Welcome, everyone, to another episode of There's Just Something About Kansas City, where we join in casual conversations about the people, places and things that make this such a great place to live.

And the first thing you're asking yourself is, why does Frank ball have a bow tie on?

And we've got a great story for coming out of here, because I have the one and only Mr.

Bow Tie himself without a bow tie today, former mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, the one and only Sly James and Sly, I seem.

I have to apologize, but number two, I think it's great that I have the bow tie on.

And you don't today.

Well, you know what?

When you say casual, casual don't mean bow tie to me.

Yeah.

So I came casual.

but, yeah, I you look good in it.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to have to teach you how to tie real.

I know, I know, this is the hook.

I've got the hook on, which is cheating.

Yeah.

You're above the age of ten.

You've got Tiger Untied now.

I, I did tie my own tie so much, it, it was just, just crazy.

So, you know, my entire life.

So we just, just go from there, you know?

I mean, let's talk about the bow ties for a second, okay?

How did it all get started for you?

With the bow ties?

I want a bit, or I lost a bit.

I'm not sure which, But it was with John McGuirk, my first chief of staff, and the bet was, I think if I lost, I had to wear a bow tie.

I must have lost.

So I wore bought a bow tie that he gave me and my wife tied for me.

and.

Yeah, because I was saying, well, you ordered ten.

Were you ordered ten a little bit, then you should have known how to tie the bow tie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it comes back to haunt me.

but anyhow, I wore it and people said, you look good, the bow tie.

So I said, okay, cool.

And so the next time it came up, I wore another one.

And then I kept getting compliments.

And I kind of liked them because you can do a lot of stuff with the bow tie, with patterns, because it's smaller and if you had the same pattern on your tie, a long tie, it looks like you just stepped out of, of a, yard sale.

Yeah, exactly.

And so you don't want to do that.

So I started liking bow ties, and it was unique, and it became a uniform.

And one of the things I've learned is, is that now that I'm out of office, when I'm not wearing a bow tie, people come and say, you look familiar, I did it.

Yeah.

And I would say, yeah, I'm.

You must have seen my last movie.

I'm Denzel Washington.

Yeah.

but but so I started wearing this bow tie, and it became sort of fun.

And then people started sending me bow ties, so I had to wear them.

So I decided that rather than having my wife continue to tie my bow tie since I was a big boy, then I would learn how to do it myself.

So I went off to a conference and I took nothing but bow ties.

I figure if I take nothing but bow ties, I'm going to have so a time.

Set up the iPad in the bathroom the night before the meetings, and I'm watching the iPad, how to tie thing, and I'm tying and it's wrong and it's wrong and it's wrong and it's wrong 100 times.

And my elbow starts to hurt so bad I can't do it anymore.

So I had to go buy a straight tie.

But I was determined not to let a bow tie beat me.

So the next day I went in and I found out, a unique thing.

There's 50,000 ways to tie a bow tie on YouTube.

You just have to find the right one, so I did.

I learned how to tie it, and that's it.

I never wore a straight tie after that.

you get down in high school and, I'm not going to assume here because I'm going to let you tel towards the end of the Vietnam War.

Yeah, right.

You're right at the end.

Was it set when you get out in 1970?

Graduated high school, 69 oh 69.

Okay.

Yeah, I was a draft eligible.

Wow.

And so I kept calling.

And in 1971, early 1971, they reached me.

they were about to reach me.

So I started looking around just for the lottery.

Now we're in a lot of.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I was gone.

There was no offense.

And once I was gone, my father had been a marine and I remember said, you know, the Marine Corps today is nothing like it was when I was in, you know, that's music you're listening to ain't real music.

You need to listen to stuff that's got one drum, one one bass and one guitar.

you know, no singing, no singing.

Right.

but at any rate, so I started looking around and the Marines, when I went to, talk to them about recruiting, they said, if you get drafted, you are 100% going to Vietnam.

If you enlist for four, your chances go to 50%.

I thought, I'll take my chances with the 50% enlisted for for, took off on my first airplane ride to San Diego, for boot camp, right.

And became scared for the next 13 weeks.

Yeah.

They scared you to scare you straight there, don't they?

It was, it was an a life changing experience to go through boot camp because I did things that I never thought I could do or would do, and in some instances should do, but because I had done them, then I started to believe that you can stand on your head for a week if you have to.

Right?

so it taught me the the concept of perseverance.

And the other thing it taught me was to shut my mouth.

You know, I'd been a hippie.

I was railing at the walls that, you know, down with the word burn, the draft cards.

And I learned that sometimes it's better just to keep quiet and wait for your shot, as opposed to be standing at the wall.

But I had to be there, and I made the most of it.

And frankly, the Marine Corps is one of the best things I ever that ever happened to me.

Yeah, I was going to say I probably set you up pretty well with the discipline, knowing, like you said, some things you didn't think you could do, you could do.

And I think you have to get out of Marine Corps.

You probably think I could probably do just about anything.

it gave me when the Marines talk about esprit de corps, they mean it.

the Marines are unlike other, military branches in this regard only I've never been in a place where I thought that somebody was a marine and we didn't have a conversation.

And in with Semper Fi, where we didn't talk about the marine Corps a little bit.

Or there's something about being in the Marine Corps, which is small, relatively select group, and, and and bad people, really bad people, well trained.

and it was, it was just kind of made you feel special to be a marine.

Right.

and, and when all my friends were going off.

Well, let me tell you this story.

military police was trained at Fort Gordon, Georgia.

Fort Gordon was an army base.

And we went there after boot camp, 13 weeks of boot camp.

And then eight weeks of infantry training, every Marines and infantry man.

So we were climbing mountains, going on two day hikes and stuff, and had to pack on the 60 pound pack.

We were getting ready for war, right?

They were training us to go to war and I frankly appreciate it.

We even had T-shirts that said War is our business and we're good at it.

It's kind of a weird thing to say, but it's true.

When you're in that circumstance.

So going to Fort Gordon, when all the Marines showed up, we were automatically made leaders in the company.

We were when when we were practicing, hand-to-hand combat, there were bones broken.

They were broken by Marines.

When we talked to our friends from the Army who were there about what they had done, we had done so much more.

We had fired every weapon that could be fired, that could be held absent.

Flamethrowers.

We thrown grenades and done all the stuff they hadn't.

Right.

And when you're thinking about sending people off to war and they haven't had the same types of experiences, you felt a little bad for them.

Yeah, sure.

They didn't have the training you had.

They didn't have the training.

and, you know, it was fairly obvious in some instances, but they were good people and they were doing what they were supposed to do.

Right?

Okay.

So you're an MP and you, you saw a lot of the world being an MP for the Marines.

So a lot of California, but then saw it, there was in Japan and the Philippines.

Japan was cool.

The best, bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich I ever had in my life was in Japan.

the most, jarring cultural change was in Japan.

the some of the funniest things happened in Japan, for example, we all drove, Ford pickup trucks, right, in military police.

And I remember we were going to get a prisoner and we were on this narrow mountain road.

And I'm scared because I don't like heights, and I don't like driving close to the edge.

And I could look out the window and see a fall, and it was like, not good.

so we were doing that and we came back, and then we had to go out into the, into the village to pick up a prisoner.

And I was with another guy and he was in front.

So we were going down this narrow street, more of an alley.

He got stuck between two buildings and couldn't get out.

I mean, literally couldn't get out.

There's no sunroof.

The doors of jam.

We had to call for a tow truck to pull him out.

And then he had some trouble with the with the brass because he just wrecked a truck.

but that was a neat thing.

We went to, four of us went to, Tokyo, on what we thought was a weekend lead, and we took all of our money and we hopped on the train.

We went to Tokyo and we were there, and and before the night was over, we had no more money.

Had to get back on the train and come home.

you're pretty quick there, right?

It was it was nice.

It was fun.

I loved, however, the Philippines and the Philippines loved us.

It was sunny all the time.

the food was outstanding.

Everything was cheap.

I was working two days on two nights on two nights off port and starboard with a mix Navy, Marine Corps group, doing shore patrol, walking up and down the streets, collecting the drunks, breaking up the fights in the bars, separating the ladies of the evening from the guys.

We wanted to have the ladies of the evening with them.

and was there on New Year's Eve, 1974 and the entire seventh fleet was in.

And the Australian fleet, a British fleet.

And there was a couple others.

There was, I don't know how many sailors walking around a longer post city.

A longer post city is like four blocks.

One way gets to a tee and goes two blocks in those directions, lined by restaurants, bars, clothing, things and little knickknacks.

Place was packed.

let's talk about when did the political bug bite you?

It's really interesting.

it was a late bite.

but I was what?

my wife would tell you, I'm a habitual joiner.

you know, I at one point, I was on a number of boards and committees and this and that, and I told her, I said somebody just called and wanted me to do such and such on a board or something like that.

She says, oh, I hope they meet between 2 and 3 a.m., because that seems to be the only time that you would have to do it.

Oh boy.

And I said, nope, I don't think so.

So, I was working and I was starting and I had been appointed to the Economic Development Corporation by Mayor Kay Barnes.

and I had, been in the Jackson County.

I've been appointed to, work on the Jackson County Ethics Commission with a handful of people to do an ethics code that they soon turned to trash as soon as we were done with it.

and I've been around the political game for a number of things.

I was co-chair with Albert Reeder on the, stadium reconstruction, renovation deals in 2005.

Right.

And so I've been around all the people in politics, and I was kind of like, there's no mystery here.

I mean, if they could do it, I could do it.

And then I just started.

And during the Funkhouser era, it was kind of like, I'm really kind of tired of all the negativity, and people want a bad mouth.

Kansas City, and we always want to be like Saint Louis or Minneapolis or Chicago or someplace.

So that's nonsense.

We're we're better than that.

So rule in my house if you complain and you complain and you complain, you have to do something.

You either do something about it or you stop complaining.

Well, I couldn't stop complaining.

So I decided to do something.

I decided to run.

Was told there was no way in hell I could win.

And I said, watch me.

And you did and I did.

You did, in fact.

In fact, yes, you were.

The second time it was.

That was, that was a that was a no brainer.

The second time was a landslide.

Yeah, but but the first, when you were in a pretty tight contest.

Yeah.

With the incumbent.

Is it, Burke, funk out, Mike Burke and I. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Mike and I were friends, and we became even better friends.

Yeah.

and and the interesting thing about Mike is that a lot of the things that he and I were both talking about were very similar.

Right.

And so we actually met, and said, you know what, Mike?

I don't know who's going to win.

And he didn't know who's going to win.

He said, but I said, why are you doing this?

I just want to I just want to serve the city.

I said, me too.

I said, so how about this is a deal?

Whoever wins will call on the other to okay.

And we had that deal, so I won.

He came up and said, gee, I'm glad you won.

I said, I, I really didn't want this job anyway.

I said, well, you might not be because I need you to chair the arts convergence for me and put together an arts plan.

And by the way, this Google thing I want you to join with, with the five people that Mayor Reardon has agreed with, to put on the committee.

And I'm going to put you on the committee, chair our side and work together with them for a year or so and put together a plan for how we're going to maximize the return and investment on Google.

And he did those things.

And then he came and said, you know, I got this hotel deal originally.

It was how it turned out to be Loews, right.

And then he died.

I always call you the mayor of all seasons for Kansas City because you've done something virtually and every season that this, that this city, has really, latched on to and and grown from.

You talked about, Google.

Yes.

And we're talking about, you know, you're trying to make in the Silicon Valley Midwest and what you did, you were involved in the streetcar.

Yes.

you're involved in, oh, so many other things.

University Park, the streetcar line diversity initiative and the bar association.

Yes.

Which, you know, you came in the bar association.

Here you are.

You're the only African-American partner at your law firm knowing that, you know, we've got to do a better job here as well.

Yes, indeed.

Yeah.

But you know, the one thing that I think people always point to, the things that are visible right?

As the airport.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely loves hotel, which, you know, I was talking to somebody today.

I said, and they said something about, where's the 2024 U.S. Conference of Mayors going to be?

I said so at the lows.

I said, you know, the hotel, the people said we didn't need connected right next to the streetcar that they said would fail.

And all the people are going to come in to this new airport.

It's not nearly as convenient as the old, that's that's where it is.

gotcha.

But but the one thing that I think was most impactful was turn the page.

That was the very first major project we took on.

I gone to DC, I'm sorry, Baltimore, June of 2011, my first year for the first U.S. conference of Mayors meeting, and I met a man, Ralph Smith.

Ralph was working for Annie Casey Foundation, and at that time he was talking to all the mayors about the, you know, how important third grade reading is, and I have no idea.

And so he sat down with me and he told me and I said, this is wow, let's talk some more.

And we did.

And so he he said, you can do something about that if you if you want to.

I said, okay, so we talked and I said, I'm going to try to do something.

So I came back, asked the staff, can you give me data on third grade reading in the school districts and that touch on Kansas City?

Yeah, we got most of it.

Not all.

Not all school districts wanted to give it up.

Right.

And we found that only 19% of the Kansas City public school kids at third grade were reading proficiently.

What year was this?

This is 2011.

Okay, okay.

19%.

Wow.

Now, if you know the connection between third grade reading and our prison, the number of prison cells are determined.

You know that connection.

So there's clear connection between third grade reading right.

And that if you are proficient at that time, you're not going to be you're not going to be in your chances of going to prison shoot way up at that point.

And it always and it affects, disproportionately poor kids, brown kids, black kids, in some instances, immigrant kids.

and that I just found that to be ridiculous.

So we started turning the page with the idea of preventing some of that, trying to rectify some of that.

And we did not have the ability to work with the school districts because they're pretty insular.

They considered themselves to be a totally separate yes group.

So we decided to work directly with kids as opposed to the schools, and then we would work with the schools where we could.

Yeah, sometimes the schools are embarrassed.

You know, the school districts are, you know, can get a little embarrassed or, you know, this is a direct reflection on us, you know, instead of, hey, let's really try to work together and let's get going.

Let's get going.

You're also very tight about, you know, like when we were trying to do universal pre-K, they were saying, well, you guys aren't educators.

We're educators.

Give us the money.

We know what to do with it.

I said, you you like you've have been doing well because what you have been doing ain't working right.

Okay.

and besides that, you're not going to be mindful of the real delicacy of the child care and early childhood systems.

They weren't going to pay attention to Sally-ann, who ran the 39th Street Learning rocket.

for 20 kids from the neighborhood.

They weren't going to pay any attention.

Heard they would take the kids that met their criteria out and leave her with the ones that were required more intensive care, higher, ratios of student, teacher and and cost more, but paid less.

So then you destroy one aspect of child care in order to benefit another.

and then from from that point, okay.

With a small you're a small business champion, obviously.

nighttime activity for the young.

That was one of your big deals.

Yeah.

during the time you were mayor, arts and culture, we talked about streetcar system, Google fiber, new airport terminal.

You know, a new supermarket at Linwood, in which was in the food designated food desert.

Yeah, in that area.

So all those things really, you know, you you really you had to be very proud of what you accomplished.

And then I know, but knowing you and knowing what kind of guy you are, you probably think more about the things that didn't get done while you're in there and the things that you really did accomplish, but the things you accomplished were amazing.

Well, the things that were accomplished were accomplished by the ability to get people to work together to accomplish a specific goal right.

And we were able to pull together coalitions.

I can't ever take credit for stuff without mentioning the fact that a my former chief of staff, Joni Wickham, is stupendous.

but you still have to feel pretty good about what you did as mayor.

Everything has to start somewhere.

Yeah.

And and I will say this I am beholden, to Kay Barnes.

Kay Barnes stuck her neck out literally and figuratively to get things going downtown.

So we really started polishing off her dream, right?

if it wasn't for her getting H&R block to go there and then go Sprint Center, and then Power and light, I don't know what would have happened.

I know you love Kansas City.

You would have you been.

Now you've got the Wickham James, law firm.

And that of course is with Joanie Wickham.

Jane strategies and solutions.

We're not a law firm, okay?

We're consulting firm.

You're consulting, and I don't practice law, but I do do mediation and arbitration.

I see, I always thought that was a law firm because you was you.

Well, a lot of people do.

And I generally disabuse them of it because at some point in time it has some benefit.

But.

Right, you don't need to be a lawyer to mediate or arbitrate.

And I decided after practice, after being in office, practicing for 30 years and then being in office for eight, I didn't want to go back to do that again.

I would have been bored out of my mind.

I would have, I mean, the same type of stuff dealing with the same types of issues day in and day out.

Yeah, being in the mayor's office every day was a box of Cracker Jacks.

You never know what you're going to get when you open it up.

Yeah.

Especially the price.

Yes.

Yeah.

That being a booby prize sometimes.

Sometimes it's stuck to your finger.

But you and you and Joanie, she was your chief of staff when you're mayor.

So you two really when you went into this enterprise together?

that was, you know, that was the forward move that you that you wanted to make that on your career.

Absolutely.

In a been great.

Yeah.

And so where are we in this city?

I mean, we love Kansas City.

I know you're always trying to make it better.

everybody I think here is trying to make it better.

I think we, I think, I'm not from here originally, and I'm very proud of this city.

all my friends on the East Coast.

I'm an East Coast kid.

And all my friends in the East Coast go.

Why?

Why do you stay there?

So what are you doing there?

I said, man, there's just something about Kansas City.

You know?

There's just something about the place.

What is it about Kansas City for you?

it's got it's always starts and ends with the people, how friendly the people are.

You know, how clean the city is, believe it or not.

You don't find that everywhere.

You don't find friendly people, everything that you can get in other places, you can get here, but it's more accessible and cheaper.

housing is still cheaper than a lot of other places.

we've got a varied industry, so we might not hit the peak on the economic cycles, but we don't hit the bottom either.

There's more of our rolling hills.

Exactly.

Right.

So yeah, people never really you might not turn into Rockefeller, but you're certainly not going to turn into the city's not going to turn into a bunch of, street urchins either.

Right.

the thing I like most about Kansas City is that we have finally realized that we have the potential and the ability to be whoever we want to be, and we're in that sweet spot of still exploring.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And also think to the, the celebrations, the World Series, great stuff.

And then the two and all the super Bowl, of course, was huge.

The two Super Bowls were huge.

And then of course, the NFL drafted just I mean, I had friends text me up.

They said, oh my God, was the name of that place where they have all the things that are windows.

They said at Union Station, well, what's the place as a giant tower?

I said, that's the we're we're one museum and say it's considered the greatest.

We're we're one museum in the entire world.

And it just going, oh my God, you said he's so great.

Yeah.

Those things have really enhanced it as well.

You know, you can't help but be proud when you hear people talk about come from other places.

Talk about Kansas City.

and I've had the ability to be prouder than most simply because I've been in the position to hear a lot more.

But at the end of the day, the things that all those people are talking about, they've been here all along, right?

They been here all along.

We didn't recognize it.

We always had this down in the mouth attitude to we're not as good as a chip on our shoulder.

You know, one of the greatest things in the world.

I got tired of hearing people say that we're we're not as good as someplace else.

We're not we ought to be more like.

And then finally, during the time that I was in office, I started actually talking to mayors, asking how they could be more like us.

Great story.

mayor of Oklahoma City and I were talking they had just gotten into their streetcar program, and it was just about to open up.

And I said, oh, that's really cool.

I'd be interested to tell you how it how it works.

And they said, and I said, you're going to run it free.

So that's where we're going to have a free trial period.

I said, and then what?

What we're going to have a fair.

I said, I recommend that you don't do that.

What we have to pay for.

I said, you can put a dollar on there.

It ain't going to pay for that.

It's not going to happen.

So I recommend you not do it.

So he went out and I talked to him in the free period says people love it.

They're all over the place.

Are loving it, I said.

And then I talked to him again.

He I said, what's going on?

He said, well, I'm getting a lot of flack.

I said, why are you getting flack?

People are saying, why can't we be like Kansas City and have it free?

I said, I told you, man, that's it.

So don't be mad at me.

I tried to warn you, but having this free, this thing in the world.

Think about it.

Think about it.

You can hop on, you can ride free, you can get off.

And.

And the beauty of it is, if you have to pay a dollar fare to get on, every time you pay a dollar you have, you're going point to point.

I'm going to the grocery store, I'm going to buy my groceries.

I'm going to get back on, and I'm going, all right, that's two bucks, right?

All right.

Free.

I'm going to grocery store.

I'm going to go to a bar.

I'm going to have some dessert over here.

Then I'm going to go buy some shoes.

And it don't cost me nothing, but I'm spending money at every single.

You know, where I look at what happened to downtown in terms of development?

We have people from Denver coming in to look at the vacant parking lot where they wanted to put apartments in restaurants, right when we were building that streetcar.

And it's happening again now.

Yeah, because the development down there has been incredible.

It's just been in the Sprint Center helped as well as the whole thing along.

Well, mayor, I can't tell you how happy I am to have you in.

It's very wonderful, K.C.

future, you know, going to be doggone good.

It, it has been, it's just run long as every city has its issues.

we have our our issues as well.

But overall, there's just something about Kansas City.

There really is.

It's home.

And home always is special.

But objectively speaking, Kansas City is under placed as well, as good as it's ever been.

And we haven't even finished the job yet.

Frank, I just want to tell you that I was always a follower when you were on TV.

You were always my favorite guy in sports and whatnot, and, I miss you there, but I admire the fact that you haven't stopped doing stuff and you're not living on a golf course somewhere, just playing golf all the time.

You're still giving back.

And I appreciate that.

Thanks for having me there.

Hey, you're the best.

Thank you so much for the kind words getting meet them.

All right, Bro.