The simmering stadium saga roars back to life.

Some intriguing new developments on both sides of state line.

And then there were 15.

That's how many people have applied to become the next Jackson County Executive.

Does anyone have the edge?

Also, this half hour, weeks after Missouri redrew its political maps, Kansas inching towards a special session to do the same, but with a twist.

A ban on transgender Kansans from changing their driver's licenses and birth certificates.

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

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of Dave and Jamie Cummings, Bob and Marlese Gourley, the Courtney as Turner Charitable Trust, John H. Mines and Bank of America Na Co trustees.

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

Thank you.

Hello and welcome.

I'm Nick Haines, glad to have you with us on our weekly journey through the week's most impactful, confusing and downright head scratching local news stories.

Hopping on board with the Week in Review bus with us this week.

KCUR, local government reporter.

Savannah Hawley-Bates, former star, report and editorial writer Dave Helling from the world of television news political reporter Charlie Keegan, and tracking the region's political news stories for KC Brian Ellison now, Kansas City leaders are patting themselves on the back this week for managing the massive crowds at two back to back Chapel Road concerts at Liberty Memorial.

Mayor Quinton Lucas goes on stage one stage.

Further, in a social media message, he writes, tens of thousands converged on the World War One museum area and gone in and out efficiently with no problems.

Interesting look at pictures from this weekend.

Look at video from this weekend.

You saw people coming from all around the region.

Really all around the country.

They got in and out.

They loved it.

There was public transportation, there were hotels.

It was a huge.

Boon to businesses in the Kansas City area.

Downtown area, and it would be the sort of thing that we hope we could see, not just a few nights a year, but add on 81 nights a year as well.

So how many things take 81 days a year now?

Surely can't be talking about the royals, can he, that have 81 home games a year?

Is this the mayor's way less than subtle way, perhaps, of saying he can do the same thing if there's a downtown ballpark within steps of where Chapel Ron was performing?

100%.

Yeah.

The mayor has been a big proponent of downtown baseball, and I think he's been on a campaign to get other people on board.

And this was his chance to really explain that.

It's possible that we had 30,000 people here.

They were able to figure it out.

They were able to find a place to park.

That's always what everybody said.

That is the.

Thing.

And so yeah, he's going to tout that for sure.

Is it fair to say, though, that would be sort of an apples to oranges comparison?

81 games, all the infrastructure involved in doing that on a regular basis.

This is just two nights where people are wearing, you know, pink cowboy hats and cowboy boots.

They might wear pink cowboy hats to the Royals games as well, but they I don't think it's apples to oranges.

It might not be quite apples to apples, but it's somewhere in between.

This is the mayor does this quite a lot with events that happened downtown in that Union Station area to.

He's been advocating for the Washington Square Park location for a long time.

and I think any chance he gets to show that large crowds can move in and out of Kansas City efficiently with the excess parking and with the new streetcar route, I think he's going to take it.

Yeah.

I mean, I think the mayor does make a good point.

And frankly, this has been the experience of other cities, too.

Downtown stadiums tend to work out, people are always worried about parking.

They're always worried about logistics, and they usually make them work.

The question I think that is up for debate is whether it's in the best interest of the city to do that, but it is certainly something that cities usually find a way to manage.

It's been a confusing week of signals, though, and we heard it from Kay Barnes as well in, her opening day in the job of county executive advocating for a downtown stadium.

But we heard other leaders suggesting that it's not in the cards.

So I'm not sure what to make of this week's.

Okay.

Well, let's get into that with Dave Helling here, because the site we keep hearing about, as Savannah mentioned is Washington Square Park.

That's right next to Crown Center, which is just a stone's throw from where Chapel Rone was performing.

But did that site take a big hit this week when Ron Bader on McGee, rather the chair of the Jackson County Legislature and the man who wants to be the next county executive, says he's opposed to using that site.

Dave, I was on the phone call with Darren McGee.

He met with the star's editorial board to talk about a bunch of issues, including stadiums, and I don't think he was quite as definitive about Washington Square Park as people may now believe, he said.

In essence, I like green space.

That green space exists.

There's there may be a better place for downtown baseball, including the East Village.

He didn't say that.

But that's the alternative that you hear most because that area needs development.

Unlike Washington Square Park, which is surrounded by Crown Center and existing hotels.

But Darren McGee's views are not definitive in any case.

I mean, he's just a member of the legislature.

Sure.

The chairman right now, but he has not been even appointed to the interim position of his county executive, let alone fully elected to it.

And the clock is ticking on all of these decisions.

So what he thinks is not definitive in terms of where this stadium might go.

Okay.

Now all of the stadium talk comes as Kansas leaders report a growing warchest of cash to lure one or both teams across the state line.

Kansas has now amassed a $26 million fund from sports betting revenue to help woo the Chiefs and Royals.

How much of a stadium does that buy you?

Is that the restrooms and the concession stands?

Charlie?

How do you know that's the entire parking lot?

You know, that is just a sliver of a stadium.

But in Kansas, what they really are putting their eggs in the Star Bonds basket.

They think that those sales tax is really what's going to carry their proposal across the finish line and help pay for the rest of the stadium.

And while much of the focus, of course, has been on the Royals and where they will build, the Chiefs were making news of their own this week.

Team president Mark Donovan says they're now launching a six week process, seeking applicants to design a possible new closed roof stadium in Kansas.

Does that mean Savannah they're no longer interested in staying where they are?

No.

I think you know, the $26 million, closed roof stadium, six weeks study over the past two years this has happened, but we're still in the same spot, which is both teams are investigating multiple sites on either side of the state line, and both teams are not giving any definitive answers about where they might be headed.

And both teams are still trying to court the best possible offer with the most public money possible to get their stadiums, and that ultimately will determine where they go just quickly.

Dawn McGee talked about the Chiefs and Royals in that discussion with the editorial board, and he said he was convinced that the Chiefs are much more likely to stay in Jackson County than maybe the Royals, in part because the cost of building a new stadium in Kansas is extraordinarily high.

Even without star bonds.

Even if you get 70% public participation, the chiefs might have to come up with $1 billion of their own money, and they may be very reluctant to do that.

So Jackson County then becomes a viable alternative.

If you include some sort of sales tax that would go to voters next year.

He thinks that's the most likely alternative, the royals.

Nobody knows what the royals want to do.

Certainly the Royals don't know what the Royals want to do.

And that's a different question.

Okay.

If the Chiefs are really going to stay where they are, why make this public announcement at all this week?

Bryant that clearly was only going inflating people to think that they would be moving over to Kansas.

And they're starting this new design application process starting this week, but inflame them to do what is it is just making them angry at the Chiefs?

Or is it actually making people's, incentive to get more excited about trying to attract the Chiefs?

I think this is clearly a move to gain leverage, and I think they are counting on a degree of public support from the Missouri side to say, wait a minute, we can't let this happen.

To us, to, you know, the end of the year is such a deadline here because Kansas has essentially said we're taking our offer off the table by the end of the year.

That is close.

I mean, we're in the middle of October.

I don't want to I don't want to sound jaded, but it always seems to be a deadline.

It's always the deadline we're about to meet.

The Kansas could certainly extended deadline, but I do think that there is a growing frustration from the public side of this that the teams have delayed and delayed for years, and someone needs to make a decision, and some deadline needs to be in place to force them to do that.

And circling back to the Royals one more time, our sometimes colleague on this program, Pete Mundo, reported on his show this week that, that actually the leading candidate is the Clay County North Kansas City location for the Royals Stadium.

That Overland Park is the second choice that the downtown site is a is a distant third.

Who knows?

Is the is the bottom line.

How did you read that, Charlie?

Oh my God.

Yeah.

Make a decision already.

It just keeps changing.

It's like a shell game almost.

The Royals just keep kind of keeping everybody on their on their toes here already.

Now, former Kansas City man Kate Barnes has now officially taken over the reins of Jackson County government.

She was sworn in this week.

Savannah, did we notice any big change now that she's in the hot seat?

Not Frank white.

I mean, and I think maybe the only big changes that we're not hearing about Frank white junior, as much as we did the week prior.

Okay?

She can't do much in 30 days, to increase stability in Jackson County or rebuild public trust or fix the tax assessments or bring back the royals, to the table to say, hey, if you think Frank White Junior was your biggest obstacle, he's no longer in the picture.

Maybe we can figure something out.

Yeah.

So she did say this week, Kate Bonds that she'd like the Chiefs to stay at Arrowhead.

That's her thought on this.

And that the Royals should move to Washington Square Park as we just just mentioned, if they're on McGee's views on Washington Square Park, should we care at that?

A former mayor of Kansas City who might be in this job for a few weeks.

So, I mean, the politics are a little complicated because one of the main opponents of the East Village site for the royals has been the Cornish company because of the power and light district, which was the cornerstone of Kay Barnes time in office.

And her relationship with with the Cornish people, probably informed her endorsement of the Washington Square site, which is not considered to be competitive.

But she's only going to be in office really through the early part of November.

She does have some knowledge of municipal finance, which could be helpful, and she may be able to extend those talks.

But the real, decision makers are the members of the legislature, the chairman, Darren McGee, and others involved in promoting something for the ballot in April of next year that would supplement whatever Missouri wants to do.

Now we know who wants to be the next full time county executive in Jackson County.

Ahead of Monday's deadline to apply, 15 people came forward to say they have what it takes to succeed Frank white, someone immediately disqualified as they are registered Republicans, many of them you've never heard of.

But there were some familiar names in the group, including the current chair of the legislature, Ron McGee, fellow lawmaker Charlie Franklin, and former county legislator dam Tom water.

So who has the edge at this point?

Don't do most people, Charlie not can now that Frank white is gone.

I think what we found out from the Frank white recalls that people are engaged and they do care about who is involved in their government, and they're very happy that Frank white has gone.

But now they don't have control over who replaces Frank white.

So I think we're seeing a little bit of unease from the voters who got the recall accomplished.

And now are stuck with this list, a list of names which maybe isn't the most appealing.

Yeah, we were actually asked to do a whole forum with them as well.

I got to get a dozen people who be very hard to actually achieve that.

We don't have enough chairs at the state.

Absolutely.

I think, one of the things that's really interesting is that it takes tens of thousands of votes normally to be elected county executive.

Now it takes five.

You have an electorate of nine.

And one of the things people may not realize is that when they vote to recall an executive, they're not just voting to remove someone, they're voting to give away their right to select the next executive.

I was very interested in seeing the priorities that the candidates named in their applications because one of their top priorities was, the relationship they have with the legislature.

I think that was probably a savvy move on their part, because, that is what's going to matter most to the legislature.

It may not matter the most to the voters.

There was an interesting debate going on this week, also, Savannah, that the candidate would have to declare they were not running for election for the four year term if you're appointed the interim executive.

But is it is that even legally binding to require something like that?

Well, they're still debating on that right now.

And the county legislature and I think, you know, this is sort of the M.O.

of the legislature, with or without Frank white, and you're in office is to, you know, you have this faction of five versus a faction of four, and they typically can't agree on any legislation.

and that includes choosing the successor, a Frank white junior.

you know, there are some that want a more transparent, process where there's town halls where voters have more of an input, where, you know, the candidates do public forums, and others who want promises that they won't be seeking the long term office because it's sort of a, you know, just let's fill this year and then put it back to the voters to decide.

I think the through line here is that there is no common plan, and there's still no one singular path forward, to pick this other than the fact that, again, they only need the votes of the legislature to begin.

Now, John McKee, who actually wants the job and to have it full time, says, you know, that would be very unfair because it's it'll take more than 14 months, which is until the next election, to fix Jackson's County's problems.

Is that a fair assessment?

I think that is a fair assessment.

Yeah.

Where this county has dug itself into a hole here with lots of issues and, yeah, you can't wave a magic wand to get them solved even in 14 months.

But the whole argument is that they want, someone who can just dedicate themselves to 14 months of work without running a campaign for reelection, and maybe give the, runway for the next person to take things.

Go on.

McGee has also said is he will vote for himself if it comes down to that on the legislature, which is interesting because you can hear people already say, no, that's a conflict of interest.

It would exist for Charlie Franklin, too, if he's the, person on the ballot for the legislature.

So we'll see how that works out.

I don't know, maybe my colleagues have a sense of this, how the mechanism even exists for whittling down a list of 12 people to 1 or 2.

I mean, how did with only nine votes, how do you how do you shrink the field and whether it's nominations from the floor or.

But that isn't even clear to me.

I think we're going to have to have someone who has lined up the five votes before we're ever going to see a vote on it.

On the floor is my suspicion.

But but I think Nick, a lot of what this comes down to is what is this job?

We keep calling it the interim county executive, even though that word doesn't even appear in the county charter.

It's it's the county executive.

They are the county executive who happens to have a term of 13 or 14 months.

do you think this is a job that is about cleaning up the mess, that is about doing the hard things over the next year or so to make way for the new person?

Or do you think this job is to hit the ground running and start with an agenda that could take 5 or 9 years and that's the fundamental decision the legislature has to make.

They're free to use whatever criteria they want in making their selection.

But but like Savannah, I think it's very legally questionable whether they can actually prohibit the person.

And in fact, if they get them to to to say they won't run, I think you're going to see a magical change of heart come next spring, when it's when the filing window opens.

We're now in the second week of a federal government shutdown.

Last week, we reported that the most visible local sign of the budget stalemate in Washington was the closing of the Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence.

It's run by the National Archives.

But can we now add something else to the mix?

President Trump is withholding billions of dollars in infrastructure money to Democratic run cities and states.

Well, Kansas City has a Democrat mayor.

Kansas has a Democratic governor.

Are they now scrambling?

Savannah is the federal government money hose comes to a halt or has it not happened here?

it hasn't quite happened here yet.

We haven't so much been the target or specific target of Trump's attacks.

I think the main thing that's happening right now is that tens of thousands of federal employees in the city are not getting paid.

They won't get paid until the federal shutdown is over.

and and now Trump is also threatening to withhold, withhold their back pay, which is illegal.

But in the meantime, many of the IRS employees that work here, have been furloughed, are not working during the shutdown.

Others, are won't work at all until it's over.

Some are working without pay.

And all of this means that people who live here, who work here, who have their families here, can't spend money in the local economy.

And that may be more what the city's scrambling about.

Instead of, these threats from President Trump.

I would say I would not plan to attend the groundbreaking for the Roy Blunt Park just yet.

I mean, that money from Washington may be more difficult to get.

And by the way, keep your eye on the Olathe in Route FAA center, which is involved in steering airplanes from city to city.

the air traffic control system is really starting to strain under the impact of this shutdown.

And I think in terms of city projects, the reason that the city might not be as publicly scrambling as it might under these threats from President Trump is because this is just sort of more of the same in terms of federal funding and.

Another reason why you're not hearing this public outcry locally, particularly from Quinton Lucas, is because he's not even actually here.

He is out of the country.

He is in Germany.

Yes, on a four day trip that includes a visit to Kansas City's sister city, Hanover.

by the way, this is his second European adventure in three months.

Who pays for all of this up?

Taxpayers on the hook, Charlie.

No, the taxpayers aren't paying for this one.

I think it's actually the German government that is funding this trip so he can go over there and learn about some transatlantic solutions to, mayor problems mayors face.

No.

Speaking of taxpayers on the hook, we can review what Stephanie wants to know.

Did taxpayers foot the bill for the special, splashy street car wrap for chapel?

Ron?

Brian, speaking as your Chapel Road correspondent.

You sure?

All right.

no, they did not.

In fact, they never do.

When you see those those wrapped street cars, they are advertisements.

They are paid for by sponsors of, companies or nonprofit organizations or people who want to support those non-profits.

In this case, we're told Chapel Rone paid for this one herself, so even Dave Helling could pay for one of those.

I have his.

Name.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

There's a street car big enough for a raffle.

Okay.

All right.

Pitch in, though, for all righty.

As we continue our Follow the Money segment, we heard from Ray in independence, who writes?

I've been hearing about how much taxpayers are shelling out to make our warhead suitable for the World Cup.

It's in the tens of millions of dollars.

How much is fee for paying to use the facilities at Arrowhead?

Surely the operating costs will be covered, right?

Are they paid?

No.

Oh, we all.

Know and that.

And people think that's unusual.

But the fact of the matter is, Nick, in 2016, when Kansas City tried to get the Republican National Convention to come here, they said, hey, you can have the arena for free.

In fact, we'll spend 5 or $6 million making improvements to that arena in order to attract you to our city and for you to choose Kansas City as the venue.

And that's the exact deal or close to it that they cut with FIFA.

FIFA says in essence, hey, we're not coming unless we get the facilities for free.

And it's so competitive.

That's how.

And we also paying for the security as well.

Yeah.

I mean that's what that the process of cities go through to get, secure World Cup games is the fact that they will foot the bill and they want to foot the bill.

And they say it's more important for us to bring people here and to hopefully have this boon to our entertainment.

And there's a lot of overtime pay.

And I heard actually, from somebody in Overland Park telling me the police department, even in Overland Park throughout the entire time of the World Cup, is here, they've been told no one is allowed to take any vacation, which means they will all pay overtime.

But, you know, this is you join up a lot of outrage over these sorts of things and maybe rightly so, but this is how it works.

This is what cities pay for with these big events.

And so when you make these decisions, you know, five years ago on whether to seek, a World Cup bid, whether to try to get the Super Bowl or the All-Star game to come, this is how this works.

FIFA, for its part, is spending $3 billion, to earn $13 billion.

so this is a very profitable project for FIFA.

And they've got the world, playing along.

Kansas City is not doing anything different than any other city, though.

Now it seems that Kansas has now caught the redistricting bug weeks after Missouri lawmakers redrew that state's political map.

Kansas.

Now we're inching towards a special session to do the same thing.

It could begin in just a few weeks.

In addition to reworking the state's congressional boundaries, it's also likely to take up a request from Attorney General Kris Kobach to ban transgender Kansans from altering their driver's licenses and birth certificates.

Since Kansas has a Democratic governor opposed to both changes, legislative leaders need to collect the signatures from two thirds of Senate and House members to trigger that special session.

Do they have the signatures?

Charlie?

They don't have them yet.

But I think the strategy here is that they they didn't have them maybe right off the bat for redistricting.

But if we have this social issue of transgender, driver's licenses, that might get a few more people, to reach that two thirds threshold, and then we can lump both issues together during a special session.

If they pass that in the legislature, would that have to go before voters, or would that just become the law?

It could become the law.

They have the right to do that.

But the court has already struck down the version of the law that that has been passed once already.

And of course, it is the map that is the main focus.

Should Sharice Davids be hitting the panic button?

Dave?

Well, not the panic button.

She obviously wants to pay attention and she would be concerned.

But the interesting development to me is some Republicans are wavering a little bit about redistricting that would split Johnson County into 2 or 3 districts, because they're afraid it might jeopardize, Derek Schmidt's seat in the second district or or maybe the first district.

Tracy Mann seat, depending on how they draw the map.

So I think it's not a slam dunk that they'll go through this procedure.

But you know that we live in interesting times.

So we'll see what happens.

Yeah, I think right now there's so many Republican candidates for governor next year who all want a Trump endorsement, who are all willing to do what Trump asked, essentially is what's leading.

To just as many people who want to be the Jackson County interim executive.

I'm running for governor in Kansas.

Not 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 Chiefs giving Kansas City fans conniption fits.

Did our city's collective mood nosedive this week by themselves, they may not amount to much, but every day we're hearing about job cuts, 900 layoffs of GM's Fairfax plant in K and 120 layoffs at the health tech firm UBC in overland Park.

They're beginning to add up.

Is there more to the story than we're being told?

The head of the Eisenhower Museum in Kansas is ousted after what news accounts claim was his refusal to hand over a sword that the Trump administration wanted to give to King Charles.

Last week, Missouri Senator Eric Schmidt was in the national spotlight.

Now it's Josh Hawley's turn as he blasts new documents that reveal the Biden administration tracked the phone calls on Republican senators, including his own.

Who ordered this, who ordered the tapping of the phones of United States senators.

A jury sentence is the killer of a North Kansas City police officer to death.

It's the first time in nearly 40 years that Clay County prosecutors have asked for the death penalty.

It was once the largest bowling alley in the region.

Now is the incredible in Overland Park, about to meet the wrecking ball.

It's been closed for a decade and is being blasted as an unsafe eyesore.

And one of our metro's most unusual museums has closed its doors.

The world's only hand museum shuts up shop after nearly 40 years in independence.

It got plenty of national attention over the years.

Am I correct in assuming and believing, as I was told, that it's the only one of its kind in the whole world?

No other museums on planet Earth dedicated to hair?

No.

You got the only one.

Owner, Lila Cahoon, died last year.

But talk about legacy.

Her nearly 3000 pieces of hair art now being split between 40 museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

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

Something different?

we talked about the Kansas redistricting, but there is news in the Missouri redistricting conversation this week, the main organization gathering signatures to put this on the ballot, before it becomes, before it takes effect, says that they've gathered 50,000 signatures already toward the 106,000 or so that they need.

That's after only 3 or 4 weeks of gathering those signatures.

There still is a lot to play out in court, challenges to both their effort and to the law itself.

we're going to be hearing a lot about this for many weeks to come.

Savannah.

Yeah, bad news for the 2600 people today who take the main Max bus route.

KTA announced that it's going to end the route just before the streetcar opens its Main Street extension.

It will add another route to continue south to 75th Street.

And it's also changing three different bus routes to sort of connect with the streetcar and make it more of a transit spine.

Charlie, I went streetcar related as well.

Savannah.

This, to this Wednesday, the city and streetcar authority sign off on some of the final safety precautions and paperwork necessary to open up the Main Street extension.

It's kind of like the last, box on their checklist.

Dave, I was hoping your headline would be Hair Museum clipped, but, we didn't get there, so.

We need you, as our headline might have.

Exactly right.

I'm doing some work for the star on the ballot initiative in Prairie Village, which would change the form of government from mayor council to something else.

And let me just tell you, after spending 2 or 3 days doing some reporting on that, that tensions are high in that community about this issue and really about years and years of disputes within the community over the direction of Prairie Village coven, governance.

Pay attention to that.

I think in November is a good word for it.

I think it's time for us to split.

Split ends.

And on that we will say our week has been reviewed courtesy of Casey was about a Holly Bates and Channel 41 Charlie Keegan keeping his finger on the pulse of politics over at Casey, while Brian Allison, the news icon Dave Helling and I'm Nick Haines from all of us here at Kansas City PBS.

Be well, keep calm and carry on.