You know, my view is everybody needs to calm down.

Quentin Lucas Trying to ease anxieties over a new Kansas push to lure the chiefs and royals across the state line.

Lawmakers could vote on the deal next week.

The World Cup kicks off two years from today.

Are we ready?

What's keeping local officials up at night?

Plus, a new set of headaches on the Country Club Plaza and the rest of the week's news straight ahead.

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

Bob and Marlise Gourley, the Courtney S Turner Charitable Trust, John H. Mize and Bank of America and a co trustees.

The restaurant at 1900 and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello.

Welcome.

On the page.

We are finally back.

No, I didn't get attacked by a mad axman.

We've been in our membership drive, that's all.

Thanks for your lovely notes and messages of concern.

While we've been away, we're going to make up for lost time by being doubly insightful this week, helping make sense of the most impactful curious and sometimes don't write head scratching stories of our week.

A former style news man, Dave Helling from KCMO Talk Radio 95.7 FM, Pete Mundo, KMBC nine political analyst Michael Mahoney.

And at the helm of our metro's newest newspaper, next page, KC Eric Wesson.

Now, I sometimes think if we've been gone for a year, we would still be talking about the stadiums.

Ahead of next week's special legislative session in Kansas, The state's top legislative leaders have written to Chiefs owner Clark Kent, offering in a huge package of state subsidies if he agrees to move the team to the Sunflower State.

The lawmakers want had to sign off on a multi billion dollar bond deal that would support a new stadium, most likely in Wyandotte County.

The deal could be voted on as early as next Tuesday when the legislature returns.

So far, the chiefs haven't responded to the requests, but the royals have.

In a rare public statement, the ballpark says they are interested in exploring the idea.

But how seriously should we take this?

Or is it just another scare tactic to get Missouri side leaders to pay attention?

Pete?

Well, I think you take it seriously.

You know, if you're the Kansas legislature, they obviously want to make a move on this.

But for the teams, they've been looking for leverage for years now and they finally have their leverage.

And it's just across the state line.

The border war is back.

And well, despite the fact there was that truce agreed to a few years ago between Laura Kelly and Mike Parson, but as Laura Kelly infamously said, that never included the chiefs and now she's living up to that promise.

Laura Kelly also said, Michael Mahoney, that she's perfectly happy where the teams are right now.

So if lawmakers even pass this next week, which is a big if, couldn't she just veto the whole proposal?

She could.

But let's go back to the middle of your sentence there.

If.

All right.

The first thing on the agenda in the special session is tax reform, okay?

And that is going to consume a lot of time.

The legislative leadership are indicating they don't want to spend a lot of time this summer in Topeka because the August primaries are coming.

They need to deal with this.

And it's been a struggle to get tax reform through this legislature, even though everybody on both sides agrees the need for it.

The stadiums issue will come up after they get a tax deal.

And it's also unlikely that even if it were a three week session, that they would be able to cobble together such a complex deal.

If you live in Kansas, you would likely to have received a text message over the last few days from the group behind this latest proposal for the stadiums.

And here's one of the lines from that, Dave.

It says, Every city in America, every city in America is getting ready to offer the Chiefs an economic development package.

This is a unique opportunity that they're presenting here.

No additional cost to Kansas taxpayers whatsoever.

If we were doing your former KCTV five Truth Watch series on campaign ads, those were what would not be getting a true, truthful or a false label.

Mostly false.

I mean, the idea that every other city is bidding for the Chiefs and or the royals is probably wrong.

I think the text was the main group working on this is called Scoop and Score.

Sometimes you worry what they're actually scooping before they score.

But the most important development this week, Nic, and we really should focus on it to some degree is the story in The Star Wednesday.

That said, some legislative leaders in Kansas are thinking about using gambling proceeds to pay for part of a stadium development, either the royals or the Chiefs or both.

And that's significant for several reasons.

First of all, it shows how serious Kansas is.

Second, it shows that the idea of using just star bonds, plus whatever the teams kick in is ridiculous.

That will never pay for the entire cost of a $2 billion football stadium and another billion for the royals.

And finally, using lottery proceeds is serious money.

The lottery provides about $80 million a year to the state government.

Most of it is spent on economic development, jail construction, juvenile programs.

Some of it goes to the general fund.

If that money is redirected to the bonds for the stadium, it means that either programs will be have to be cut or taxes raised in Kansas.

And the whole idea of this is no cost to taxpayers goes right out the window.

Eric, what happened to make Quinton Lucas in all of this who was leading the negotiations to keep the teams in town?

What what happened there?

Did they fall apart?

Did it never happen or is this all happening behind the scenes with the TV lenses of our local stations watching?

I think that, you know, based upon conversations I've had with people with both ball clubs, I think that was just something that was being used to calm the public, to make it seem like that they were engaged in the process.

I would have to say, show me the emails, the text messages, whatever communications you had with either team, because those teams were pretty salty about that.

Number one, he came out late in the election with the endorsement.

He did it on Sunday.

People were already absentee and mail in voting.

They felt like he could have came out a lot earlier.

You had Quinton Lucas on your show this week.

He's telling us to calm down.

Should we be panicked over this move by Kansas?

Well, there's certainly cause for concern.

It's the most serious this conversation has ever gotten to date.

But, you know, Quinton Lucas, to me kind of took the face of the public sector on this because Frank White, who actually runs the county, which owns the stadiums, is nowhere to be found.

He was nowhere to be found leading up to the election.

He was difficult to deal with.

And even this past Monday at the county legislative meeting, he's not there.

So in the absence of him, Quinton Lucas steps in and fills that void.

Do I think Quinton Lucas could have turned that election on April 2nd if he had come out earlier?

No.

People didn't like the location for the royals.

They were fed up with their tax situation in Jackson County from 23.

There was a lot of things for a lot of people to be upset with.

And I don't think Quinton Lucas or any politician could have saved that deal.

And, you know, the tax thing in Jackson County is still the issue.

I want to bring up real quick is in Wyandotte County, they are now discussing an earnings tax for people that don't live or that don't do not live in Wyandotte County or KC K, but work there.

And so that would be a tax increase.

So that would be the big win for Wyandotte County if they've got sports stadiums there because they get all of the earnings tax from all the players and the coaches, those multimillion dollar salaries, they get some of it.

Yeah, and they don't have an earnings tax yet.

Jeff Colyer in the Star today said, Hey, think of all the income taxes if the Chiefs move over.

Most of the chiefs live in Kansas already.

They're already paying taxes to Kansas.

That's probably a nonstarter.

But we should keep in mind that the second most important development this week was the Wyandotte County endorsement or semi endorsement of this, because a big chunk of their sales tax would have to go for the store bonds.

So what would they get out of it?

Well, here's what's not talked about a lot.

First of all, they would have Wyandotte County would have the Chiefs, and that would be a deal.

But but the stadiums, if they move to Kansas, Nick, have to be privately owned, right now.

Jackson County owns the Truman Sports complex.

But as far as I understand it, Starr Bonds can't be used for the public building.

It wouldn't be Wyandotte County building the stadiums.

So they would since they're privately owned, they would owe property tax.

Now, what's the property tax in Wyandotte County on a $2 billion investment?

It's huge.

And you could use that money to reduce property taxes for others in the county.

What would happen would be, however, Nick.

People would move to abate those taxes, say, hey, we can't get the chiefs if they're playing paying property taxes, and now you're talking to Wayne County and then saying, okay, your bill is up, but we're giving them lots of breath in the ointment of this idea.

However, there was a new poll that just came out.

I don't you buying it, Peters said.

63% of likely Kansas voters support the Chiefs leaving Missouri and moving to Kansas.

Guys, look at how the question was framed.

No new taxes.

It was this big, long, convoluted question.

Exactly.

They got the answer they wanted.

So we dismissing that.

Well, you just you have to because we don't have any of the details.

By the way, why is a Republican in Hayes going to be benefited by a stadium going to Wyandotte County?

It just it doesn't make any political sense for them either right now.

But the lodge somebody in the Hayes be happy if a Final Four came to this new stadium because they looked at an enclosed stadium at the Super Bowl, came to their own state.

Isn't that what they're talking about here?

If if this were to ever come to fruition, I do not Tonight they would get one Super Bowl for the Hunt family out of courtesy.

They might get a Final Four every 15 to 20 years.

You don't make public policy decisions based on one set of every generation potentially.

Real quick, like a pilot, Pedrosa is an excellent reporter in Wichita.

We were just talking about this earlier this week.

The idea of Wyandotte County and the Chiefs or the royals all coming over to Kansas is lukewarm at best.

Everywhere outside of metro Kansas City, it is not a burning issue for the right to remember, though, when the team that used to be called are the Wizards.

The Sporting Kansas City team then was moving to Banister Mall and they were going to be on the Kansas City, Missouri side.

And then in the middle of the night, remember that they were moving over to Wyandotte County and flooring everyone.

It was a huge surprise.

Things like that do happen.

Yeah, but the chiefs and the royals are apples to oranges, like back then, very small.

I have to say, though, Eric, it's interesting, when we had the stadium tax debate itself, I was wondering what happens at the Tillman complex when the Royals site would be removed if they went downtown.

What if there was absolutely nothing at the Truman Sports complex whatsoever?

It'd be the largest parking lot in Jackson County.

Yeah, totally.

But but let me just say this.

One of the things that people aren't realizing, and I don't think they pushed it enough during the election is how much revenue Kansas City and independents make off of those stadiums.

Sales tax.

People go into stores and buy jerseys and the city gets that sales tax.

It's a lot of money.

And I and one thing that I've learned in my short time on this planet, never say what a politician won't do might be a lot of saying is you can't do it today.

But wait today, after tomorrow, they can change that and they can do whatever they wanted to do.

But before we move on, Eric and Pete have said something extraordinarily important about the Jackson County vote relative to what's going on in Kansas.

We were hyper critical of the stadium proposal in Jackson County because it was so ephemeral.

We didn't know any of the details.

That's one of the main reasons it lost.

Where's it going to go?

How much are we going to spend?

Who's going to how much is the state of Missouri, which, by the way, has been absent from any of this discussion?

We didn't know any of those details.

And a lot of people in April said, I'm not voting for something this vague.

It's exactly as vague now in Kansas.

How much of the chiefs and royals putting it?

We don't know.

Where is it going to go?

We don't know.

How long will it take to pay off?

We don't know how are you going to pay off the bonds that you issue?

Will bondholders have a lean on the stadium if there's a default?

We don't know.

I read the the agree or the star bought agreement with the American royal which is going in out near the legends and it's 75 pages long.

A very fine print.

We don't have anything here.

The decision doesn't have to be made this year for either team.

And I do think the legislature is going to say, hey, look, let's let let's let's hit the pause button on this for just a moment to remember that Governor Lowe totally called Kansas lawmakers back into session next week to work on tax cuts.

But has the stadium issue hijacked what is supposed to be the priority of the special session?

How can throwing cash at the royals and Chiefs have sucked the oxygen out of the room?

Have lawmakers given up on their main task?

Michael Mahoney of figuring out a way to cut Kansans property and income taxes.

No, the Republican legislature, their tax committees are meeting this coming Monday before the special session to hammer out their plan.

And that will be the first thing, as I said before, the first thing that they deal with and they they do not want a long session because they want to get back to campaigning.

Kelly said it could happen in 24 hours.

Well, she is optimistic.

Okay.

Well, the fight has been about how big those tax cuts should be and who actually benefits.

There are some smaller changes that could make a big difference.

Did you know that Kansas is one of just nine states that taxes Social Security benefits?

Two dozen states don't tax diapers.

30 states don't tax tampons.

Couldn't they just pass those three things and call it a day, Pete?

I suppose.

But you know they're going to pay.

Yeah, but I mean, you know, you talk about more legitimate tax cuts, serious, you know, kind of giving everybody something.

I mean, they're tinkering around the edges here.

We're talking about 0.0 5% here and there, which is really what we're going back and forth on.

But both leaders of the House and the Senate told me that there is no stadium talk unless this tax deal gets done.

So they have to get it done.

If not, the stadiums are a moot point.

Republican proposal, at least the one leaked yesterday, includes sticking with the two income tax rates that Republicans have insisted upon all along.

Right now there are three in Kansas.

They want to reduce that to two and to make it to pay for it so that Laura Kelly will sign the bill to lessen the dramatic impact on the state budget.

They want to delay the end of the food sales tax until December, which means that the rich get the benefits of the income tax cuts.

The poor get screwed on sales taxes again.

And the idea that you would vote on that and and in essence tell folks to go to the grocery store, you don't get a break for another six months and then write a check for $1,000,000,000 to the Chiefs.

I wouldn't want to go to the voters in November having done that.

Well, next up on Week in Review, we put our long range thinking glasses on.

You mean you don't have a pair?

Well, I can hook you up with those.

Do you know what's happening?

Two years from today, the World Cup kicks off in Kansas City.

We'll be preparing for hordes of soccer fans from all parts of the globe as we host six World Cup games at Arrowhead Stadium.

While we were in our membership drive, Kansas City's World Cup Committee hired former Kansas Transportation Secretary Julian Arends to figure out how to move the tens of thousands of international visitors Kansas City is expecting for the games.

Is that the biggest headache for Kansas City to use before it hosts the World Cup, or is it something else?

Eric That's a headache being able to get people around because people that live here and there's not even that many people living here, it's a headache for them to get people around, but I'm sure by the time the World Cup comes here, they'll have some things in place and they'll put money in places that need to have good transportation and get people from one point to another.

You know, Kansas City just actually got a little bit of a break.

FIFA requires host cities to provide free transportation for all those fans attending the games, but they've just walked back that requirement saying they can just now charge a small fee, but they're still on the hook for security and for transporting hundreds of foreign politicians and possibly heads of state from the countries competing here.

We can with you, Watcher Sharon is getting worried.

She writes, The potential cost for the World Cup are looming as a huge issue.

Yet we know very little about this city's contract with FIFA.

What are the terms?

What are the penalties if contractual items are not fulfilled?

Michael, we don't know the details on the on the Kansas City side of this thing, but the what the website, the Athletic did get a hold of some of the details on New Jersey where they're going to have the final full control of the stadium area for 30 days for control of all the signs in the stadium for control of all all the seat free office space for FIFA and the transportation costs, as you just mentioned, now at cost, rather than being free.

And there is a survey out that says at the bottom three of the cities ready, most ready to handle transportation.

The bottom three are Kansas City at the very end, along with Miami and Dallas.

So, I mean, transportation is is going to be a big issue here.

And it'll be the thing that Julie Lawrence has to we'll have our hands full.

There's also a big race underway to get projects completed before those visitors show up.

That includes the extended street car line, which still doesn't have an official opening date and the new self new project, which will cap the highway.

The criss cross is downtown, turning it into a destination park and green oasis.

Are they both on target to open by the time the first whistle blows on June 16, 2026, I think the streetcar will be ready.

How much it will provide in terms of transportation isn't clear to me unless they play World Cup games at Union Station, which they don't plan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's we've got to get bodies out to the Truman Sports complex, which is a much different challenge.

The day, maybe the last event at the Truman Sports could be a boost.

It can.

Could be.

It could be.

Although, again, the leases don't expire until 2031.

Keep that in mind.

I don't think that the lid over the highway is quite as likely.

I think the engineering is going to be difficult and it's not clear to me why that's considered so important.

It's not like we don't have other places to gather, so I think that's more problematic.

But transportation along the streetcar will be important.

Unlike other events we've had like the NFL Draft, we've had the All-Star Game here, Lucas says.

There shouldn't be just a one off event.

This is going to be something that has a lasting legacy in this community that we should be able to touch and feel all over our community a decade after these games.

And, you know, is that asking too much and what would that actually look like?

They always say that when they're ready.

Okay.

Okay.

So I mean, this is like this is everyone forgets about them after a week of the event.

Here's what I think is going to happen with things like Michael was saying regarding Kansas City.

Low on the list for for mass transit.

There's going to be a big push among some in Kansas City to get more mass transit and they'll justify it through a three or four week event.

Whether or not you agree with that remains to be seen.

But to Dave's point, I mean, the streetcar is not mass transit.

It's irrelevant to how well the World Cup's going to operate, but it will be part of a larger push for more mass transit around the region.

It's impossible to envision mass rail, mass transit to the stadiums in time for and certainly now, given the obviously, the really uncertain future of the transportation ride would be unwise.

Right.

No one's going to spend $5 billion to build a rail and then the Chiefs are playing in Wyandotte County.

So so my guess is they'll be a huge push for busses from surrounding communities.

Omaha, Wichita, Saint Louis, please bring your busses over.

And there's a lot of pushback on that, saying that even if that's the mass transit transit that doesn't have all that many people, that's like 50, 60.

Mike And I can talk about how busses that political convention backed up for hours and hours and hours when you have hundreds of busses arriving at the same place.

So it's not true.

It's not clear that busses are there, and that's with 15,000 people going to one event, not 70,000.

And, you know, it's a shiny it takes your mind off of the real issues that are taking place here.

What the cap over the freeway has to do with it has to do with people that live in the apartment.

It's in the power and light district.

They have no place to walk their dog.

There's no place for them.

So.

And the hotel, yeah, can engage in that as well.

So that's what that's all about.

It's now officially eight months since we were told a Texas firm was buying the financially struggling country club plans.

I get despite reassurances from Quinton Lucas, there's still no word on a deal being struck or a timeline on when it'll happen.

In the meantime, the shopping centers headaches continue to grow.

In addition to concerns over crime and an exodus of stores, another Plaza restaurant closed this week, locked doors, greeted diners and staff at Chewy's on the plaza where Sign says the eatery is permanently closed after more than a decade there.

Also, if you go by the plaza this weekend, you'll notice that its biggest and most photographed fountain is out of commission, what for decades was called The J.C. Nichols fountain has a broken pump and the city has no estimate on when it'll be turned back on.

The city of Fountains has run dry this week.

It's our first walk this morning to check out the scene.

It was unfortunate to walk to this beautiful fountain and see nothing here.

By the way, this is just one of six of the city's historic fountains that have run dry this week due to maintenance.

And in some cases, vandalism issues.

Do we need to change our tagline from the City of Fountains to Kansas City?

It's drier than you think, Eric.

You might need to do that.

Think Carson would be proud.

But the interesting thing is going to be what happens with the plaza.

You know, evidently the deal is moving right along.

But will they come in and they manage some place that is vacant?

There's pretty much vacant because you've got all of these restaurants that are moving out of there.

Well, you did have the mayor on your program this week and the plaza was on that agenda.

Did you get any more concrete plans from the mayor about what is actually going to happen?

No, we still don't have a we've got a timeline of the next few weeks.

He didn't want to get in the way of the real estate folks, but also mentioning this private public partnership where they're working together on law enforcement, which is something a few months ago when I had him on and the crime issues were persisting in the plaza, he basically said, well, it's up to the plaza to hire their own security.

Now, he at least is acquiescing on saying we need to have more of a police presence down there to make this a place that HP Village Partners is going to invest.

When you mentioned public private partnership, but you've said on this program before, David.

But what are the concerns?

Is that might mean more cash help, tax help from Kansas City?

There was a great article this week in The New York Times, Nick.

Shopping centers apparently are making a comeback comeback.

So that may play into helping the plaza rebound and Dollar General Dollar Tree and five below are competing elsewhere in this space in seriousness.

Just just real quickly, the rent on on a property down the plaza prohibits a lot of locals from even considering that and that needs to be addressed.

And I'm sorry morale is still a viable in our community.

Independent small, independent center rather.

They're building stores outside of the shopping center now that they got a lot of business as they're moving into the they were also proposing building the stadiums out there.

If you remember, after that stadium tax deal went south.

Yeah, that was one of the places that was on the table.

But the stadium was at the Plaza.

We would solve two problems.

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?

Missouri now ties with Alabama is the state with the most executions in 2024.

The state just carried out another execution on Tuesday night.

One of the lost mayors of Kansas City, Kansas, has died.

Joe Steinberger was 90 years old.

Get ready for a lot of disruption.

Groundbreaking this week on Missouri's I-70 expansion project that will add an extra lane in each direction on I-70 from Kansas City to Saint Louis.

The work is expected to take five years to complete and Matt Lucas hearing the pitter patter of tiny feet again.

Lucas and his wife expecting their second child this weekend.

It's unclear whether he'll hand over the reins of power, at least temporarily, to his mayor pro tem, so he can take paternity leave.

And as the world's largest, Bucky's opens this week in Texas, is Kansas City's first store one step closer to opening.

It was scheduled to be on the Unified Government's Planning Commission agenda this week.

The gas station chain with a cult following wants to open near the Kansas Speedway or in Western.

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

The next page Casey is one year old.

Congratulations.

That's great.

Like the revival of shopping malls.

We have the revival of newspapers, Michael.

They are beginning now the project to expand I-70 and which will be big for Kansas City, big for the state of Missouri.

It won't resolve any of the congestion problems, but it's something that needed to be done.

Well, this weekend is the Cooper Davis Memorial Foundation, five k run and walk that's happening at Mill Valley High School is the young man who died from a fentanyl poisoning back in 2021.

His parents have been very active in pushing that cause around the Kansas City area.

I'll be running in it with two toddlers in the running stroller.

So see me out there.

I'll see you and Eric offered before we started the show today that he's going to join me for the run.

He's going to swap five guys.

This is his friend Dave Helling will also be five K this weekend.

I choose not to run elected.

I will not serve.

And on that we will say our week has been reviewed courtesy of Channel Nine political analyst Michael Mahoney and former Stone newsman Dave Helling.

6 to 10 weekdays on 95.7 FM, KCMO Talk Radio Pete Mundo.

And from next page, Casey, Eric West and both drew in the five K this weekend.

I'm Nick Haynes.

From all of us here at Kansas City, PBS, be well keep calm and carry on.