We're deeply disappointed.

Team No Torpedoes.

The stadium tax.

Now what?

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Hello and welcome.

I'm Nick Haines.

What an extraordinary week to be in Kansas City.

Here to unpack it all and to pick apart what happens next from the anchor desk at KMBC nine News, Chris Katz is with us from the helm of our network's newest newspaper.

Next page, KC Eric Wesson leading the editorial page of your Kansas City Star event.

Walker and news icon and former star reporter and opinion writer Dave Helling.

All righty.

Now, were you team yes or Team No?

Well, we're now in no doubt who won the stadium tax crushed at the polls this week.

Unfortunately, it did not turn out the way that we had hoped or want it.

We're disappointed.

We feel we put forth the best offer for Jackson County.

We will take some time to reflect on and process the outcome.

What is next?

What's to come?

I mean, are we realistically going to be able to keep the chiefs or not?

I think that's probably the biggest challenge right now.

We will have to consider all of our options.

Having this on the ballot with no agreement kind of put the taxpayers in jeopardy.

I think now it gives us a chance to reset and hopefully the teams will take a deep breath, come back to the table, and we can work out something that's equitable for everyone.

Polls released before Election Day claimed the race was neck and neck.

Chris Katz has a 16 point lead now classified as neck and neck.

Or is that what political scientists now call a crushing?

It's a blowout, no doubt about it.

If I heard it once, I heard it 100 times, what a mess I thought about this for the last couple of nights, and I wonder if this doesn't go down as one of the more embarrassing outcomes politically in Kansas City in a long, long time.

Not even could back to back Super Bowl championships push this thing across the line.

They had two years to answer even the most pedestrian questions of voters and they couldn't check all the boxes.

Last week it was stated on this program, Dave Helling, that even you didn't know how this was going to go.

This must have been a huge shock then to see a 16 point difference here.

Absolutely.

I mean, I was texting friends election night and we were trying to guess.

And every guess that I saw was a two point race either way.

And when the first returns started coming in, particularly from Kansas City, Missouri, I think we understood Jackson County, Eastern Jackson County would be worried about moving the royals down town and making it harder for them to get to games.

But but the chiefs, of course, with Super Bowls and other things are are high in the esteem of the public.

And yet Kansas City, Missouri, proper returns in Jackson County also showed a loss.

I think it was stunning and it makes it in some ways harder, Nick, to know exactly why it lost.

If it's a two point race and you lose all of this message, this add 16 points.

There's a whole range of issues involved.

I think every one of our viewers had an opinion about what happened.

Raney writes The 16 point gap is too big to be explained by poor messaging.

The vote lost because no one knew exactly what they were voting for.

Is that what led to this lopsided result, or is there another explanation of it?

No, I think that's exactly right.

And that's exactly right.

Why we said that we were unable to say yes.

I mean, we we we love the teams.

We said so, but we did not know enough information in.

And our readers told us that.

And clearly the voters are saying that as well.

I've always been told beware of the single explanation to understand human behavior.

Erik But is there more to it than that?

I think messaging was and was an issue.

I looked at it because I endorse it.

I looked at it in the long game.

Okay, So let's say that the teams take us up on the offer and say, you know what?

We're out of here.

Which I think they're going to do.

I don't think they're coming back to the table.

If it was a two point loss.

I think they would come back to the table.

But that big of a margin, I think that they're, you know, out of here.

But I think they did message the fact that how do you replace and this is what I asked readers and I asked everybody on social media, how do you we we place their tax base.

So they're gone.

That money that they make with sales tax, it goes into the general revenue that fixes the streets and helps the city operate in Jackson County.

How do you replace that money?

And so I guess we're going to find out.

We're going to get to what happens now in just a second.

But I want to get to some more of our viewer questions and concerns.

We heard from Alex this week.

He writes, Dave, why put the royals and chiefs together in the same palace?

Question Why not two separate questions so voters can decide each proposal on its own merits?

That was always concern in this is that the lesson learned from this election are the teams not willing to go it alone?

It could be one lesson learned because the needs of the teams are very different.

The chiefs want to stay where they are.

The royals, of course, want to build new in downtown Kansas City.

So I think some voters said, look, I may support one, but not the other.

If I could vote separately on these issues, maybe there would be a different outcome.

One other thing, Nic, is I've thought a lot about this, too.

One of the things that I don't think has been talked about enough is voters did not to me seem convinced that the stadiums needed repair or replacement with the with the airport people.

They had concrete cancer.

Oh, well, that was one of the early lines, wasn't they?

Should have got a film crew behind the scenes to show people those things.

But I think another thing in here, along with what's Dave was saying, I believe it would have passed if it had stayed at East Village.

But the last minute move to the crossroads, not for the business aspect, but even though Frank White, you know, did allude to this, it was Quentin's idea or the mayor's idea to do it there so that he could connect it to the overpass over six seven.

You know, it was on I think it was seven weeks ago.

It was only seven weeks ago.

The royals said we're going to move to the crosswalk that wasn't even on their radar screen at that time.

What happened was moving it from the East Village to the crossroads, As our Michael Mahoney pointed out in our coverage Tuesday night, it ginned up a whole new group of committed opponents to a plan and a process that we now know was flawed.

Do you think it would have passed if it wasn't in the cross roads and they would have sticked, they would have stuck with the East Village?

You know, there were so many missteps and miscalculations and things throughout this process.

And I'm not I'm not sure the outcome would have been different, might have been closer, but maybe now before the election, officials say we could see 40% turnout for the stadium tax issue.

It didn't quite make that The Jackson County election Board reporting 34% turnout.

The Kansas City Election Board told us 24% of registered voters went to the polls.

That's the highest for any local election in the last decade.

How did turnout play a role, if any, in this election event?

I think turnout is always a big issue.

This this if not this issue, then what will bring out voters other than a presidential election?

So, yes, I think that if we had a higher turnout, we would have seen a potentially seeing a different response, might have been closer also where the turnout would come from.

So if we saw more inner urban voters, that would have certainly played a role.

If we had more East Jack voters, that would have played a role.

Didn't the proponents count on a lower turnout, though, because that's why they were putting at it on an April ballot versus, say, an orchestra in November?

They expected a lower turnout and no other major issues on the ballot.

That's why they wanted to go in April.

One of the things I wrote for Yvette, Ed Page, and I believe it's true, is there is no natural constituency for new stadiums.

I mean, it's not like people are just up in arms.

Oh, it's crumbling.

It's all it's got.

Move the may big heavy construction.

Those.

Exactly.

Unions and others, perhaps.

But in terms of a natural constituency, it's hard to find that.

And what the East Crossroads site did was coalesce the opposition around a specific plan, not the broad idea of being downtown, but a specific plan.

And that made it harder for the proponents.

And what made it engage a base that was probably have stayed at home was the ground game from the KC tenants, and they started their ground game on February the 19th, whereas the people that supported it, they didn't start until the middle of March, the beginning of March.

Those door knockers influenced a lot of people because I had a lot of people call me and tell me, Hey, the KC ten is here at my door again, and they've been buying here like three times already this week.

I think that Engaged had hired the same firm that worked on the Ron DeSantis campaign that was Jeff Rowe and Axiom Strategies.

Isn't there sweet spot that data to try and get the right people to the polls.

It is but remember the axiom people were in charge of the Jackson County Translational health tax, which went from a 5050 proposal to a 90% to ten defeat.

The politics has changed.

Nick, and I'm not sure everyone in Kansas City understands this.

There are ways for groups like KC tenants to reach the voter that was not available 25 years ago.

Social media outreach rallies.

They don't have to go through the newspaper or channel line, and that's not news.

And they still have to cover public television.

How do you feel about the campaign that was waged?

Some of our viewers say they were turned off by some of the tactics landing in mailboxes just ahead of election Day with glossy postcards featuring black protesters and the tagline radical liberals hell bent on taking the Chiefs away from us.

Don't let them.

The KC tenants group blasted it as racist.

The campaign says it didn't come from that, but it was this really different than the what we see in any of these other campaigns today, whether it be for school board.

Sometimes in Congress.

Yes.

That that last minute postcard was was disastrous, I believe, and so distasteful.

And we wrote about it and we and we did try to find out who it's from.

Once we found that out, what that actually have to say about it.

They said it wasn't from them.

There was an opportunity to say more and that didn't happen.

One other thing in terms of messaging that I think goes along with this, Nick, just quickly, is I think the royals and Chiefs implied threat to leave angered a lot of voters.

Yeah, I said in a column, you know, look, that they have burned decades of goodwill by in essence saying, give us our money or we're out of here.

Now.

Eric may be right.

That may be true.

But I don't think that for people on the fence, the idea that somehow they were being held hostage, I don't think was was popular.

Frank White said that he they made him a villain in this process.

But on the same token, they made the owners of the chiefs and the royals villains by calling them billionaires and making the poor people against these filthy rich people that were doing this.

And I think that was a turnoff as well.

Chris Katz, complete this sentence for me.

The biggest winner in the stadium tax election this week was blank.

KC Tenants without a doubt.

One more, one more notch, I suppose, in their belt in terms of wins, not just at City Hall, but but citywide.

They're a player in politics have been and will continue to be event oh oh winner.

I was thinking loser now yeah no I. I would agree and I would agree Kansas City voters because they were they spoke their mind and it was a difficult decision for a lot of people I think.

But they spoke to mine and they got what they wanted.

Eric I was going to say two tenors, but now I'm going to change and say Kansas, the state of Kansas, they have an opportunity to have two sports teams.

They can have a baseball team and they can have a football team.

As someone who lives in Kansas, I'm not sure winners is the best way to describe their opportunity to shell out billions of dollars.

But I agree with you that in this sense, Nick, I think that the people who oppose this show that they can be a force when they coalesce around one idea or another, and that's what they did.

Well, complete the sentence for me, then.

Evict The biggest loser in the stadium tax election this week was blank.

I think it has to be what people think of the teams, the royals and the Chiefs.

We still love them.

But there was there was concern about the threat and there was concern about how they treated the voters.

Eric, I go back to the tax issue and I go back to that as general revenue funds that come in to Kansas City and Jackson County to fix streets and take care of a lot of things.

With this $2.3 billion budget, people thought that there were other priorities to spend that money.

Yes, I might say I might.

I might say John Sherman, the royals owner, you know, there were concerns at Arrowhead that I heard from people inside that building months ago questioning whether John Sherman could, as they put it, land the plane.

And we saw what we saw Tuesday night.

We did a debate and Sly James on that debate questioned one of our opponents, Patrick, to say, well, have you ever met John Sherman?

I mean, he's done all of these things, but in the public mind, did he do anything during this?

Basically what was a two year experience from beginning of saying we want to go downtown to the end, That elevated him in the minds of voters.

I'm not sure it did, especially based on a 60 point blowout Tuesday night.

I'd say the loser, the biggest loser politically is Sly James, who ran this campaign, or at least was the figurehead for it.

He lost the pre-K education sales tax proposal.

He was basically pushed out of the airport debate at the end.

This was a failure axiom will share some of the blame and some of the folks around the chiefs and royals.

And ultimately, I think Frank White is a loser, too, in the sense that whatever happens to the teams will be blamed on him, good or bad.

But Sly James, as the figurehead for this campaign, was a poor choice.

And I think really alienated the lot.

But I don't like, though, the airport which you mentioned and the the kindergarten to F attacks.

Exactly right.

When he was mayor, he was now being a hired help.

So he actually got paid handsomely for doing this so he could be a winner in this Well, financially.

But but in terms of his reputation, if you were going to go to the ballot again, would you put Sly James out front as the figurehead?

Probably not.

And he brought up a great point about the process because I had people afterwards to write in, and actually it's in one of my articles that they blamed the county for not to the point of the rift between the two entities, but because of taxes.

And if you think back and you look everything that fails and in the county is taxes.

The last couple of elections they've had, you go back to the attacks that Mayor James had that failed.

So people are pushing back against this concept of taxes.

Okay.

So most of our view is now that we've analyzed what happened on Tuesday and the decisions of voters, what happens now?

Chris Katz I don't have a crystal ball on that one, honestly, to specifically, my guess is the Royals will try again, but I don't see them doing it this year, especially if it was a one or two point difference.

Then maybe they look at November, maybe.

But I think next year for sure for the royals, I think the royals ultimately end up downtown, certainly not on their timeline and not the kind of road that they wanted to travel chiefs.

That's I think that's a little murky right now.

Last week, Jackson County executive Frank White said he was ready and willing to put an August ballot on there just for the chiefs.

I mean, is that what we're talking about now, divorcing these two concepts and let these speak for themselves, possibly an improvement to Arrowhead Stadium on the August ballot from, you know, behind the scenes with the Chiefs.

I don't think that's possible.

I don't think that they're from the conversations.

I don't think they want to negotiate it again.

I think they put their best effort forward.

It was rejected.

And some people are saying, did they really want to be here anyway?

Because a $2 billion project under the circumstances was a lot of money anyway for nobody to know.

And all they were getting were some bigger parking lots.

So I don't know if they bring it back or they take explore other avenues.

Event Is that crossroads location doomed?

Is it now?

The only path forward is to pick another site, or could we just tinker with some of the elements of this, the financial ask and so on to make that still a possible yes vote in the future?

I don't think it's doomed.

And even though that 16 point blowout is amazing, I think people are ready to go.

And I won't say the words, I won't say the teams, but voters are ready for them to go back.

Okay.

We've said what we don't like.

We've said what we're concerned about.

Let's do something about it.

I think voters are ready to see that happen and I don't think it's doomed, but we'll see.

Yeah, Just very quickly, Nick, I'm going to try and write another thing for the newspaper about this issue.

But one hint, it is possible for the royals to cut Frank White out of this entirely and begin negotiating with the mayor and the city for a downtown stadium where some of these issues can be cleaned up with the city.

Use the city's taxing power.

Get get Frank White and the county legislature out of the picture.

There's no inherent reason they're involved other than the existing leases which would have to be solved.

But once you get past that, cut your deal with the city, leaving the Chiefs alone with the county.

Separating the two teams, allowing Frank White's idea of a solo ballot to go forward.

There is a path.

There are paths, whether the teams and the local authorities will take them is another.

Last week I asked you whether any other efforts being made to try and lure the chiefs of the Royals.

At that time you said no.

But now we hear about former House speaker in Kansas, Ron Richmond, and later a Republican now working quietly behind the scenes with business interests to lure one or both teams to Kansas.

And that story is that we have gambling in Kansas.

We've got $10 million in the bank, $10 million going to 10 million.

It's yes, it's a lot of money.

$10 million is a lot of money.

But in this game, it's nothing but but Kansas State built the Kansas Speedway.

It built what is now called Children's Mercy Park for Sporting, Kansas City, all without asking voters for a tax increase.

It was all done by Star Bonds.

Couldn't the same effort be made here?

Yeah, but there are still big, big questions as to as to who wants what.

Who's going to pay what And again, why not and whether why, who exactly, Exactly.

And whether the state legislature, which doesn't want to expand Medicaid.

No, it's ready to lay out $1,000,000,000 in bond revenue for the state.

I mean, that's not a slam dunk.

That's a heavy lift.

And it's serious time.

I've learned about elected officials and projects that they want.

They look under the couch between the cushions behind the couch and they find money.

So don't think that Kansas can't find the money to do it.

He has $1,000,000,000 in his career knock, you know, move into your house tomorrow.

Yeah, I have it.

I have it somewhere.

But I believe that it's possible if they put and Laura Kelly is like, the truth is between businesses and the chiefs or a sports team already know as the stadium tax sucked up all of the media's attention, you may be surprised to learn that there were other items on Tuesday's ballot.

Scores of local school board races were being decided.

Several cities, including springs, were picking a new mayor, Liberty County, both a new sports and activity centers on the ballot.

Both failed, by the way, was there any big surprises?

Clutch your pearls moments in any of those elections.

92 year old Alvin Brooks being elected to the school board, becoming like, Wow, yeah, let him go fish and let him play with his grandkids and great grandkids.

Don't give him another position like Howard.

Hate the least.

He could be the next leader of Jackson County.

You don't know about this, by the way.

On Election Day, Jackson County executive Frank White surprised many by issuing a county wide state of emergency after the local government was hit by a cyber attack.

Bad actors had apparently taken over the county's computer system, shutting down the assessment, tax collection and recorder of deed offices and impacting everything from marriage licenses to county jail records.

Many county offices were closed this week, and the Jackson County prosecutor said she was dealing with limited computer and telephone services.

I'm assuming Frank White wasn't blaming the Yes campaign for this.

Chris Callow.

This is something that happens dozens of times a year in affecting governments big and small all over the country.

And I suspect it was just Jackson County, Jackson County, and it happened in Wyandotte County not too long ago on the Kansas court system.

It really was a big, big problem in those jurisdictions as well as Jackson County.

But we should not in this show, Nick, without pointing out that Frank White has a litany of problems that he needs to face, including the property tax appraisal system, cost overruns at the Jackson County New Jackson County jail.

This problem with the computers administration generally, the courthouse.

In some ways, he probably welcomes the stadium discussion as a diversion for voters actually looking at his entire record and saying, boy, this is not the good choice for County.

But but couldn't he be viewed today as a champion?

He was the champion of the taxpayers.

He ultimately I know some things are negative have been said there but couldn't he he should be floating on the air this week, shouldn't he, of it?

I think very much so.

I think that he got what he wanted and he is seen as a man of the people, at least at this point.

But we'll see what happens.

I have to say, though, I'm surprised that no one conspiracy theory is out there.

No one really did try to blame the hacking.

And in the 16 points we need to do with results, we need to do a revote because we had Election Day.

They just said it didn't affect elections.

The only thing I was expecting to see more, but we may still see that after the show.

Okay.

Speaking of Jackson County, by the way, we did hear from longtime weekend review watcher Tom, who wants to know now that the stadium tax is not a hot topic.

What is going on with the new Jackson County jail?

Has the county forgotten about that issue, Eric?

It seems like it.

There's no community benefits agreement.

They don't have the compliance officers to monitor who's going to be working on the project.

You might have people coming in from Mississippi, Oklahoma to work on it.

And you know, you just mentioned about Frank taking a victory lap with the stadiums, but I agree with Dave wholeheartedly.

He's got a lot of other issues and this was a diversion.

But now that it's over with my mortgage payment went up and my taxes on my house went up because, I mean, my homeowner's insurance went up because the taxes on my house went up.

People are having a ton of problems with these assessments.

And it goes back to what Dave said, though, that this has been a distraction even for the media from all of these other issues that are happening in Kansas City.

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?

Kansas lawmakers head for home with a last minute tax relief deal.

The governor says she'll sign but dead for another year.

Medicaid expansion and legalizing pot.

All eyes on Governor Kelly now as the bills pile up on her desk from a ban on hormone therapy and transition surgery for minors to a measure imposing up to 25 year prison terms for anyone coercing a woman to have an abortion.

In Missouri, anti-death penalty advocates are trying to stop Missouri's first execution of the year.

Unless the governor steps in, Brian Dorsey will be executed by lethal injection on Tuesday.

He's the chief's player, getting more attention than anyone else this week.

Rushing Rice lawyering up after fleeing the scene of a six vehicle crash in Dallas.

And the case loses his title as Kansas City's best known Welshman as the chief's sign, Welsh rugby star Louis Rees-Zammit.

All righty.

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

That last one is huge.

Okay, I was just in the UK.

He was here?

Yes, it was.

I think the Rashid Rice story probably would have gotten more attention had it not been for the stadium tax vote.

This there are there's speculation that maybe there's a suspension involved here for Rice as we hit the end of the week.

But there's a lot about this we don't know.

And I'm afraid once those details are out, fans are not going to like what they see.

Eric, I said the city's $2.3 billion budget flew under the radar, got passed.

You got $7 million in community prevention programs.

The police got a raise fixing these 500 miles of streets.

I'm still driving down the same raggedy streets I was driving down five years ago.

So where's all that money?

And what really is the plan is that I'm going to say something different.

I've got to go back to the voter turnout.

I'm concerned that if we don't get voter turnout up, issues with democracy will get worse and worse.

David, briefly, and you mentioned it, Nic, Kansas is getting closer to some major tax relief and tax reform.

The governor is sort of try to move a little bit to the middle.

I do think Kansas will have tax reductions this year.

Missouri not so certain.

And on that, we will say our week has been reviewed courtesy of a vet walker who leads the editorial board of the Kansas City Star.

And from the anchor desk at Channel nine News, Chris Katz.

From Next page, Casey, Eric Weston, and news icon Dave Howley.

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

Be well, keep calm and carry on.