Will it be a public vote or not?

A ballpark election still in limbo?

Meanwhile, a new lawsuit filed to block the stadium's construction.

If your home is going to immediately be surrounded by a $3 billion construction project, you want to make sure home is protected.

Also this week, what is this about the mayor out ahead of the city's top economic development agency?

This is big.

For all the indignation over giving public dollars to the Royals, Kansas City greenlighting twice as much money to redo the country club Plaza.

Do you care where you were elected leaders live after being bashed by his opponent for living in Florida, Kansas U.S.

Senator Roger Marshall puts his beachside home up for sale.

You know, I do hope the press takes a moment to ask him about the four homes that he owns.

One of them on Lake of the Ozarks, and move over data centers is Kansas City.

Found something new to hate the public pushback over flock cameras for cities on both sides of state line to take them down.

This type of dragnet surveillance is what violates our constitutional rights, and it has only gotten worse.

Now the AI is the main driver of these systems.

It's scary.

Those stories and the rest of the week's news straight ahead week in review is made possible through the generous support of Bob and Marlise Gourley.

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

Thank you.

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

Hopping on board the Weekend Review bus with us this week, the head of the Kansas City Star editorial board Yvette Walker KCUR news is chief political analyst Brian Ellison keeping track of development in downtown Mister City seen KC, Kevin Collison and former star staffer now Mister Kansas City stack on Substack Dave Helling Now, a week after the city green lights a Royal Stadium at Crown Center, efforts to force a public vote on the project are still in limbo.

Love letter from this, groups have collected enough valid signatures to put the issue before voters, but the deadline to put it on the ballot is this Monday, and the council has yet to take up the petition.

Thursday was their last chance to do so, but the mayor canceled this week's council session.

So does that kill the vote?

Dave?

Well, no, it's just a question of when the vote might be held.

The petitions are still valid.

The deadline for putting anything on the November ballot in Missouri was Tuesday the 25th, although there is some thought that judges could extend that deadline a bit.

The 31st is the deadline for the council to make a decision one way or another.

If the council doesn't do anything, that's the measure.

The stadium measure does go on the next available ballot.

That would probably be in April, subject to court challenges and discussion at the legals, even if it is added to the ballot, what would they actually be deciding?

I mean, does it reverse the $600 million that the city just greenlit last week, or is it only on future deals?

Extra money that might go into this, taxes and fees and things like that.

Well, Dave mentioned the court challenges, and I think it's going to be a lot of court challenges to every aspect of all of the questions you just asked.

But I think it appears that the council has made some decisions that will not be touched by this vote that comes after the fact, but it still remains up in the air.

Whether future decisions related to the building of the stadium might still be subject to a vote if this vote passes.

If this vote happens as late as April, which some people are predicting at this point, there will be have been a lot of decisions already made before this ever reaches the ballot.

Now, also this week, by the way, a lawsuit is filed against the Ball Park project by its closest residents, those living in the 33 story San Francisco tower less than 100ft away.

They want a judge to issue a restraining order blocking the project, citing concerns about everything from light to noise.

If your home is going to immediately be surrounded by a $3 billion construction project that by their own plans could expand, extend 13 or 14 years and is literally on your doorstep, you want to make sure homes protected.

Do they have a legitimate before?

Is this, as one person commented, that on social media, NIMBYism at its worst?

I certainly think they have a legitimate concern.

However, down the road, down the line, once everything is built, will it be a wonderful asset?

Will it increase the value of the home?

I think it's something to think about.

But in the meantime, I mean, can you imagine the construction?

I mean, I think they do have a concern.

You know, one of our producers said, hey, they're going to make a killing.

Their property values are going to go up so much, and they being mixed.

Well, you know, I, took a little shot at this whole thing on my Facebook page and got a response from the head of the homeowners association who did confirm that they've sold a couple of units, one went above and one went pretty much what they were asking for it since this vote, since this since this announcement.

Okay.

The you know, it's when they talk about it being 100ft away, they're not 100ft away from the ballpark.

The ballpark is going to be at least two blocks away from where the San Francisco tower is.

They have Grand Boulevard separating themselves from wherever the redevelopment is going to be.

I do think that the San Francisco Tower is going to do quite well because of this development, and the folks living there are going to see the values of their units going up significantly.

And I think this is just your basic sparring to say, hey, just make sure you're aware of us, but I this and they're not stopping all of the construction on this project because they filed this lawsuit.

They know and it will obviously be adjudicated, one way or another, one assumes before they start swinging the hammer.

But there is this lawsuit and the pending vote and the other sort of difficulties in the early stages of the project are a problem for the bond issues going forward, because they're already a little, nebulous.

They're not to subject to a long term revenue stream.

It's a year by year appropriation to pay for the borrowing the public borrowing on the project.

If that effort is clouded by lawsuits, potential votes, disruptions, it will potentially anyway delay the ability to borrow money.

We worry about the $600 million that the city is putting into this, but the state is apparently going to be putting in $540 million.

But hold the front page.

The Missouri Supreme Court is taking up a new Missouri law that allows the state to give money to stadiums.

Could it be possible if the Missouri Supreme Court rules next week that, the whole mechanism for funding sports stadiums in the state of Missouri would be, null and void?

I think it is possible, but I would deem it very unlikely.

The debate and the case before the Supreme Court next week is about the standing of the plaintiffs, who are two members of the state legislature who voted against that authorization.

I think, the likelihood of the Supreme Court setting a precedent where lawmakers who disagree with the outcome of a vote have standing to challenge it in court is going is very unlikely, in my opinion.

I think there are other challenges to this project that are a lot more serious threats than that.

When you say $540 million from the state of Missouri, now, if you actually look at the proposal before the Tiff Commission, there is 439 million from the state anticipated and then $101 million from other public sources.

Unidentified.

Unknown.

Does that come from the state of Missouri?

We don't know.

Does it come from Jackson County?

That isn't clear either.

The financing remains a work in flow.

Well, not all of us are interested in how the sausage is made in politics.

It goes behind the scenes of big economic development deals, but it looks like the head of Kansas City's top economic development agency has been ousted this week by none other than Matt Lucas, the executive director of the EDC.

Tracy Lewis has been replaced by Councilwoman Andrea Bow, who will give up her council seat to become the agency's new CEO.

Now, before people turn the channel, Kevin, or tried to stifle their yawns, what does this mean and why should we care?

Obviously, Mayor Lucas sees the ball park and the revamp of the plaza as being his legacy projects, and he wants to make sure he has a very receptive audience at the EDC.

So was this to do with the ballpark vote then?

Dave?

Well, that's been suggested that the idea that Tracy Louis was a little more skeptical of the financing for the ball park than than other members of the EDC board, the idea that the Tiff Commission, which does have a major role in the ball park and is in the EDC, will give an unbiased look at the financing.

Now that Andrea Boo is the chairman of the board, who just pushed through the project at the city council level, is really seems like a bridge too far for me that that.

So I think the idea for Mayor Lucas was let's make sure that's good.

Another Andrea boo is now going to be the new head of the EDC.

This you can be now become a new council member.

Because they're now needing one event.

I think that that is a very interesting piece of this whole thing and just an opportunity to to open up this council and see who might take that role and what that will mean to this council.

I think that's going to be a very interesting story to watch.

I'm echoing to.

Lucas says he doesn't want a flamethrower, so he's clearly left for compliance.

Yes, that is very true.

I thought that word flamethrower was, provocative.

The people on the council now can barely light a match, let alone throw flames.

I mean, particularly when it comes to the stadium proposal.

I guess I might just offer, though, that Andrea Booth did not exactly push this through on the council.

It was a ten nine.

Members of the council voted for the plan.

You watched Andrea Boo at the finance committee.

She was one of the major impetuses for passing this bill.

Okay, so why is there so much public attention on the city giving $600 million in public funding for a ballpark at $1.5 billion in subsidies is now going to the Country Club Plaza?

That's twice as much.

Where are the calls for a public vote on this one, or is this the proverbial Kevin?

Apples versus oranges?

This is a totally different kettle of fish.

I would say it is an apples and oranges situation in that the thing with the ballpark and it's a legitimate criticism, is that once again, the city is going to be on the hook if the revenues are not reaching what they're projected to be to repay these bonds.

In the case of the Plaza, it's the developer.

It's the owner who's going to be responsible for repaying those bonds.

It's, you know, it's going to be a lot of tax incentives.

It's also been in discussion now for several years.

I mean, we're two years now after the folks from Dallas bought the place.

And they made it clear from the beginning that they were going to be seeking big incentives.

The school district has now achieved a lot more revenues projected to come out of this project in the future.

And anyway, so it's really it is a very different thing, although they are both major assets for the city of Kansas City that need to be taken care of.

What was what does at $1.5 billion buy the Plaza, though?

How would this look different, Brian?

Well, you know, they are apples, oranges, bananas, lemons, limes.

Every development project is going to be different and the devil is always in the details.

The details in this one, include a lot of residential living.

I mean, that is the major change for people who've been watching the Plaza for a long time is that the focus will be less on the retail developments and more on these taller buildings.

And with people actually living in the space, it's a it's a different philosophy about what the plaza development is supposed to be and whether that is that may not be what everyone in Kansas City thinks they want.

But I think that's the change.

That's why we keep hearing that if this goes south, this whole deal and it doesn't work out the way we think, the only person will suffer here is the Country Club Plaza.

No one else is on the hook too.

Well, it's more of a traditional tiff program, but yes, basically the developers are responsible for the payments.

There's no full faith and credit of the city behind it.

The only reason you involved the municipal, borrowing authority, is because you get a little bit of a lower interest rate.

And so there are but there are clear property tax advantages and others to the developer, over the many, many years, that seems less risky in almost every way than the ballpark.

And one other quick footnote there are a lot of significant public infrastructure problems at the plaza that need to be addressed.

Sewers, streets, sidewalks.

A lot of this money will go towards doing things that the city should have been doing over the decades anyway, to keep this stuff up to, the first class nature that the Plaza should have.

Now, do you care where your elected leaders live or just where they stand on the issues?

Kansas U.S.

Senator Roger Marshall has announced he's selling his Florida home after being pummeled by his opponent, Adam Hamilton, that he spends more time in Sarasota than in the Sunflower State.

You know, I only wish I had a home in Florida.

Our home in Florida was destroyed by a hurricane, almost two years ago.

We we do have grandchildren there.

My wife wanted a second place to go visit.

I didn't ever get there very often.

You know, I do hope the press takes the moment to ask a lot of families and about the four homes that he owns.

One of them on Lake of the Ozarks, megachurch pastor.

That's too old for Kansas.

Kitty likes to scratch.

Does Adam Hamilton, owning four homes, cancel out the political baggage of Roger Marshall's one hurricane damaged home event?

No.

And you know, if someone is fortunate to be able to have four homes, you know, I am not going to begrudge begrudge them.

However, if you do not have a connection with your constituents.

And I think that that's what we're talking about, we already know that Roger Marshall does not hold town halls, that he finds them dangerous.

We have already heard that quote from him.

Right.

So if he's not here, if he's not making a meaningful connection with his constituents, whether or not he lives here, and we know that frankly, that's not happening.

But I do believe that someone should have a primary residence.

Yes, he's in Washington much of the time, and there needs to be a residence there.

But there doesn't appear to be a primary residence here in Kansas.

But does anyone care?

Brian, I was looking I found a story in the Washington Post from 1979, and it said 15 of the 100 senators do not own houses in the state they represent.

So it's more common than we think.

Well, right.

I mean, I think you don't have to go that far back in Kansas history to look at Pat Roberts and the the question of whether he owned more than a recliner in, in a friend's house, but it didn't cost him the election.

He was reelected when that was an issue.

I agree with you that this is a symbolic issue for people.

It's not really about property ownership.

It's it's whether it reinforces an idea they have that this senator is not connected or is connected and cares about the people of the state.

I believe you mentioned Pat Roberts, who, by the way, is a little bit of that ad that was used against him.

Pat Roberts moved to Washington 47 years ago here in Kansas.

He rents a La-Z-Boy recliner at a donor's house on a golf course.

Roberts only visits every time I get an opponent.

Okay, that was then.

And as Brian points out, he won by 11 points, so people were holding it against him.

Anybody who thinks Bob Dole actually lived in Kansas after he went to Washington isn't paying attention.

Dole had a home, an apartment in the Watergate.

He had a home in Florida to which he retired, when the Senate wasn't in session.

And then he had a small brick home in Russell that he visited only when he was running for president and needed a photo op.

So the idea that senators come back every weekend to live in the state they represent is probably not accurate.

House members are different.

House members do run every two years.

They do have a sense that they have a greater connection to the community or need to have one, but U.S.

senators have long had vacation homes, and Roger Marshall is the latest example.

But you mentioned the House seats because we just had a Missouri, the primaries for congressional races and the Missouri fifth district.

Almost every single one of the Republican candidates didn't live in the newly reconfigured district.

That that is true.

Although in their defense, who knows where the district lines are in Missouri at the moment?

Well, that's very true.

But I have to say, if you don't have a residence, a serious residence here, then you how can you really understand the way your constituents are living their tax problems?

I mean, I understand that there's a there's a lot of travel, a lot of room around.

Maybe then I can live there all the time.

But you need to have some kind of a real residence in the state that you're representing.

Move over data centers.

There's something new for Kansas City is to hate flock video cameras.

In just the last few days, public pushback has forced the city of Gardner to drop its contract with the private surveillance company that tracks your vehicle license plate.

Weston in Missouri and two Saint Louis area cities have also terminated contracts with the company.

One local city is ditching those flock cameras, the license plate readers that tracked vehicles across the country.

There's somewhere over 1200 different vendors that had access to our information.

It's just today someone cut down a flock camera in Carney, and in July, a different one was stolen in Platte County.

This type of dragnet surveillance is what violates our constitutional rights, and it has only gotten worse.

Now the AI is the main driver of these systems.

It's scary.

It's really scary.

I think a lot of these technologies could be used for positive community benefit, but without oversight, without audits, without, you know, proper transparency to it.

It just creates a darkness that leads to a fertile ground for corruption.

Why has flock now become public enemy number one?

Well, I think this is symbolic of of broader concerns.

It's signs of distrust in government, signs of the weakness of the decline of our, our sense of civic connection to one another.

These cameras sit there and, and make people afraid.

Of what?

Of what might be behind them.

But we already we've got tons of cameras.

I I'm just looking.

40% of Americans have a video, cameras that ring doorbells on their front doors.

We are accustomed to seeing red light cameras that can track you and send a ticket to your home.

If you go to a red light.

Why is this getting unique blowback?

I think there's a mistrust.

And what's happening with the data.

We've already seen issues of it being misused and that's coming, you know, to a case right now with a and, I'm not sure was a deputy or certainly a law enforcement official tracking the significant other.

I think there's a mistrust in particular in this.

And of course, I have to say we've seen in several parts of our, of our area, people concerned about this, but we've seen, like, we've seen good things happen as far as the people taking the right way to deal with the problem, you know, don't cut down, don't, you know, vandalize these things.

You know, we've seen it happen in Weston, where two women took it to the to their officials and say, we want this gone.

Now we see it happening in Gardner.

Do it that way.

Don't cut down.

Don't vandalize.

I think there's also the fact that, you know, a lot of us grew up reading books like Brave New World and 1984 or the movie Minority Report.

You remember from a couple decades ago.

These were dystopian depictions of a future society, and they all involved surveillance of people.

That was beyond even the technology of that day.

It seems to be coming true, and it's making a lot of people a part of this is because a AI is involved, and that is a bad word by itself for many people.

But is this influencing any of our political campaigns locally?

Well, I do think I wrote back in May that one of the most important political issues for the next decade in this country is going to be the digitalization, if you will, of our society.

Not just flock cameras, not just artificial intelligence, although that's really on the agenda too, but data centers, all of it is of a piece.

And it is people saying, we are tired of turning our lives over to a digital world.

We don't completely understand.

And I think the outrage over that flock cameras today, data centers tomorrow, I in a couple of months, will, become a major political discussion point in the years where the public is clearly hot under the collar about all these AI related technologies.

A reminder, the next week there was a special recall election in independence to decide whether to oust a city councilman who voted in favor of a mega sized data center in that city.

Is that that where we all now support AI projects and you could find yourself tossed out on the curb?

Brian, it is definitely where we are in the city of Independence.

I mean, John Perkins, points out that he's done a lot of other things during his time on the city council there.

But but for the moment, I think Dave is right.

We're seeing a confluence of a lot of issues.

People are, are concerned about things they don't fully understand and about their potential for the future.

And some elected leaders are going to pay the price.

Now, remember Kansas City's big plan to cap 8670 downtown with a concrete lid and putting a splashy new park on the top?

Well, hold the front page.

The project has become the latest poster child for Shrinkflation, what was once known as the South Loop Project and later renamed the Roy Blunt Luminary Park, is being sharply scaled back amid worries over cash.

Instead of an impressive four block urban green space, the city now says it's going to build over just one block of highway.

That's a 75% reduction.

What happened?

And if it's about a lack of funders, Kevin, is that telling the city something?

I really think it does tell the city something.

Nick, I supported this project when it was first revealed several years ago formally.

I mean, it's been kicked around for a decade.

But the private sector, the big donors have just not signed on.

They've only raised $29 million in four years.

And the one in Texas, that they modeled after was 50% private, 50% public.

The big local donors are not signing on here.

And, and unfortunately, a big strategic error the supporters made early on was giving the naming rights to Roy Blunt after he won a $25 million federal grant, which in the great scheme of things, is not a hell of a lot of money.

Usually when you have big private fundraising efforts, the naming rights are the reward you give to the guy or gal or foundation that writes a big check that makes it happen.

They didn't do that here, and I think they're stumbling and personally, I think the city should put a hold on it.

I you know, it's interesting this I remember in the early sketches of this, this was going to be something that was going to open for the summer of 2026, in time for the World Cup, and we haven't even started digging anything yet.

That is it possible this project won't even happen at this point?

It's certainly possible.

I remember when we first started talking about this, and I went to Dallas to see what this was going to be and was very impressed.

And this thing not going to be anything like that, of course, because it has been shrunken.

I would say that we will just have to see what happens.

It's certainly could just be kicked down the road.

Now, when you put a program like this together every week, you can't get every story grabbing the headlines.

What was the big local story?

We missed tributes pouring in for Nancy Kassebaum, the first woman to represent Kansas in the United States Senate at the time.

She was also the only woman serving in the chamber.

Kassebaum was 94.

No.

Into the clean up, the Kansas governor dispatching National Guard troops to Kansas City, Kansas, as she declares Wyandotte County a disaster area after widespread damage from last week's storm.

And then there's this I'm going to Kansas City.

Kansas City, here I come.

Local media is scrambling to find every scrap of footage they can find of Dolly Parton in Kansas City.

The country music legend died this week at the age of 80.

She was last in town, joining governors Laura Kelly and Mike Parson for a pair of events announcing the expansion of a free book program.

I am just so happy to be here.

All righty.

Did you pick one of those stories, Kevin, on something completely different?

I'm going to go with the cake.

And how difficult and long it is taken to get power back to these people.

And the damage that was cost, I think a lot of folks in the metro were very surprised at the magnitude of this storm.

And, you know, there's been a lot in the news lately about Indiana taking forever to get Gary back in line.

And some of that has the subtext of this being poorer areas that are not so paid attention to by their governing leaders.

And I think Casey kind of falls into that a week of without power and in the dark.

Dave.

Well, can I tip my cap to Nancy Kassebaum?

She was the most impressive politician I have covered in 45 years of, in journalism.

She was smart, intelligent, independent, but any interview with her was always a conversation.

She wanted to know what you thought she would tell you, what she thought.

We do not have politicians like Nancy Kassebaum in our world today.

And she will be missed that.

Well, since both my stories have been taken, I'm going to I'm going to pivot and talk about an author that was here recently, Elaine Weiss, and talking about her book, Spell Freedom and how it eerily back and Jim, these will talk about Jim Crow era laws against voting or to to repress voting eerily brings up concerns about today.

So I'm just going to throw that in there.

Right.

Kansas City is mourning the loss of Dolly Parton.

As you mentioned, she worked from 9 to 5, and she used that energy to, to work for childhood literacy.

The clips you showed were from, efforts to bring states of Kansas and Missouri funding, together with local agencies like Turn the Page Casey, that continue that work.

Kansas City will always love Dolly Parton.

And on that we will say a week has been reviewed courtesy of the Kansas City Stars of Ed Walker and Mister City seen KC, Kevin Collison from KC one News, Brian Ellison and news icon and Mister Kansas City stack on Substack.

Dave Helling next week what's Kansas City's next big project?

Two big power players joined the program at Quinton Lucas and Congressman.

And not only will Cleaver on their quest to fix the city's most controversial and dangerous road, U.S.

71 The Bruce R Watkins Drive, we finally taking out those traffic lights, burying it underground.

The future of 71.

Would you join us?

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

Be well, keep calm and carry on.