On the eve of local.

Election day, we take you to the pros and cons of the big issues on your ballot.

From building a new jail in Kansas City to funding the first school bond in nearly 60 years.

Plus, the troops clear the air on a new stadium.

And what a turnaround.

They want to build an entertainment district around Arrowhead and a dome to host a Super Bowl.

Also, this half hour, what happens now in Jackson County as a judge orders property assessments rolled back?

This is huge.

Frankly, it demands the resignation of the people that were responsible from the top all the way down.

And Kansas lawmakers wrap up their legislative session.

What did they actually accomplish?

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

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of Dave and Jamie Cummings.

Bob and Marlese Gourley, the Courtney as Turner Charitable Trust, John H. Mize and Bank of America Na Co trustees.

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

Thank you.

Hello and welcome.

I'm Nick Haines, and thank you for joining us on our weekly journey through the week's most impactful, confusing, and downright head scratching local news stories.

Hopping on board the Week in Review bus this week if they're still running, that is from KCU Brian Ellison tracking the region's political stories for us.

From the anchor desk of KMBC nine News Khris Ketz, and from the helm of our Metro's newest newspaper, next Page KC Eric Wesson.

You know, Election day is Tuesday in Kansas City.

Voters are being asked to support a new jail.

The city has hasn't had a place to lock people up since 2015.

That's a whole decade for many that seems extremely odd.

Eric, why did Kansas City close its jail in the first place?

Well, there was some health concerns there.

88. comply.

And, they had to do a lot of building to renovate those things.

There was some mo there.

It was just they didn't want to be in a jail business.

So they sent them over to Jackson County.

Evidently, the city wasn't paying Jackson County with that contract, so they canceled it.

So then they start shipping people out of the Kansas City metropolitan area.

And they've been staying in rural jails, haven't they?

And they've been paying a lot of money to house people in rural jails.

It has been an expensive endeavor to to send inmates away, sometimes more than an hour.

But it also raises a lot of other issues as well.

You know, conditions in these jails, recent reporting has, has uncovered that has has been dangerous for some of these inmates and that some of the Kansas City inmates have been treated, poorly, worse than other detainees there, not to mention other kind of civil rights violations like it takes, you know, an hour and a half for an attorney to get there that increases attorney's fees.

Family visitation is limited.

There's a whole lot of problems with the way Kansas City is doing it right now.

Proponents say this is an existing tax.

Will it cost you any more?

If you vote yes on this?

Perhaps not immediately.

It's a sales tax.

So it will.

And it's already on the books.

On the other hand, as costs rise, then the tax will rise early.

Voters are already seeing something very unusual in this tax election.

Eric.

And in fact, when you look at the ballot question, nowhere does it say the word jail.

In fact, it just says it's a public safety tax.

It goes to police emergency services and for capital improvements.

Is that an April Fool's joke that they don't say the word jail or is that intentional?

I believe it was intentional because jail is a bad word.

but the mayor is a lame duck, so therefore he doesn't have to worry about being reelected for building a jail.

But that is my biggest problem with it.

The public safety is such a broad conversation.

You can come up with street lights, you can come up with the police, want to buy some more motorcycles or motorcycles are part of that.

Sidewalks and curbs.

Can you actually manipulate what the money is going to be used for?

And that's my problem with it.

it's not specific, but one of the interesting things is they want it back up.

In the campaign cycle, the mayor was talking about people having to go to these outside places in Missouri to put in, to be housed in jail.

Well, they've been going there for over three years.

So why wasn't an issue three years ago is the issue now is you're a lame duck getting ready to leave.

They didn't just start going there.

So I thought that was interesting.

In their campaign cycle.

I think those are all good observations.

I think proponents would note that the ballot language is very similar to the language that was used in 2010, the last time the sales tax was approved, and that there is, under state law, some necessity if they're only, renewing attacks and not actually starting a new tax, that it has to be the same tax.

And so that's some of the reason for the language they used.

It also should be noted that the jail is not the only thing in this tax.

It is the bulk of it.

But there is also funding in there for 911 services for a rehabilitation center that might be part of the city's future plans, for body cameras, for police, for work on the Central Patrol Division building.

So there are some other elements, even though the city jail will be the main feature of what's paid for, there's been a lot of anxiety over crime.

Let me, just, for a moment at least, said that a lot of anxiety about crime, including, you know, serial burglaries of businesses, shoplifting, these are municipal offenses.

what is the main argument for voting no on this?

I think there are.

They're the solution to petty crime.

Opponents of this would say is not to just jail people.

It is more redirecting them to rehabilitation, redirecting them to other services as well.

I think there's also the money question.

This the taxes generated from this would pay for the construction of a new jail, but not any ongoing cost or maintenance of it that would still come out of a city budget and be a massive expense as well.

We were talking about the city wanting to get out of the jail business to begin with, because it is pricey and and it costs a lot.

And and this would be getting back into the jail business.

What happens if voters vote no on Tuesday, Eric.

They have to come back and change the language and bring voters a different perspective, not something as vague and broad as what they're doing.

It sounds like the stadium tax, so they have to come back again and do the same thing, right?

They would have to.

And one of the interesting things that would that he doesn't talk about is also a downtown jail, because remember, they want to put another jail in the police station as well.

You got a helicopter for the police department.

They want a new helicopter.

All of these things and these things are pricey.

And health.

If I have a mental health issue, why do I have to go to jail in order to get an address?

And we don't have mental health facilities in a community.

To help somebody was also think it's hard that this would be built, about three miles north of Arrowhead Stadium, in almost exactly the same spot the Jackson County is bringing its own Jackson County Detention Center to life right next door.

Why do two jails?

Why couldn't they get their act together?

The question of why?

Absolutely.

And there had been talk about trying to to combined, detention facility here and those talks obviously failed miserably.

again, I go back to the political part of this.

It'll be interesting to see Tuesday because there are groups, influential groups like KC, tenants who are working against this, they've become, something of a something of a power at City Hall.

Now, the other big issue on the ballot Tuesday involves the Kansas City, Missouri School District, which is asking voters to approve half $1 billion in building improvements.

It's a tall order.

District voters haven't approved a school bond that since 1967.

They were sitting in the exact same desks and chairs that I sat in, and I graduated 25 years ago.

So they're just like even the low hanging fruit that this bond could provide for our students, such as desks and chairs, it's pretty major.

So I just think about how much more successful my babies would be if they had access to the things that other students around them have.

Now, it seems like school bond elections routinely pass around the Metro Y area, because it takes nearly 60 years for voters to approve one.

In Kansas City.

Property tax increased the threat of that.

And because it's not a priority, and they don't presented as a priority because before the hang up was, well, it's not an accredited school district and people have a tendency to confuse the issues.

This bond is for maintenance to the buildings.

It has nothing to do with curriculum and what goes on in the classroom.

That's what your tax dollars are going to.

This tax is tax is earmarked just for maintenance of schools.

And these schools need they need some things in there.

And I will say Eric's right to point out this, the lack of accreditation when the school district lost accreditation decades ago, that has continued to haunt this district and contributed to to flight, that was already happening to two suburban districts as well.

And I think we've got a self-perpetuating issue where people leave.

Then property values in that school district go down, so there's less revenue to do this stuff.

And this is a district that has been plagued with disinvestment for decades.

there's, you know, the whole desegregation history of the district really kind of brought it to to shambles right now.

And it has made it very hard to over to recognize the strides that the district has really made in the last.

Does it do anything, though, to improve academic performance, which is what a lot of people looking at this issue are concerned about, doesn't improve math or reading scores for students.

And how would it do that?

By investing in the buildings, I think.

While while you may not see a direct tie to building maintenance, improving academic scores, I think it's absolutely related.

If a student is in a building where they're not, having to be dismissed early because of the heat or because of the cold, so they can actually focus on their work if they're able to go to the gym.

you know, for, for extracurricular sports, that is all part of the academic experience.

We need to have actual buildings that allow children to learn.

We are used to when we go to vote that we expect if if it gets 50% support, it's going to pass.

Not in this case, Brian.

Why is it going to take 57% to pass this?

Well, in its wisdom, over the years, the Missouri statutes have provided that for property tax increases to support bonds of this nature, a 4/7 vote, a 57.1% vote is required in order for the measure to pass.

That has actually proven to be a high hurdle.

Some.

There are a number of bonds in Missouri municipalities that have not passed because they got only 54 or 55% of the vote.

And this was going to be a heavy lift anyway just because of history, if for no other reason.

And to have to clear this 57, I think it's 57.14% hurdle, I think really makes it, this is going to be a heavy lift.

And for a district that has in recent years, there, you and I remember the days when a Kansas City, Missouri school board meeting was a pier six brawl.

And it hasn't been like that in decades.

This is a district that has regained accreditation.

Good things are happening, and for whatever reason, it's not resonating with enough people.

And unlike the jail tax, this bond election will actually cost you money $0.64 a day, about $20 a month on somebody who has a $200,000 home in Jackson County or in Kansas City.

Right.

But if you look around the surrounding areas, Grandview, Lee, Sam, and Blue Springs, they pass all kind of school, improvement, taxes.

And I think one of the things that is really interesting about this tax is, like she said, if you go into those schools, the lighting is really bad.

And a lot of those schools and there is no heating in some of the schools, no air conditioned.

You have to create an environment that's conducive for learning.

And I think that improving some of the conditions of the school would do that as well.

Well, and to that point in the point Lisa was making earlier, the reason these other districts are passing these bonds is because the income base out of Kansas City, Missouri, has moved out there over generations.

So Park Hill School District and Liberty School District and at least some at school district, these districts all are able to pass these bonds with a much more comfortable tax base that otherwise might have been living in Kansas City, Missouri, in this school district.

During the, stadium tax, every post you saw on social media said, we need to give this money to the schools.

The schools need this, the schools do that.

So now Tuesday's going to decide whether they were just talking or if they were going to put some action.

Well, speaking of stadiums, then NFL team owners from around the country gathered in West Palm Beach, Florida, for their annual meeting this week, and Chiefs owner Clark Clock chose the moment to clear the air on the team's future plans.

A decision on its stadium is coming this summer.

Yep, we've heard that before.

But what was new talk of a dome so Kansas City can host a super Bowl and enthusiasm for a retail entertainment district around the stadium.

Two features the team's leadership dismissed a year ago.

What changed?

Chris, I'm not sure what changed at all, quite frankly, but we did finally get some clarity in terms of what the Chiefs are looking for and even a timeline.

again, Clark Kent is talking about this summer, perhaps around the same time John Sherman makes some sort of an announcement about the royals.

So, and I don't think what the Chiefs want is any great surprise.

Certainly anybody at this table, I think that's that's kind of been the conventional.

What did it suggest to you that they were more inclined to be staying put where they are?

Well, I think there's enough room to do what it is they want to do, whether they want to stay at the sports complex or perhaps go out by the legends and cascade.

As the Kansas City Chiefs conversation comes into clearer focus, it also raises questions about the Kansas City Royals ongoing discussions about their possible stadium relocation.

Nick, one of the realities, that we talked about, that we heard last week from Mayor Quinton Lucas was the possibility of dangling $1 billion for the Royals to to even potentially make renovations at Kauffman, which, I talked with John Sherman about last week on Kcur.

And he pretty clearly said, that's not going to happen.

What is really clear is we still know absolutely nothing, Brian.

Okay.

Even though we've talked about it for like the last year, now, that if you live in Jackson County, are you about to get a big fat refund?

Check a judge this week siding with taxpayers in a protracted lawsuit over property assessments.

The judge's verdict if the assessment was more than 15%, the county needs to refund you.

This is.

Huge.

Frankly, it demands the resignation of the people that were responsible from the top all the way down.

Now that's Jackson County lawmaker Sean Smith dialing up the outrage media this week.

Before we address his push for firings, let's talk about the money itself.

When we had some people with triple digit increases in their property assessments.

We're talking about a massive amount of cash here, Lisa.

It is it is a massive amount of cash, and it's a massive amount of cash that has already been, in many cases, collected, distributed, budgeted to all of the and they've.

Spent it all because this was 2023.

Yeah.

Right.

So so any expectation that you would get a check in the mail or a refund, I would say it's time to to to temper that expectation.

I think that is likely not going to happen.

I think the only avenue the the county legislature would have, the legislature would have, would be in some form of tax credits for the next round.

Sean Smith, who you saw in it, beginning the segment, he put a number to it.

He thinks it's a it.

It is in the neighborhood of $250 million, which obviously Jackson County doesn't have right now.

And, the I suppose the best case scenario is that taxpayers involved in this will see some sort of credit in 20 or for 24 and for 25.

But again, if you're a taxing district and you're relying on these dollars like the Kansas City, Missouri.

Yes.

That's $187 million.

We forget that because it's not just Jackson County, it's the city gets some of it.

And then school districts.

So, for instance, if they were to have to refund that money, what would happen to the money they were going to get from that, the bond election?

Would they have to take some of that money that would have gone to improvements to pay people back?

Yeah, they would probably have to take some of that money and put it in the classroom, in order to make ends meet.

And probably a great deal of that money, I think is like $18 million.

I saw one report, but I think it's more of a black eye for, Frank white because Frank white dug his heels and he said, hey, this we're doing this right.

This is the way it's supposed to be done.

And of course, I know you didn't do it right.

And as like right now does.

The county is such a circus.

You have the county executive veto the entire budget.

combat programs, other programs are being implemented because there's no funding.

As a county executive, you veto lines you don't like in it rather than veto the whole budget because he veto on his own things, and he has in the budget.

So this is just more of a mess and a reason why they got 40,000 signatures for the recall.

They just need to release him.

Because I haven't heard about that for some time.

I mean, it's been months since we heard anything about the recall election.

They haven't given up.

No, they got the signatures.

They just got to do whatever the backroom things that they have to do is going to be.

At least the last time I talked to them, they said they had a little over 41,000 signatures.

By the way, Frank white, the county executive, wrote a guest editorial this week in the Kansas City Star claiming the whole thing is a power grab orchestrated by vested interests like the Heavy Constructors Association, which he says is enraged because he didn't write a blank check to the team's owners to build new stadiums.

Is there more to it than that, Brian?

Well, there's there's there's many, many layers of conflict and accusation and almost every way when it comes to the Jackson County legislature and their relationship with the county executive.

I mean, one of the things that I found most interesting in this week's news was the way it is making strange bedfellows out of members of the county legislature Manny Abarca, a Democrat, Sean Smith, a Republican who have who've gone at each other over any number of topics, are unified in their opposition to County Executive Frank white, their outrage over this lawsuit's outcome.

we're seeing some very interesting things that, the word circus was just used.

I will I will refrain from judgment, but I think folks are going to have to, to watch to see how this goes.

Anybody going to lose their jobs over this?

Well, there have been numerous attempts to recall Frank white in the past.

He has he has withstood all of them.

I, I don't know, this this property tax issue is a big thing.

Will it be enough this time to to galvanize enough people to sign a petition?

I don't know, because I think for us, we're very we're very involved in, in monitoring what's happening at the county level.

But I'm not convinced that throughout to the county in in general, there is enough outrage targeted at the executive, specifically.

And assuming it's a credit that Jackson County taxpayers will be getting here, this isn't going to happen.

I don't think any time soon, I think the conventional wisdom seems to be there's going to be some sort of an appeal.

This could drag out for quite a while before taxpayers get what is owed to them.

How about the direct, the executive director, the assessor herself?

I know the Missouri legislature has been looking to change the whole system to relate to how they elect IT assessor in Jackson County.

What happened to that?

Instead of a, director of the assessment department, Gail McCann.

Beatty.

that's a great question, Nick.

It has not passed the legislature.

There's a number of items left on the Missouri Legislature to do list, and that's one of them.

but it certainly is something that seems to have some Republican support, and that's who controls things in Jeff City.

Why would you get into a spitting contest with the heavy constructors?

Basically, Bridget Williams is who in to the way why would you get into a contest with her?

That's a no win situation.

Because he's there defending taxpayers.

As he said in his, editorial, he sued us.

Sued the taxpayers to make us pay more than we're supposed to be paying.

So it's it's interesting assessment that he has on what is supposed to be done and appointing a and an assessor.

I think that is probably a going to be a thing of the past.

I think taxpayers in Jackson County are going to now demand that they elect that assessor, so they have someone to hold accountable.

That's a wrap.

Kansas lawmakers are now back home after completing their legislative session.

Only a short veto session remains.

If you haven't been paying much attention, can you refresh our memory on what they actually accomplished?

Brian.

Sure.

one of the, significant accomplishments, according to the Republican supermajority in, in Kansas, was a ban on gender affirming care, in the state of Kansas.

They also ended the grace period for ballots to be received.

That is, if you're, absentee or your early voting ballot is not received in the election office by Election Day, it will not be counted even if it comes in the very next day.

they also passed some bills that are, where that have been vetoed.

But we will find out their eventual fate at the veto session, next week.

federal money for elections, money that would have been spent on increasing voter registration, for example, the the Republicans passed a prohibition on that.

And also, of course, their proposal that the budget in the state of Kansas should simply be continued.

If in any given year, the legislature is not able to come to a consensus about a new budget.

So a number of things were passed.

Some of them are still awaiting action after vetoes.

And I do see also that there will be a constitutional amendment coming to your local ballot box in Kansas to see whether you want to elect directly or Supreme Court justices in Kansas.

Exactly, exactly.

That is another major thing that the Kansas Legislature did this year, and it is largely a response to Supreme Court decisions in Kansas that have not gone the way that the GOP would have liked them to go on on a right to an abortion in the state constitution and other matters.

So.

So this is a chance now for the Republican Party.

Thanks for the entire state to weigh in on on whether, they believe that we need to fundamentally change the system.

We talked a little bit about, of course, the Jackson what was happening in Jackson County about property assessments and the anger over the cost there.

However, in Kansas, there's also a lot of anger over how much property taxes are rising.

That was going to be priority number one of Republicans this session.

Nothing has happened, Chris.

Not enough has happened.

Certainly there's a Republican legislator in Fareway who said it was a little bit this past session, like, the Charlie Brown scene where Lucy picks up the football the moment before Charlie kicks it off.

There was that kind of back and forth, maybe if the legislature had had another week or two, we might have seen maybe something a bit more substantial, but that they didn't.

That's not, it didn't happen.

Session remains.

And it's like Jason in the horror movies, he comes back and comes back.

Anything could come back in that veto session with lawmakers.

That's true.

Kansas Legislature has a pretty open set of rules about what can be done over time, even whether a session has actually ended or not.

and so, there is there are possibilities.

And we've seen it before where, the Republican leadership has sort of brought in, votes that they didn't think they had before and done some surprising things.

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

One was the big local story.

We missed.

The bus cuts have begun.

The Metro's largest transit agency cutting service hours and laying off staff.

Peter Vermes out sporting KC, firing the longest serving coach in Major League Soccer so the county doesn't have to enact a voter approved children's tax.

After all, a judge ruled that the county commission acted within its discretion when it refused to implement the tax passed in November that would have funded kids mental health programs.

And aren't you?

Who are the biggest crowds this week?

Kansas City's March for democracy.

All the Satanists and counter-protesters trying to shut down a black mass at the Kansas State House in Topeka.

Four people were arrested.

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

And completely different?

I couldn't help but but, pay particular attention to the Supreme Court election in Wisconsin this past week and ask myself, could it happen here?

You talked about Lisa, the, the move to, increase voter, involvement and by extension, political involvement in Supreme Court, seats in those selection.

and that selection process, you know, that Wisconsin race turned out to be $100 million race.

With tons of money for me.

And that's kind.

Of money from outside.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Eric.

I said two things.

the voters in Platte County just disregarded their votes.

The legislature that they have up there, or whatever they call their government, they decide on what to do.

Why should people wait, say, time voting and Joanne Collins got robbed?

Yeah.

The former city council woman, former.

City council member and former city mayor, mayor pro tem and mayor several times while the mayor was out of town, she got robbed.

She's in better condition.

She's in rehab.

But that's like robbing Rosa Parks.

How how disrespectful is that?

the the end of a controversy in tiny Westwood, Kansas.

we saw this week the the fight over the, Jodie Dennis Park.

Right on rainbow Boulevard there, that small town of Westwood, completed a mail in election this week.

voted for 41 to 394 to keep the park as it is.

It's a tiny community, a tiny margin of votes.

But for now, the mayor has said he will respect that vote.

It will not be sold to developers to make an office park.

And Brian, well, building on on Eric's observation about the Platt County Commission deciding not to pass a tax that the voters had just approved after a long and, you know, comprehensive campaign, thinking about the Missouri General Assembly as it is preparing to potentially take steps to limit the impact of what voters approved in terms of affirming abortion rights.

I think what we're seeing on the minimum wage and paying, which is all still, still pending before the before the General Assembly, I think what we're seeing here is an interesting reflection on whether, elected officials believe it is their job to respect the will of voters or their job to review the will of voters and decide if they think it's best for them.

But some people say this is not a direct democracy.

This is representative democracy, and they're looking after our best interests on that.

We will say.

A week has been reviewed courtesy of Casey was Lisa Rodriguez and Channel Nine's Chris Katz from next page, Casey, Eric Wesson and Casey was Brian Ellison, and I'm Nick Haines from all of us here at Kansas City PBS.

Be well, keep calm and carry on.