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I got a lot of headaches.

Yep.

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Week in review starts now.

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Hello and welcome.

I'm Nick Haines and glad to have you with us on our local journey through the news of our week.

Hopping on the weekend review bus this week from the anchor desk at KMBC nine News, Chris Ketz from the helm of our metro's newest newspaper.

Next page, KC Eric Wesson from our newsroom, Flatland Casey Mary Sanchez.

And from behind the microphone at KCUR News Brian Ellison.

Now, I hope that watching local TV doesn't make you queasy, but boy, did we do our best this week to put you off your food, in fact.

Could it get any worse than seeing the words urine, genitals and food all in the same sentence?

Those are the details now coming out following the arrest of a restaurant worker at the Hurford house in Lynwood who posted videos of himself rubbing heads of lettuce and other meal items over the intimate parts of his body and allegedly peeing in sauces.

It's led to a new wave of calls to Lynnwood Police and a slew of new customers saying they got sick.

I would just ask for some patients in this because we do have a large volume of calls very quickly and we want to give each person who calls in the time that they deserve.

Now, last week I chose to downplay the story because I didn't want to needlessly trash a local restaurant.

But could the details be any worse?

The Star asked this week whether more robust restaurant inspections could have made a difference.

But is there anything a restaurant could do to prevent an employee with ill intent like this?

Chris?

You know, I read Robin Souza, the incoming police chief there in Lakewood, that particular department, that their detectives have an awful lot of work still to do on this case.

And I brought with me a copy of the affidavit thinking that you would want me to read this on the program this evening.

And I'm guessing the answer is no, because what's in here, it's hugely graphic.

It's graphic, but it is what it is.

It's interesting that FBI agents found out about this, the images that you talked about that were posted on social media, they ping the IP addresses back to where the images were recorded.

Detectives work back from there and that's how we heard he was posting those videos online, which gets some people to wonder, boy, how often does this actually happen?

Well, I would say it probably doesn't.

But there are people out there who will do crude and rule rude things and that's the whole thing, is that generally if your staff knows each other and probably the best preventative is just knowing your kitchen staff, knowing your waitstaff and having them be a team.

Any good restaurant will have that sort of environment.

It's possible even that some of the tip came from someone within the restaurant.

The other thing that it did though, strike me is, you know, there's an awful lot of just ability to do a lot of things with your food from the time it goes to the kitchen and is served to you.

And yet people still throw temper tantrums and are horrific.

They are awful sometimes to waitstaff.

And you might just kind of remember this, not that most people would ever do anything like that, but be gracious.

I have to say, Eric, somebody Moxie was one of my own kids who said, Boy, that's going to be the safest restaurant to eat at in Kansas City this week.

Don't you think they'll have the cleanest kitchen this week?

They are monitoring their workers more than any other place in Kansas City.

Yes, but the question will be, will anybody be there during that monitoring?

I think they've got a lot of damage control to do and how they handle it.

You know, a lot of times nobody said anything about it.

It was kind of swept under the rug.

It's one of those things.

But after the soup comes out and it's more details is they're going to have a lot to do to get people back in there.

I know it was happening for about a month and we heard long time customers calling the store this week, quote, their trust has gone in this eatery for ever.

So how does a restaurant like this recover from that city situation and restore confidence in their food after that?

Yeah, I think slowly but surely.

I mean, I think what it takes a long time to build up trust.

And I think you just have to sort of start over and hope for the best.

You know, I think we should also note that obviously the person who's been accused of this and who has apparently confessed to this obviously has some significant mental health issues.

There's some things going on here that this is the exception rather than the rule.

Nick, this isn't this should not be something that causes us to be suspicious of our food service workers everywhere else we go.

But I think it's also interesting as we consider the future of this particular restaurant and whether they can weather this this particular storm.

Talking to people who are in the restaurant business, restaurants can insure themselves even for situations like this.

But this is coverage that is typically very expensive to buy.

And a lot of restaurants choose not to do that because things like this just don't happen all that often.

And certainly when they when they happen, they don't necessarily become public like this one.

Just because something appears on the front page.

Is it really a news story?

Many of us walk up to a front page exposé this week in the Kansas City Star revealing how a prominent Jackson County lawmaker was seeking personal favors from the royals as he was deciding whether to place the stadium tax on the April ballot.

An open records record discovered an email from Darren Magee asking a Royals top executive for four tickets in a royal suite.

The story makes it sound scandalous, but does anyone?

Kathy Jackson County Sports Authority has a large suite inside the stadium and they regularly hand out tickets to friends and local officials.

So is this a ticket scandal or a nothing burger, Mary?

I don't know that it's a scandal, but it was a story and it was a story that needed to be done.

The perception of influence, the perception of bias.

The general public may not care that much.

It's good that some people are still watching this.

But but, Eric, I did see there was there was no call for an ethics investigation.

Is that because, I mean, pretty much most elected officials, whether they be at the Jackson County legislature or even at city Hall in Kansas City, are getting tickets.

I mean, does Quinton Lucas pay for tickets when he goes to see Lionel Messi, say, at Arrowhead Stadium or go to see the Chiefs play?

I don't believe they do.

But let's face it, they all get opening day tickets.

I'm sure they're not sitting in the cheap seats.

You see the mayor all the time on Sporting KC soccer games and all of these events as the Super Bowl.

He went to Germany.

I mean, come on.

Is this really the stadium vote?

Yes, it does have an overlay.

I completely agree with you.

But but the context of the stadium vote coming up and he was the chair of the Jackson County legislature, he pushed for.

Yes, there are policies.

You mentioned city hall.

There is a Kansas City ethics policy.

It sets limits how much you have to report what is the maximum gift you can receive.

And I think that those there are these rules in Jackson County as well.

I think we have two different issues here.

Did he do something in appropriate or unethical?

Possibly not.

Did he do something that was un unwise?

And in light of the context, in light of the fact that this election was pending.

That may be a different question.

Props to the props to the star for doing the story.

Number one.

Absolutely.

Is this Watergate?

No.

But does this pass the smell test with a lot of our viewers and readers and listeners?

Maybe not.

And then you've got one of the Jackson County legislators husband ran the no campaign.

That looks like it's a little eyebrow raising.

I was making who's on the show just a few weeks ago, by the way.

Whether any new developments on the stadium issue this week all did.

We return again to our default position of radio silence when it comes to that?

Well, I don't know if it's radio silence, but and radio silence is a terribly dirty word for me, by the way.

But but I do I do think that that what we are in a new season of waiting to see what's happening behind the scenes.

And I think we're probably going to be in that period for a little bit of time.

I think another city in Texas came on the map as someone in San Antonio, San Antonio, that would be interested in the Chiefs playing there.

I have to say, I had a number of viewers say, why didn't we mention that last week?

And my view was, I mean, did I really think that was a serious bid?

Well, and even Henry Cisneros, who was part of the effort in San Antonio, told told our reporters that he didn't think that Kansas City would allow this to allow the chiefs of royals to leave this town.

So even I think they believe that this is a long shot at this.

Well, dealing with city hall can be challenging at the best of times.

But for many residents of Kansas City this week, it became downright miserable months after Jackson County was hit with a ransomware attack.

The city hall in Kansas City went haywire.

The city council canceled its weekly session as the city's website went down and no one could go online to pay everything from their water bills to parking and speeding tickets.

In fact, the municipal court shut down entirely, leaving residents scrambling It very inconvenient.

I'm handicapped.

They gave me a lot of headaches.

I got a lot of headaches that I have no car, so I have to take the bus and then walk all the way over here.

And now they're telling me that this is canceled and I have to walk all the way back way for another bus.

Currently, the whole place is down.

There's nobody in the building besides a few security officers.

And there's nothing that anybody can really do.

What I found fascinating about the story was there's so much a few bits of communication about it.

The mayor and city manager who tweet regularly about pretty much everything.

Chris Cat said nothing on their Twitter accounts this week.

Is there more to the story?

And as we hit the end of the week, taxpayers still don't know what the problem was.

Now, the fact that no one no one at City Hall is saying that this was a systems issue or some sort of internal breakdown, I think leads everyone to believe that quite possibly in this case, the city got hacked, but they've yet to confirm that.

Cyber attacks have been hitting not just our own community, but all around Wichita.

The the Kansas court system went down to to a cyber attack recently.

It's reasonable to speculate that that's what's happening here.

It's important to remember that I.T.

security often depends on any one individual clicking on the wrong email and they can get into the system.

So it's not hard to believe that that happened.

And that might explain the silence that you've noted from City leaders to if there's negotiations underway, if there's efforts being taken to restore things, they may not want people to know all about that.

And also this week, the one connected those video messaging boards that we see on highways saying, you know, beware of this wreck and what things are happening.

All those went dark, too.

And and we were told it was going to take months for those to come back.

Right.

And traffic reports that you usually get in the morning on the news.

You want to know whether traffic, they couldn't show you the areas because those doors were down.

But I do agree with you, the mayor and the city manager, often, you know, when they're lifting weights, when they're out about in town, they always tweak these things.

But they said nothing about that.

And I think they have to say what happened and what they're doing to prevent this from happening.

Did you see, by the way, that our good friend Eric Wesson was making news of his own this week?

He he hear you Also, one of the top stories this week on Fox Fault.

The question is, where is the chief in the last 45 days, KC PD could only point to one opportunity when Chief Stacy Graves was present with the community and the news media to respond about recent events.

You know, it's interesting that when you talk about violent crime, you always go to the mayor or you see the mayor on TV with sound bites, but he's not an expert in violent crime or crime in general.

He's a politician.

So why isn't the chief of police stepping forward?

Well, first of all, Eric, thank you for dressing up only for this show and not just the polo shirt for that.

We appreciate that.

Secondly, I was wondering what the reaction was.

Did you did you happen to have the police pull you over as soon as you left the house after that, saying you've got a broken tail light?

No, not yet.

But it did spark a conversation with several people.

They called in and called me and said, you know, that is a legitimate, legitimate concern.

And, you know, I like Stacy.

I think she's a great person.

I think she's in over her head as the chief of police.

But I think people need to see the chief of police with reassurance.

Hey, look into the camera.

Hey, bad guys.

We're going to use everything that we've got to find you because we're not going to allow kids to be killed without a response from the kids.

I have to say that fascinatingly, I was looking at the crime figures this morning on the CPD website and homicides.

Actually there are 46 as we record this program.

They were at 60 this time last year.

That's down 25%.

It is.

But I mean, every every death matters.

And if it was your child or your family member, you might want, you know, very much that sort of reassurance from the top.

But, you know, Kansas City police, though, are about ready to unroll what is basically the second version of Nova.

Right.

And some of that may be where her you know, where her attention is right now, which is a good thing if they're you know, there are a lot of things that are moving, a lot of anti-violence programs that are kicking up and starting.

And hopefully they will all work together to actually keep those numbers low.

But there's some important symbolism here, too, that perhaps the police chief could have perhaps taken advantage of being at these crime scenes shortly after they happened, I think does send a message to a community that's been hard hit by crime that people at the top care that this is a priority, whether real or imagined.

There is this sense of fear.

And when it comes to crime, some residents are now voting with their feet.

This week, the owner of a chicken restaurant in Orlando announced it was closing and focusing instead on its two Johnson County stores after being burglarized for the eighth time here, we were open just a little over two years.

We had eight break ins.

So the second break in was here in this door, third break in was that door over there?

They busted one of these panels out, so I just decided to close it.

I'm like, yeah, we we shouldn't I have to put up with that now.

After the Chiefs parade shooting, Starlight Theater announcing new security measures, this week, including a clear plastic bag policy like you see at the sports stadiums to ease public concern about safety.

Is this the start of the new normal?

Will it be clear?

Bags only if you want to get into the zoo or worlds of fun?

BRAND Well, I think there's always incremental steps toward greater safety.

Some of those are about actual safety and some of them are about perception, about making people feel safer, which actually does go to Eric's point regarding the the police chief.

You know, if you can't really make the distinction between the mayor as the political figure and the police chief as sort of the the public safety officer, it is also a political job.

The things that we say and do publicly, especially in top positions like Police Chief matter.

The other thing that comes to mind for me, Nick, is that this is yet another example of where the city having this state appointed board of police commissioners has an impact.

It's much more difficult for the voters of the city of Kansas City to respond politically or with their votes if they have a concern about the absence of the police chief on these crime scenes.

If they're concerned about it, it's out of their hands.

It's in the hands of the state appointed board.

If there's one crime topic, I have to say that that repeatedly shows up on our weekend review mailbag.

It's racing cars and those so-called sideshows where vehicles do donuts and other high speed driving antics in prominent intersections around the city while we repeatedly hear of new efforts to stop them.

Our viewer Chuck writes, Calling the cops does nothing.

The sirens just push them to another location.

I think the police purposely put on their lights and sirens so they can avoid confronting these maniacs.

Is he right or is he misinformed?

He's misinformed, but he is correct that they just move from one part of town to the other.

They and most of these guys got these high powered cars.

The police can't catch them anyway.

They can get them with the radio, but like one on one, they know they're slots.

Chris, I have to say, I mean, I've seen so many stories on Channel nine about this and the latest efforts by the police to solve it, but yet it still comes up.

Yeah.

And is there a fix?

I think this is one of those situations where the police department would say because they are hundreds of officers behind where they should be in terms of hiring, that maybe if there were more cops on the street, maybe more would be done about this.

I also think this is one of those stories, too.

So much attention is focused on the city's homicide rate, and rightly so.

But it's crimes like this one.

It's crimes like the gentleman who was running the business that had been broken into numerous times.

Those are the kinds of crimes that probably fly under the radar, maybe a little bit too much and maybe should be getting more attention, because I think these are crimes that resonate more with people because of it's happening where they live.

But all of that kind of does speak to just what is the community norm and how do we start policing or governing that better.

The issue of somebody breaking in and that might be a need of do they have a drug habit?

You know, can they not get treatment?

And I want treatments.

I've never been offered to them.

And so then they're trying to break into businesses to assumedly they were not stealing chicken.

They were probably trying to get to money there.

But by the way, Mary to Brian, Brian said from the first story about the Herford house, what were the mental issues involved here with a worker who was doing that kind of stuff to food?

There's obviously underlying conditions that were never addressed.

The final walls went up this week on the new Margaritaville resort in Kansas City.

Kansas is being built on the grounds of the ill fated Schlitz up on Water Park.

It'll open next spring.

Well, there's lots of cranes and high speed construction equipment on that site.

Don't expect to see any of that in the city schools on Tuesday.

Voters overwhelmingly rejected the school board election to fix crumbling classrooms.

It would have cost the average homeowner about $110 more a year in property taxes.

While the outcome was decisive, the turnout wasn't only 8% of voters bothered to cast a ballot.

What was the message voters were delivering this week, Brian?

Well, the message, I think, is we don't really care that much.

I think that 8% voter turnout tells you everything you need to know.

Certainly, there were those who thought Kasich's academic performance school districts, academic efforts, their failure to be accredited, then they were then they weren't.

That that was part of what motivated people to say, let's not spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on buildings.

At the same time you need those buildings.

And when buildings are crumbling, kids can't learn in them, you know?

To me, the story is about 2900 people voted no and 2100 voted yes in a in a school district with 60,000 voters.

That's the story.

And somehow the school district has to figure out how to engage more people in caring about schools, enough to vote yes or no.

Other broader lessons.

I see that Kansas City, Missouri schools is also looking to put an issue on the ballot to help schools in infrastructure, in schools.

Does this have a chilling effect on that effort?

It'll be something to watch.

I think a bad word in our society now in both Kansas City and Kansas is property tax.

And I think that's going to be the thing on how they spend it so that it doesn't look like their taxes are going to go up considerably, even though it's $110 a year.

I was surprised because during the stadium tax, most of the comments you saw on social media, we need to put more money in education.

We need to do this.

And then you turn around and vote down something that people need to remember, too, and they'll probably soon hear it in media.

The 70th anniversary of the Brown Board decision is coming up in just a couple of weeks.

On the 17th, May 17th.

That is the promise of America to children.

You can't choose where you're born or who you're born to.

And generally that is where you end up going to school, at least for your early years.

We need to provide quality education for children no matter where they live.

And that message, somehow the districts need to get out.

You can certainly question how they spend your money.

You know what?

The curriculum is all of that at another level.

But at some point, I mean, you just you have to support the school district, the Kansas City, Missouri school district.

It's been 60 years.

It's a bond issue.

And so this is going to be this was going to be a heavy lift anyway.

I think the K results don't make that job and easier.

All right.

I like to think we tackle a lot of important issues on this program from tracking things like school elections to the stadium tax to massive decisions being made by our state lawmakers.

But guess what?

Story this week got more online clicks than any other in the history of this station, I'm told.

How about more than a million online And social media impressions for our story on Buckeyes coming to town at the site near the Kansas Speedway.

If you're not familiar, Buckeyes is a Costco sized Texas based gas station chain that is known for its remarkably good food, trinket sales of snacks and all manner of remarkable and unusual finds.

But what does it tell us about who we are as Kansas City?

Is that this this is the biggest story people are clicking off this week.

We have a low threshold for news stories.

I spoke so but it's pretty nice.

I've been to one before.

It's pretty amazing.

I've never been.

But my 5:00 co-anchor on Channel nine, Bria Barry, is a daughter of the South and swears by these buckets the food, the service, the whole, everything.

She this is apparently this is Wal-Mart on steroids, as she puts it.

I've been I confess you get lost in there because there's just so much to look at.

And, you know, it's kind of a fun, silly story.

I mean, it will you know, it was a smart move if they do end up going by the speedway because there is so much highway traffic there and it'll pull people off and then perhaps they'll go to some of those other stores.

I have not been to Bucky's, but I don't really understand the concept of a convenience store that is so large you get lost in it.

That seems profoundly inconvenient to me, but people go to Costco all the time, but they get lost in case.

And it's the same way.

There is nothing that you can think of that you want is not in there.

You know, there's a convenience store, there's 120 gas pumps at the Bucky's in Springfield, Missouri, the first one to open in the state, 120 gas pumps.

I feel like I'd be overwhelmed before I ever got the gas at all right.

Now, while Bucky's gobbled up public attention, there were lots of important stories happening around here this week.

Did you know, for instance, that Missouri Governor Mike Parson flew down to the border again, this time to sign a bill approving millions of dollars to keep state Highway patrol and National Guard troops there?

That was one of many stories we missed.

Here are some others.

Pass some makes it official.

The governor signing the kill the Phil bill effectively blocking that controversial landfill project in south Kansas City is at the end of the full day school week.

The Independence School District now forced to put the issue to voters as part of a sweeping education bill signed by the governor this week.

Meanwhile, in Kansas, we're still waiting on Laura Kelly to see if she orders lawmakers back to work to approve tax cuts and possibly a new plan to lure the chiefs and royals to the Sunflower State.

It used to be Kansas City's largest private employer, and now, two years after being bought by Oracle, Sooner has been slashed in half.

The Business Journal reporting that the company now has just 6000 employees, is down from nearly 12,000 before the takeover.

Having tried to block new apartments and duplexes, Prairie Village now setting its sights on Airbnbs.

The Johnson County City is the latest to announce a ban on short term rentals.

If he wasn't already in enough trouble, Chiefs wide receiver Rasheen Rice now under investigation for an assault at a Dallas nightclub this week.

This week we're celebrating the 140th birthday of our hometown president.

And it's the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Prairie Fire Museum in Overland Park.

Big changes on the way.

It'll become the new home of the College Baseball Hall of Fame opening next year.

Lots of businesses failing, but quite the milestone from Lenexa based sports apparel firm Rally House.

It opens its 200th store this week.

It now has locations from Arizona to Philadelphia and New York.

And the Parade of Hearts returns for the final time.

Organizers vowed to reveal a new shape in 2025.

And is the America's newest horror star not sure whether he'll be the villain or the victim, but Travis Kelce signs on as a cast member for the new ethics horror series Grotesquerie Chris Cats.

Which one of those stories did you pick?

Well, I think it's great that the Parade of Hearts is back, but the Oracle story really resonated with me.

Almost 12,000 jobs to 6400.

Those are thousands of jobs with good paying jobs that are gone and are not coming back.

Eric, I said the Oracle story, too, because of the tax incentives they got to build these those offices here and now it's just vacant land.

Nobody goes to work.

Most of the people work from home.

They were supposed to develop that area around Banister.

Nothing has been done.

A couple of restaurants, fast food restaurants and a hotel.

Mary Well, and speaking of jobs, not to berate the old subject, but the governor down at the border, that's pure political theater again.

But what people maybe need to realize about immigration is that it used to be under the Department of Labor because it is so tied to why people initially come.

We need to get good, comprehensive reform to actually fill jobs that we need to have filled.

Brian, the big story, I think, is what has not yet been done in the Missouri legislature.

We're now heading into the final week of the session.

Dozens of House bills still waiting on the Senate calendar where dysfunction has has caused gridlock.

Unclear if a lot of Republican priorities will be passed.

Foremost among them, the reforms to the ballot initiative process on which Missouri's future abortion rights or not could depend on.

By the way, every one all of our guests who appear on this program do so for free.

They're giving up their time to be here.

So this week we will be giving them a special gift.

We have full house gift cards for all of you.

Thank you for being with us.

And on that, we will say what week has been revealed courtesy of Mary Sanchez from the Kansas City PBS news Flatland, and from the anchor desk at Channel nine News.

Chris Ketz From next page, KC, Eric Wesson and KCURs Brian Ellison.

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

Be well.

Keep calm and carry on.

Well, the.