missouri lawmakers are now debating a bill to ban them.

The measure being considered this week in Jefferson City would also outlaw license plate readers now on red light cameras.

What are the major tools Eric Matt Lucas is relying on to cut the huge number of fatal crashes we now see?

Yes, and the state of Missouri has.

I have an article this week in my paper talking about the number of pedestrian, murders that have taken place, vehicle homicides that have taken place, as well as, stoplights, people driving recklessly because there's no police on this street to hit them with.

Right.

Or speeding.

So this was probably quite a blow for him.

I always say, though, on this program, just because you propose something doesn't mean it's going to happen.

what about on this bill?

This is not only banning red light cameras, but also all of those license detection, systems, which are also used in many malls, like even Oaks Park Mall has all those license detectors there.

And and police credit them with solving missing person cases, for example, you know, I think this is a great example of something we've observed before, which is that a lot of Missouri legislation targets the big cities of Missouri, but originates with senators and representatives who who do not represent those portions of the state in this case, Senator Mike moon, Republican from Ashgrove.

he's an entirely rural, or small town district.

has is exercising this not in consultation with the cities and what they identify as their priorities, but something that would mostly affect those cities.

This this has happened before, and it's going to continue to happen.

I've said in the red light cameras, yes, it is about public safety, but it also brought in an awful lot of money into City Hall as well.

Certainly.

And that's and that's not something to ignore.

But we have seen, despite the City council passing this, I have not seen the return of red light cameras.

So the the legal issues surrounding red light cameras to begin I don't think are completely ironed out.

And so I think there was it was always a complicated move to bring it back.

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?

The Kansas City Royals trade in the winter chill for surprise, Arizona as they begin spring training, and a familiar face returns.

Ned Yost, the winningest manager in world history, is back as a senior advisor to the team.

Kansas Governor Laura Kelly vetoed her proposal that would block miners from receiving gender transition surgeries.

Republican leaders claim they have the votes this year to override her, as Kansas lawmakers push to block food stamp recipients from buying soda and candy on the taxpayer's dime.

A Kansas Democrat is turning the tables.

He introduced a bill prohibiting lawmakers from using the daily expense checks to purchase soda, candy and alcoholic beverages on public radio station Kcrw cuts ties with Umkc.

It follows an announcement by the Kansas City Rep to end its long time relationship with the university.

Last year, and Kansas City is about to get messy again.

The soccer superstar heads back to town Tuesday for the Concacaf Champions Cup against sporting KC.

The team is hosting a big kickoff party Sunday in the Power Light district already.

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

I picked something completely different than we talked about earlier.

the 21 homicides already this year.

what do we do?

What's the plan from the police department?

You know, you can't keep throwing money at a problem.

You have to come up with something that's a viable plan.

That'll work.

Dave.

Well, in keeping with that theme, I live in long.

Lexa, Kansas.

Have for more than a quarter century.

We had two murders, about ten blocks from my house this week.

So the problem of domestic violence and weaponry is not limited to Kansas City, Missouri, although obviously it's very bad there.

There was a double murder in Lenexa last fall.

So I think the idea that, legislators need to take a closer look at red flag laws and other things to try and prevent the use of weaponry in domestic disputes, should go for Lisa.

Well, I don't know that it's the biggest story in Kansas City this week, but I can't see my friend Steve Kraske you pop up in there and not comment.

the kickers move away from, Umkc is an exciting one.

It's been in conversations for for a long time, and many of the nation's strongest public radio stations are community licensees, as we call them.

And I believe that as public radio belonging to the community is a really important and exciting thing.

So it's a transition that will happen over three years, and there are lots of questions and unknowns about that right now.

But, exciting for for the future of this.

And many people actually may not realize, but we actually here in public television, we were licensed to the Kansas City, Missouri school District.

The board of directors of Kansas Missouri School District were our bosses until we became a community licensee quite a few years ago.

Now.

Brian, Nick, I think we're seeing the very first signs of a potential disagreement between newly elected Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe and his Republican colleagues in the legislature.

It is centered on funding for education this week, that has generally not always but often been sort of a nonpartisan affair funding Missouri K-12 schools at something like a, a full formula, that has been established by the legislature.

There is now, the suggestion from the governor that he does not think a $300 million increase that is called for by that formula should be funded by the state in his budget.

He's getting pushback from some of his Republican colleagues.

We'll have to see how that plays out.

Quickly, too.

We talked about the federal government earlier.

There's real discussion of ending the federal Department of Education.

There is money in that budget for special ed and other things that would impact Missouri.

That would make the impact of a cut even more, problematic.

And on that, we will say our week has been reviewed courtesy of Casey Wells, Lisa Rodriguez and Eric Wesson from next page, Casey from our NPR affiliate, Brian Ellison, and former star reporter and editorial writer Dave Helling.

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

Be well, keep Calm and carry on.