Is there really anything left to report this week now that Taylor Swift has come and gone?

I'm so excited.

I might say honestly.

We've done deep and found 26 minutes worth of non Taylor coverage.

We need to get a break.

Why now?

Anger over property assessments now spills out onto the streets and didn't see that coming.

This week.

Colin switches to a halt.

The entire system shut down for three weeks and it's the week of the big gun summit in Kansas City, Missouri.

Big city mayors pushing a new amendment to let cities decide their own gun laws.

Plus, should the mayor make more money than the governor of Missouri or Kansas?

The big pay raises on the way for Quinton Lucas and the rest of the council.

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

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of AARP, Kansas City, RSM Dave and Jamie Cummings, Bob and Marlese Gourley, the Courtney Turner Charitable Trust, John H. Mize and Bank of America and n.a.

co-trustees.

The Restaurant at 1900.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Welcome.

I'm Nick Haines.

It is good to have you with us again on the program that connects the dots on the week's most impactful, confusing and befuddling local news stories tracking the news this week, KCURs Lisa Rodriguez.

from our Metro's newest newspaper.

Next Page KC Eric Wesson, Channel nine political analyst Michael Mahoney, and former star reporter Dave Helling.

Now, the big question of the week Is there really anything left for us to report now that Taylor Swift has come and gone?

Now, to be honest, I have never seen anything quite like it.

Can you name another famous personality who's got this much attention for coming to Kansas City?

I don't think Eric, the president, if they were to come here, would get this type of attention.

No, I would probably write this as the number one.

Even though Beyonce is getting ready to come and that's going to be pretty wild, too.

But I would say right now, Taylor Swift and the Chiefs parade probably at the top to attend events that we've had here in Kansas City.

Have you ever seen anything like that, though, in terms of that news coverage, Michael?

No, it was phenomenal.

And it was wall to wall everywhere in town.

And the one thing we were talking about before the broadcast here was the economic impact of this was stunning.

It was all it was all over town, not just out of the the sports complex, but these Swifties came into town and they brought their bank book with them.

Absolutely.

And, you know, a number of business owners also, again, not only gushing about the amount of money they made from these Swifties, but they said they spent far more cash in their stores over the two days the singer was in town than when the NFL draft was in town.

It was the busiest, most fun, crazy, insane weekend we have ever, ever had in the four years we've been out.

It was definitely a little over triple the amount that we normally do.

We met people from Norway, Georgia, Los Angeles.

We prepared for the Super Bowl parades.

We prepared for the draft.

This more than doubled our weekend revenue.

That's a huge, stunning contrast.

When you were on this program, Lisa, right after the NFL draft on all of those, local business owners say never again.

They got no business out of it.

Right.

Right.

And there and to be fair, the NFL draft in the Taylor Swift concert were very different events.

The draft people were contained in a single area with pre-selected vendors here.

As as Michael was saying, Taylor Swift fans were everywhere.

They were in Independence, they were in Overland Park driving around, you could see, because they were all dressed up and excited where to go, and they were enjoying Kansas City's landmarks.

And I think part of it is because this is such an experience, because the Eras tour is such a big deal.

People were looking for things to remember this experience by and specifically the place they were in when they saw it.

Is there a lesson for Kansas City in this day?

After all?

You know, it's cost millions for Kansas City to put on the NFL draft.

We're looking at $100 million, at least in local and state dollars to put on the World Cup.

You can just bring in a big singer and you'd have to pay anything.

Well, yeah.

And let's face it, Taylor Swift was ten times more entertaining than the NFL draft, which was paint drying on the wall.

But but there is an interesting lesson that I think the chiefs and maybe the county will be thinking about, because one of the discussions now under way, of course, is putting a roof on Arrowhead Stadium, which would presumably make big time concerts more possible, particularly in September or October, when it tends to get a bit more cool.

And the reaction to Taylor Swift two shows, remember, may convince some local people that turning Arrowhead into a potential venue for concerts is a good idea.

In other news, it feels like Groundhog Day in the Kansas City news business.

Right now, we're reliving pretty much the same stories we did last week, the week before and the week before that.

And they were all.

I'm reliving.

The same day.

Over and over.

I get the feeling angry homeowners now taking to the streets to express their discontent with Jackson County property appraisals.

It's getting ugly out there.

While the county extends its appeal deadline, some residents threatening to launch a recall campaign to oust county executive Frank White from office.

We need to get a break right now.

Yeah.

White says the county is just following the law.

Our upset homeowners directing their anger, Eric at the wrong person.

In a way.

There is a couple of things that he might have been able to do differently, but the state law mandates what they do and how they they do it.

I think they extending the appeal time was a plus because people were having problems with that.

Even though people are still having problems with their appointments coming down there to get their assessments appealed.

But, you know, it's not really a whole lot.

He could do about it.

I'm interested in the recall aspect of this because we hear that all the time.

People get upset with Quinton Lucas.

There's been recall efforts of him in the last two years.

Eric Bunch, the city councilman, recall efforts against him, they always seem to fizzle out.

This is is this a long shot to expect that people could oust a sitting county executive in Jackson County.

Would be difficult.

Remember, we just had an election in 2022 and Frank White won relatively comfortably against his opponent.

So recall and plus, it's there's no real indication that if you recall, Frank White, that somehow the assessment debacle would would be go away or be solved.

But it is a political problem to see these homeowners complain and and have these concerns about their appraisal for their homes in the process.

Nick?

And so I think there will be a continuing effort to try and find some path to give some relief.

And Frank, quite certainly being on the offensive, he does a full editorial in the Kansas City Star saying people are getting this all wrong.

There's a lot of misinformation out there.

They've now hired a public relations firm to clear up and debunk all of what they say is this misinformation that's being put out there.

What's the greatest amount of what is the biggest misinformation about the appraisal process, Michael?

I think that people think that there's some sort of vehicle that they can they can launch to rectify this and get and get their appraisals lowered substantially or capped at 15% or something like that.

And then the other thing is, let's say for a moment that there is a successful recall effort.

Okay?

And he is recall there is nothing that stopped Frank Lloyd from being on the ballot once again to stand for reelection after the recall.

And based on his reelection effort from just last year, he would be a pretty formidable opponent again.

Upset homeowners are coming up with a lot of their own ideas to explain why this is happening.

By the way, with these eye popping assessments.

Here's one Waldo homeowner talking to Channel nine this week.

It looks to me like they're screwing with the numbers.

I think this is all about generating revenue to build a baseball stadium downtown.

Sure, he's not alone in thinking that, though, but is he on target or is he missing on that.

That that one mis this is this the property taxes are not directly related to any effort to get a downtown baseball stadium and in fact, a separate Jackson County task tax would be would be the funding mechanism for that, which would be a sales tax, which we already pay.

So there are a lot of stakeholders that do benefit from the property tax schools, Kansas City, other taxing jurisdictions, but that to connect to the property tax issue at all with a downtown baseball stadium is wrong.

We had to this was supposed to be the week.

We're going to have big fixes to this, including a freeze on the property tax rates for seniors.

A second proposal, as was mentioned, about capping the increases to 15% for all Jackson County residents.

Yet for all of that, nothing happened.

Why?

Well, the legislature doesn't have the power to cap property taxes at 15%.

The assessor has has said to multiple outlets they have to assess based on property value one one thing that could be a long term fix.

And again, it's something the state would have to do and not legislature is is maybe extend the timeline.

We reassess every two years.

Perhaps if we assess to every five years, that would take care of some of these big market fluctuations that caused these big increases.

Yeah.

Lisa's right that the idea that somehow this increase is leading to more money for a ballpark is probably way off the mark.

But it points out something important, which is that the appraisal process is only part of the equation.

Nick The other part is what taxes are levied by the jurisdictions involved.

If your appraisal goes up 20% but everyone rolls back the levy 20%, the net effect is zero.

So taxpayers who are angry about this need to pay attention to what the county does.

The city does, and especially the school board in your neighborhood does in terms of levying those taxes to see if you can reduce what you.

Have, because that's what the 60% goes to the school district, not to the.

County.

And just quickly, a couple of years ago when we went through this problem, I wrote a series of editorials calling on the Kansas City School Board to roll back its levy, at least partially to not get the windfall.

And they rejected that completely.

If you got out of town, guests visiting this week don't add riding the street car to your fun things to do list.

If you missed the news, the entire streetcar line has been shut down and we told it could be three weeks before service is restored.

Apparently a streetcar driver spotted a section of steel rain popping out of the ground on July the fourth while crossing the ice s 70 bridge.

Now, you might think that would be a quick fix.

Michael Mahoney But three weeks that could be done in a couple of days, right?

It could be done in a couple of days, if that's all they were doing.

And instead they're going back and they're looking at all the all the track that is in that specific area.

And they are also looking at a piece of track that was among the first pieces of track that was that were laid down when the streetcar was first implemented.

And so they're doing kind of a soup to nuts.

Look at this line to see what is there, what what other problems they may be looking for, looking for or having to deal with in the future.

But this is this is not something that is a is a good look for Kansas City or the streetcar.

But they do have busses running along the route.

They'll still stop in what might not be as seductive for your out of town visitors, but they they'll still pick you up by.

Bus they've got they've they've patch worked know a way to get people from point A to point B but I think Michael's right this does raise a lot of questions.

The track and the track slabs that were in place in this spot are the same track and slabs that are in place along the entire streetcar route.

And and this is I'm on my soapbox here, but it really has me thinking, are we building infrastructure?

I mean, July 4th was a hot day.

It's certainly not going to be our only hot day.

And the days are getting hotter.

Are we building permanent infrastructure that will withstand more extreme heat?

And should we be are we planning for that in these extensions to the city?

Well, we.

Aren't doing that.

So is it changing the way?

Is it affected actually the construction?

Has that come to a halt?

The streetcar authority's executive president, Tom Guerin, was on KCRW this week talking about this and they said they are thinking about this type of stuff.

He didn't say exactly how how this has changed, if anything, ongoing construction, but he said it's on their mind as they as they build.

I did see one change has they are now looking to do and that is to make when the extended route comes into play in 2025 along Main Street that it would be a strictly streetcar designated lane.

So people think that they're all we'll just snap our fingers and close.

Maine Public works in Kansas City has bitterly resisted closing streets before.

They just don't like the idea of not letting cars in some places and the business owners along main and that's a huge stretch of Maine are going to say, Now wait a minute, the streetcar is fine, but prohibiting cars is good.

So that's going to be a battle.

The other thing is this incident kind of reinforces the idea that the streetcar is great, but not essential because they've closed the entire system for three weeks.

It hasn't locked up that you can imagine closing the subway in New York for three weeks or closing public transit in Chicago or other big cities.

So it does suggest again that the streetcar is an efficient people mover and fun, but not essential to mass transit.

In Kansas City.

The mayors of Missouri's biggest cities gather in Kansas City this week for a major summit meeting on gun violence.

Matt Quintin Lucas called group together as he faces growing pressure to address a rising tide of killings.

The city marked its 100th homicide last week, putting it on track to record its deadliest year in history.

Thursday's meeting, which included the mayor of Saint Louis, focused on a proposed ballot measure that would ask voters to amend the Missouri Constitution to allow cities and counties to set their own gun laws.

State law currently prohibits cities from taking any action to regulate firearms.

It's interesting on this.

Is this for November's ballot on next year's ballot?

I think I think it's for November 20, 24.

And it's an interesting proposal because so far we've seen for years the trend in the Missouri legislature would be to remove gun restrictions.

And really, the only real threat to that power would be through a ballot initiative.

Can it get the support it needs across the state?

That's a question that we'll see playing out.

But it's it's an interesting challenge.

So it's not going to be just Kansas City and Saint Louis voters, for instance, voting on this.

This would be the entire state.

And so outside of those two cities, why would people want to do anything to restrict their Second Amendment rights, which people seem to hold so much dear in Missouri?

I think it will be problematic for this to get on the ballot, even to get signatures to do so for the very reason that you just mentioned.

And then the other thing buried in a set of texts that came out from the mayor of Saint Louis in the last few days, Teacher Jones, she remarked at one of her age she didn't think that gun control measures at the local level may actually be working.

And she cited the efforts in Chicago, where it hasn't it hasn't worked there, and they've got a violent crime problem as well.

Is this a political deflection by Quinton Lucas?

Eric that he can say, look, I tried to do something, but look, voters said, no, I tried.

It's their fault.

Yeah, you could look at it because a measure like that, even if they got the signatures and got it on the ballot, it'd be dead on arrival, pun no pun intended, but it would.

You know, you got rural Missouri.

They don't have the gun problems.

You got cities that don't really have the problems that Kansas City and Saint Louis had.

So what's the point in doing it when you know you're going to be defeated?

There are things that they can do locally for gun control.

Then they might be able to do what.

Works, right?

That it would be doomed, except that it's in November of 2024.

That's a presidential election year.

You've got you've got a governor's race in Missouri.

You'll have a Senate race.

And abortion could be on the ballot in Missouri in November of 2024.

That could alter the turnout in ways that could have some impact on some gun legislation or a constitutional amendment if it gets on the ballot, which Mike rightly points out is going to be a bit problematic.

But don't count it out.

If you had it in November of.

Time to say this one story surfaced last week that Matt Lucas is now weighing a United States Senate run against Josh Hawley.

Is that just idle gossip or are there genuine efforts to get him into that race?

Well, there's always chatter about the mayor running for Kansas City's mayor, running for something else.

Okay.

But but just quickly, you know, he if he ran and lost, he could still be mayor.

But there are lots of Democrats in.

That right now.

One reason why Quinton Lucas may not want to run is that he now has a new baby to take care of.

But in addition, he's about to make a whole lot more money.

The council set this week to give the mayor a $20,000 raise.

That's a 15% bump in pay.

City council members would also see a more than $10,000 pay boost.

That would mean the mayor would make more than the governor of Missouri and the governor of Kansas.

Does Quinton Lucas have a more stressful and difficult job than Mike Parson and Laura Kelly?

Eric, with these homicides?

He probably does.

But what I found interesting about it was they were just having a meeting last week about not having enough money to pay 911 operators.

You have all of these losses that the city has to settle, which is quite a considerable amount of money, and now they're giving themselves raises.

Really.

I did think it was interesting in the report on this that when the committee started hearing that earlier in the week, it said no one from the public commented on the proposal.

Does that mean they don't care or they didn't even know it was happening?

I think probably the latter.

I think the the it wasn't really out there for people to know.

It went through the special Committee for Legal Review, which is not even kind of one of the big marquee committees there, although they do pass a lot of important legislation.

So I think it's probably lack of awareness, but I think it's it's it's worth taxpayers knowing that that this is how much their elected officials are being made.

It is their money that's paying them.

But this is also something that the council does periodically every four years.

It's not surprising that this would be introduced now as a new council is set to be seated.

Well, yeah, just that point, this is going to be one of the last actions of this city, current city council that in effect ended their term on Thursday with their final meeting.

So it was one more out the door.

Quick perspective, 15% sounds like a lot, but over four years, that's about a little less than 4% a year.

That doesn't seem exorbitant for these positions.

The mayor would make more than the governor, but I think less than the school superintendent in the Kansas City public schools and still less than the police chief.

So there's always a perspective involved here.

They do it every four years.

It's likely to pass.

And as of now, he will make less than Patrick Mahomes.

Now, speaking of money.

It saucier than Patrick.

All right.

Okay.

It does seem there's a lot of cash to be made in green energy.

Remember that $4 billion Panasonic electric vehicle battery plant now being built in?

Johnson County?

According to the Star, it's now in line to gain $8 billion in taxpayer incentives.

When you add in all the local, state and mostly federal subsidies now available.

And remember the 4000 good paying jobs promised, the report claims the state's agreement with the company includes no commitments on hiring numbers or on minimum wage or salary ranges.

While it may be raising eyebrows, the plant is now well on the way to being built, other than to make people upset.

Is sharing these details now a case of too little, too late?

Lisa?

A likely.

But I do think it is it is a lesson going back to the fact that all of these negotiations happened in secret, that we that that that nor the media nor the public were were really in on these negotiations to know that there was any sort of guarantee of jobs.

I think there was an assumption if this if all of these jobs are coming in, they're going to pay a certain rate that must be in that must be codified somewhere.

And it's not.

And I think it's a real lesson in how you serve the public and how you and how you leverage their money.

And I should point out, the state incentives are what, 800 million did go through a Republican House in Kansas and it was a Republican Senate in Kansas.

And these federal credits are spread out over the entire country.

So the impact on an individual Kansas taxpayer is is relatively low.

Having said that, I think the scrutiny that this plant was given before all of this was approved was pretty quick.

I mean, they rammed it through in a big hurry.

These stories will come out again and again by the way, there was never you remember when we did the airport, there was all the discussion about community benefits and set asides and minority hiring.

None of that on this plant, none of it for for not for construction jobs and for permanent jobs at the plant.

Again, I think they pushed it through pretty quick.

But there's nothing going to stop the plant being built.

No, I don't think there's anything going to we're going to stop it, nor do I think there's any attempt to take back or claw back any of the incentives awarded by the legislature.

Now, Jackson County lawmakers may not be able to solve the property assessment issue, but they did find agreement this week on what to do with those Andrew Jackson statues that some view was racially divisive.

By a vote of 7 to 1 county lawmakers voted to approve a resolution putting the issue on the November 2024 ballot.

Remember, that's when we'll be voting for president, when a lot of people will go to the polls.

So could the outcome of the statue issue be different than in 2019 when Jackson County voters rejected their removal?

Eric it depends on what Jackson County legislator you talked to.

I talked to Manny earlier this week.

He's the one who proposed it.

He was on the show last week.

Money, a bucket.

ABARCA And he seems to think that in this time frame they would be able to convince voters what a bad image that that is, because not only did he owned slaves, but what was done to Native Americans as well.

I thought it was an interesting twist to this this week, too, that they wanted to add language to say you're not just removing the statues, but in its place you would put a statue of Harry Truman.

So in a sense, when you're voting, you're saying you're dissing Harry Truman, our former president, from our area?

No, I think having an alternative, you know, taking down the statues is one thing.

But saying taking down the statues and replacing them with, you know, with Harry Truman, who is very much still the pride of independence and the pride of Missouri does offer an alternative that perhaps voters would be more inclined to vote on something that has, you know, a next step attached.

The idea of having a Truman statue as a replacement, I think has some appeal.

But they already have a Truman statue at the Jackson County courthouse in Independence.

I think it's going to be you know, it might happen, but not going to be easy.

Just quickly, the other thing that would be a problem is the idea that we're voting on this again.

I mean, I think voters are going to say, wait a minute, we just told you what we want to do.

And now here you are presenting it again, that that will anger a lot of people.

And it's a bit of a slippery slope.

I mean, the Republicans in Jeff City want to redo the Medicaid expansion vote.

I mean, once you start saying, well, voters spoke, but we really don't like what they said, let's try it again, that that can be problematic going forward.

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?

A judge sides with Kris Kobach and demands that Kansas suspend its policy of allowing gender changes to driver's licenses.

A week after the Supreme Court outlaws affirmative action on college campuses, the Missouri attorney general ordering universities in the state to immediately drop minority scholarships.

It's putting the University of Missouri in a bind.

Last year, MSU and UMKC spent millions on scholarships to boost African-American and Hispanic students.

Should Sharice Davids be worried the GOP leaning on diversity to win back the Kansas congressional seat?

As an Indian born and ecologist and LabCorp exac launches a campaign to unseat her.

Was it the most watched show on Netflix this week?

The new Mahomes series debuts and the Royals may be having an excruciating season, but Salvador Perez makes it to the All-Star Game in Seattle.

He even scores a run.

Taylor Swift wasn't the only big celeb in town this week.

Music legend Dionne Warwick at 18th and Vine.

She's just been inducted into the American Jazz Walk of Fame.

Burt Bacharach also being honored by the Jazz Museum.

The Kansas City born composer and songwriter died earlier this year.

Oh, what's the biggest story of the week?

Seeing Eric Wilson's face on the front page of the Kansas City Star under the title newspaper War?

They've now got wind that Eric has left the Cole and formed his own rival paper.

Next page.

KC Hey, what was the reaction to that?

Eric I know that was your big story we missed.

That was my big story.

Did you get a lot of calls about.

I got a lot of calls.

We got a lot of subscriptions, people getting subscriptions, a lot of positive feedback.

But one thing that I do want to say is I'm not at war with anybody and I hope nobody's at war with me.

And it's kind of disturbing that we go to that level.

We have three Hispanic newspapers.

Why can't it just be competition?

Why does it have to be the term war?

Thank you, Lisa.

The big story missed for you was blank.

I think we're still just in the beginning of this fight over gender markers on on state IDs in Kansas.

And we saw back and forth this week.

But I think as as more of these laws take effect, we've seen in different states legal battles over gender affirming care and these ideas.

And I think that this will be a continuing developing story for the four states.

Still, Quade, who is a representative from Springfield, has announced a campaign for governor as a Democrat.

It's a very long shot in Missouri, which is a very red state.

But she is a very good candidate.

She's well spoken, knows the issues well, and the Republicans who are now getting a bit of a crowded field in the governor's race should not discount her ability going forward.

And Michael Mahoney.

Sort of related to that.

The Sheriff Davids now has three Republican opponents.

They're going to have a contested primary again over in the third District in Kansas.

Should you be worried?

Well, yeah, she she she ought to be worried because it is Kansas.

And whether or not that district is as blue or purple as as Democrats believe, let's see how how these folks do.

All three of them are making their first run for public office.

And they'll not, we will say all week has been revealed courtesy of KCUR Lisa Rodriguez.

Channel Nine's Michael Mahoney Eric Wesson From Next Page KC and former star reporter Dave Helling.

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

Be well, keep calm and carry on.