Your left hand on the Bible, raise.

Your right hand.

I, Byron Robertson.

It was a big week for swearing ins on both sides of state line.

My administration will.

Be relentless in our efforts to make Missouri a place.

Where it's easier to be a cop.

Than a criminal.

And after a week of being blanketed in white Kansas City finally becomes a bright shade of red.

Also this week, we're supposed to be showing our local restaurants love.

After all, it's Restaurant Week.

So why are so many of them feeling frustrated and angry at City Hall?

All three of my locations have been broken into several times.

I pay my taxes.

I do all the things that I'm supposed to do with the small business owner.

And I kind of expect our city to solve this.

Problem for us.

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 Marley, Gourley, the Courtney S. 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.

This week we're tracking ten of the most talked about stories in Kansas City this week and the ones that didn't get much attention.

But you definitely need to know about lifting up the hood on all those headlines.

From the anchor desk of KMBC nine news.

Chris Ketz at the helm of next Page KC Eric Wesson tracking the region's top political stories for KCUR news Brian Ellison and former star, reporter and editorial writer Dave Helling.

And by the way, for anyone who watched this program last week, did the city end up plowing your street?

Eric.

Yes.

Okay.

So that's solved.

Okay.

I was just what?

I was worried I couldn't actually sleep, so I'm freeze averted.

We're actually getting the most important things covered already in the first minute of this program.

As the nation gets ready to inaugurate a president on Monday, inauguration day came early this week in Missouri.

Mike Kehoe officially sworn into office as the state's new governor.

My administration will be relentless in our efforts to make Missouri a place where it's.

Easier to be a cop.

Than a criminal.

Well, we heard that line many times before we said it a lot of times on the campaign trail, were there any big surprises in keyholes, inauguration speech, or in his actions during this first week in office?

Brian, I don't know if they were big surprises us.

One of the surprises might be that it was a much shorter speech than a lot of people expected.

It was, fairly, pretty minutes, fairly predictable.

what was that?

Because it was so cold outside.

It was like ten degrees, you know?

But it's always.

That ceremony is it's brutally cold year.

After year, always.

Short to the r. I feel okay.

And the important thing to know, I think, is that the state of the state address is still to come in a couple of weeks.

That's also when the Missouri governor introduces their budget proposal, usually on the same day.

That's where we start to get into the substance of their plans.

There was news that day, though, Nick.

the right after the speech, governor signs a bunch of executive orders, including, some some, efforts to pursue, criminals, Operation Relentless Pursuit, he called it, and empowering Missouri Highway Patrol to, to get involved in the immigration priorities of the Trump administration.

And I think that is an incredibly, you know, that was something that was very surprising to me, because if you remember, during the campaign trail, actually there were other candidates who ran for governor who made that much bigger an issue and said, in fact, that he was more of a liberal on this issue.

In fact, I saw that, for instance, Bill Eichel called keyhole, as soft as Charmin toilet paper when it.

Came.

To this.

Issue or so that's.

About why why is he making that such a top priority on the very first day?

Because, immigration for the Republican Party across the country is maybe the most important issue.

In fact, president elect Trump told somebody this week that he thought he won not because of inflation, but because of immigration.

And so I think all Republicans think that a crackdown, whatever that looks like on the and by the way, in Missouri, it's not going to be that extensive because it doesn't have the problem that they say they have in Kansas.

But but to governors, Republican governors and legislators across the country are going to focus on this issue in the first hundred days.

But do we have, one of those executive orders was to throw out some state cash to train local law enforcement officers to find, illegal immigrants in Missouri?

There may be some friction there, you know, because places like Kansas City and Saint Louis and their police departments have traditionally said, look, we don't have time to be dealing with immigration.

We've got Break-Ins at small businesses, which we're going to talk about later, and murders, in our communities and enforcing immigration law, which is primarily a federal responsibility.

It can be difficult in those urban areas.

And that will be, I think, create some friction in the weeks.

And we've seen illustrations of that in other parts of the country where, local and state law enforcement were deputized to carry out some of these functions.

So there's definitely it's not going to be as easy as it sounds like.

Well, the mayor of Denver recently said he would be willing to go to jail to prevent, undocumented workers from being deported from his city.

Are we going to see that around here, where we're going to have the mayor or even perhaps the Jackson County prosecutor say, no, we're not going to follow these rules?

that's going to be interesting to watch.

I don't think that, Mayor Lucas is the kind is, built for that.

But I do know that during the inauguration process, he said that the governor needed to focus more on Missourians than immigration.

And I thought that that was a powerful statement.

And I think you go back to it and you look at some of the things that he proposes.

One is to take over the Saint Louis Police Department and bring it back under state control again.

I don't know why, because he can look at Kansas City's police department, which is indexed under state control, and let us know how well that's working out.

But I think that I don't think that the mayor or, Miss Johnson will get into that argument about immigration.

I think it's important to remember, too, that Missouri has a law against sanctuary cities.

So, so for, Kansas City or Saint Louis or any other city in the state to take that position, would, would immediately get them into legal hot water, not only with the governor, but with the courts.

Now, while most of the news attention was on Missouri this week, Kansas lawmakers headed back to work also this week, and Governor Laura Kelly delivered her state of the state address.

You mean you missed it?

Wow.

This used to be a huge deal.

Chris Katz I saw very little coverage of it whatsoever.

Do people not care about this anymore?

You didn't see coverage on KMBC nine news and.

Oh, I cut it.

All right.

I made sure of that.

in an editorial meeting.

I think these are these are ceremonial events.

More than anything else, it's very little.

And in the way of specifics of how the coming legislative session is going to look like, really come up in these sorts of addresses.

So I think they've they've lost their luster over the years.

for those reasons.

And they also lose their luster a little bit for someone like Laura Kelly, who is now in her sixth year as governor.

you know, we've seen several of them.

And, the idea that she will propose a bunch of new, initiatives in this state, or bold, steps is probably unlikely.

She did suggest some things, but she didn't come in and say, let's eliminate the income taxes we expect.

Mike Kehoe, by the way, to talk about Mike Kehoe.

State of the state will be much more important because it's his first, and it will give us a good idea of his specific agenda.

And it will matter more because he's a Republican speaking to Republican controlled General Assembly.

this is really the problem with Laura Kelly speech is I'm sure it was a fine speech.

It articulated her priorities well, but they don't care that much about what she wants.

She is not setting the legislative agenda in Kansas.

And, they will they will probably override her vetoes even in the places where, where she departs from.

And we have that.

For instance, you've mentioned on the show before, Dave, about the importance for Republicans of lowering property taxes.

She wants to be much more cautious on that area.

you know, putting the brakes on that that will be an area of contention.

I see they want to push for another effort to limit medical care for transgender minors.

That will be another clash between her and the lawmakers.

But there are a couple of other things that I saw in coverage, and I don't know how valid they really are.

One was there's a good chance medical marijuana could pass this session.

Is that just wishful thinking?

I don't I think it's more wishful thinking than you would suspect right out of the gate, because there is a strong opposition.

Always has been in Kansas to the use of marijuana.

but maybe the dam will break this year.

I mean, maybe it's part of another approach that Republicans will want to take.

But my guess is talking to them that, tax reform is at the top of the agenda.

And more important than almost anything.

I can do, is only one of three states that have done absolutely nothing on the marijuana question.

I'd be I'd be surprised if there was some significant movement on that, given the fact that a lot of the opposition has come from Senate leadership and those people are still, in power.

One other aspect of what Republicans want to push, which will be a big clash, is on another effort to restrict elections and voting.

And in fact, ending that three day grace period for mail in ballots.

Right now, you can you know, there's the election on Tuesday.

You can get your mail in ballots on Friday.

They want to eliminate that.

That's going to be another contention point.

But I want to go back to Missouri for a moment.

We talked about Laura Kelly.

But what is going to happen to Mike Parson?

That was his last day in office this week.

He's no longer governor.

This is going to be the first time he's out of some form of elected office in more than 30 years.

That has to be a big shock to the system.

Eric.

Yes it is.

I'm going to miss all.

He can go fishing.

He can go fishing, he can go hunting.

He can do whatever he wants to do.

I'm just glad to see him go.

What does he do now?

That's a great question.

I mean, I think, there's probably he's probably ready to take a rest.

I, he has said very clearly he doesn't plan to seek other offices.

He's he is ready to retire.

He has grandchildren.

he does seem to be the sincere politician who says at the end of this term, I'm, I'm I'm done.

And so far, there's no indication that that wasn't the case.

The story I heard was as soon as Kehoe speech was over, he and his wife got in the pickup and drove back to the farm.

And that is that respect.

That's it's not quite the helicopter from Capitol.

No, not one about anything.

I'm seeing a lot of stories and you're going to see a lot of it this weekend.

The sort of legacy of President Biden, who is also now going to be in his last day in office, Monday, he will be finishing up completely, what about Mike Parson's legacy?

What will he be known for, do you think?

Interesting discussion, by the way.

We all expect Joe Biden to get in a pickup truck and pull away from the white House after that.

So.

So maybe that will repeat itself.

I think that, Mike Parson will get credit for calming the political picture down after Eric Greitens.

We forget that.

Yeah, well, it was a disaster.

And there was just, it was made national headlines, the Greitens scandal.

And I think, for better or for worse, Mike Parson was able to calm that down.

But the idea that he, brought about significant change in the state or even in some ways that got along with the Republicans in the legislature, is probably a misnomer.

And there have been columns written saying, hey, basically he was a caretaker for his time in, in the governor's mansion, and that's about the highest praise that you can get for him.

And those those columns also said that for whatever reason, Governor Parson didn't really have much of an appetite to want to roll up his sleeves and get himself involved in the dirty work of the legislature.

And and there were also numerous illustrations of, I think, moments where the governor came off as quite thin skinned, facing opposition.

I can think of a moment in the Covid crisis where, he took a lot of grief for that and, kind of bristled at his opponents.

He did that a lot.

Also had a very adversarial relationship with the press.

there was the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch reporter who discovered, security weakness in the, in the state's website, reported on it.

And, Governor Parson tried to have him arrested for hacking.

We know there are many people who will say having it.

I just the relationship with the press is worth at least 10,000 votes.

Bryan.

Okay.

Eric.

And in addition to that, he had a very adversarial row with civil rights groups, black organizations in the state of Missouri.

Deval Conor was just the icing on the cake to show how separated and divided he was and out of touch with what people were listening to.

But I remember several years ago, the NAACP, the state NAACP, was telling organizations not to come to the state of Missouri so that I don't know how t ho repairs the relationship, but that was something that he would definitely be remembered for.

With so many important state actions going on on both sides of state line this week, did the s word come up at all?

I'm talking about stadiums, Chris.

Did Laura Kelly say we're welcoming the Chiefs and the Royals to Kansas in a state of the state address?

Did Mike Keough announce a new deal during his inauguration speech?

Yeah, there was a moment in the Kelly speech Wednesday night when she talked about economic opportunity.

And I thought at that moment she would pivot to maybe something about the stadiums.

Instead, she pivoted to, Medicaid expansion.

So, that that didn't happen.

There was nothing the governor of Kansas said nothing.

The governor of Missouri said nothing this week.

And I have to say, I was so grateful last week.

Well, just before we were taping our prerecorded program, we were being told by some of these sports radio stations when we Dave, there's going to be a major announcement from the Chiefs.

The Royals also have a deal.

It got me all worried.

How are we going to tackle this?

And crickets.

Yeah it was a little quiet on Friday and frankly I was refreshing my phone.

Repeat okay.

And see if any announcement had been made.

but the idea that there are private negotiations going on is very much in play.

I think it's a mistake to be so private about what's, what the discussions are, because the public is, waiting for some direction from either the teams or the governors or the mayor or all of them, and they hear nothing.

And I think that's, a tactical error.

I think I think these are efforts that are going to require public support, and the lack of transparency, not just recently, but really kind of throughout this process.

And we're a couple of years into it, is is something that is going to have to be overcome somehow.

Now, this is supposed to be a week that we give our local restaurants some love in one of the slowest times of the year.

It's restaurant week, after all.

But rather than throwing roses and affectionate at local eateries, many are expressing frustration and despair after another big string of business Break-Ins La Bodega on Southwest Boulevard says this is the third time in six weeks they've been burglarized.

The owner of Crows Coffee says they experienced their 15th Break-In this week.

All three of my locations have been broken into several times.

I pay my taxes.

I do all the things that I'm supposed to do with the small business owner, and I kind of expect our city to solve this problem for us.

All right, Eric, this has got to be embarrassing.

The mayor and the police chief.

Is there a fix that's going to keep these restaurant owners happy?

No.

And I think they keep just throwing money at it, thinking that that's going to solve the problem.

I got an email earlier on my way to the show today, where the mayor is going to allocate $1 million to upgrade security for those, businesses to help them, you know, with security for that.

Let me just backtrack for one second.

And in August, the mayor came to 31st and prospect, the Linwood Shopping Center.

There are sections of the fence missing.

We're going to get on top of that.

Consider that done.

Consider that fixed in January.

Those gaping holes are still there.

So the issue that people in the black community have and share is you got a couple businesses on the right side of town, they get broke into.

You all respond to them immediately.

On the black side of town, we have these issues and nothing ever gets done.

So it kind of seems like it's disingenuous when he comes into the black community saying, we're going to do this.

This is there was a border police commissioners meeting this week.

This was the biggest topic on the agenda, Chris, and we were told by one of the top police officers there that there was now going to be a brand new breaking squad of seven officers that would patrol hotspots late at night is not going.

To make it.

This one, Sergeant and six officers late at night.

in addition, there's going to be private security now in the River market area.

So things are happening along those lines.

But these things keep happening.

But he said that they're pulling their own money together, though, to to make pay for private security.

I also see there is now businesses just saying, okay, we got to do our own thing.

We're now saying we're, we're not going to take cash anymore.

We're posting huge signs on the windows and doors saying no cash on the premises as a way of sort of deterring people from, from burglarizing them at night.

Which I think a lot of customers would say that's not a problem because very few people are paying with cash anyway.

But I do think this is raising the key tension here is whose job is it to stop the crime?

Should business owners expect that the cost of doing business, operating a business in a city is that you're going to have to pay for some extra security?

Or, as the owner of Crows Coffee said, is this the city's problem to solve?

That's what we're trying to get.

I offer just a third option call Mike Kehoe.

The state runs the police department in Kansas City.

Call him up and say, hey, send us some more money for police.

If you're so anxious to run our police department.

And by the way, run the Saint Louis Police Department and by the way, cut crime.

Then put your money where your mouth is.

You send extra resources to a place like Kansas City so they can hire more police to put on foot patrol or to to to guard some of these places.

It shouldn't be the responsibility of a store owner to have to hire private security, but it should be the governor's responsibility if he runs the department.

Well, this is well, this is getting lots of attention.

I was surprised to see the property crimes.

According to the latest statistics, were down 3%.

So it actually isn't up at all.

That's like telling people homicides are down when you're burying your loved one.

Yeah.

Tell that to the business owners.

That property crime is down 3% while they're fixing their windows.

But today's point and and he brings up a great point.

The governor should do that.

But don't we need to look at what the police are spending their money on.

They have one of the largest budgets in the country.

They do.

And every week, every time you turn around, well.

Not only the largest budgets in the country, Eric, but the state has mandated.

Yes.

It can't just spend 25% of its budget.

Yes.

From 20.

Yes.

A vote of the people.

And that's the.

For the I know I'm an old broken record on this, Nick, but if the if the state wants responsibility for law enforcement in Kansas City, then they cannot wash their hands when there are actual problems with crime.

And this is a prime example of.

All right.

Well, history was made in Johnson County this week.

I'm Byron Roberson.

Do solemnly swear.

Byron Robeson officially sworn in as the first black sheriff in the county's history.

It comes just days after Melissa Johnson takes over as the first black woman prosecutor in Jackson County.

Have we noticed any big changes in either place since they took over the reins?

no.

Miss Johnson announced this week that she was going to be going after, drug trafficking or drug sales, and she was going to be going after domestic violence cases.

But we also have a black sheriff in Black County.

So we have Jackson County, Johnson County, and Platte County.

Now, all three have black sheriffs.

Getting to Melissa Johnson for just a moment, it at least so far, the relationship between Johnson and the police chief, Stacy Graves, appears to be good.

do you see that continuing, given all of the friction in the past between those two departments?

I believe it's going to continue to be good.

They seem like they got a great relationship.

I think the concern that people have is the mayor in the middle of that.

And it's a situation where when you go to the chiropractor with your backyard, you get an expert opinion.

People don't view the mayor as an expert in law enforcement.

So why is he in the middle of these conversations?

They should be with the chief of police.

But to answer your question, they seem to have a great relationship and I hope it stays that way.

But at the same time, the police department has to be held accountable and they've been getting a lot of free passes.

And just really briefly, Nick, this is an important conversation now because voters in April will be facing a sales tax renewal for public safety.

Exactly.

And the skepticism about the relationship between the police department broadly and the community and the mayor and the prosecutor will be front and center in that debate and could jeopardize that tax.

Already there some confusion about using it for the new city jail.

these questions need to be answered and addressed now so that in April we have a clear picture of what's going on.

We could talk about all these, political stories on this program.

But I have to say, it is the biggest story that people are talking about this week.

Your Kansas City Chiefs.

and actually, that actually causes because it's the first playoff game.

And for me, it causes the biggest, concern because we have a show, many of our viewers watch this on a Sunday after that big game so people could be nursing a hangover, or they could be, serving their shoe in their shoes is the safest thing we can say about this.

That, Patrick Mahomes and his wife had a new baby this week.

That's about all that's about.

All we can say is we are recording this program.

Is.

Now one interesting thing that did come up this week from the mayor's office was that they now looking at if there were to be another Super Bowl parade, there would not be a rally, as we've seen it.

Dave.

Instead, that would be a ticketed event that could take place completely somewhere else.

There would be metal detectors there.

That change would take place.

Yeah.

perhaps.

And by the way, the Kansas City Star broke that story.

I'm just getting my promo in as well as Chris capped, but, there is and we should not be surprised.

After last year's incident at Union Station that there is a close look at weather gathering.

Half a million people in the bright sunshine is the best idea for the third straight year.

Assuming the Chiefs go to the Super Bowl and when, we don't know the details of what the mayor and the Sports Commission and others have in mind, the expense is not negligible for these events.

So, the announcement that they're looking at alternatives should not be a great.

So where do you think it might be?

Well, my view is that they might put it in Sprint Center.

I've heard, Arrowhead Stadium around the table.

The Sprint Center is more centrally located for parade goers.

In either case, you would have metal detectors.

You could screen people going in, and Arrowhead is some distance from downtown.

And it's not just the shooting that took place at the rally last year.

A lot of things have happened since then, including, you know, 14 lives lost in New Orleans, right there in the French Quarter, a guy coming in mowing people down with a truck.

You know, and another part of this equation, may be, as Dave talked about, the cost of this, Fox force.

Jonathan Katz asked the mayor, the other day if the the added the increased expense of liability for an event like this might be something, to to drive some decisions here.

Now, we don't know any numbers yet.

We haven't heard an answer from the mayor, but that may be also, playing into this.

They pay for what they want.

It certainly.

I can't get to my driveway.

I mean, walkway shovel because they're out of money, but they can certainly find $1 million just like that for a parade.

All right, well, they could do that.

The mayor is not around because did you know he is off to Washington, DC this weekend?

Is he looking for his next job?

No, he's leading a panel on World Cup planning at the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting.

Kansas City's biggest event ever is now about 500 days away.

Gulp.

you said recently on the program you don't want to hear anything more about the World Cup, but it is a big deal.

What's the biggest thing still on the To-Do list?

Stores and restaurants for people to come into.

You had another business on the plaza close.

When people come and they follow World Cups, there used to eating at five store restaurants.

We don't have that many in Kansas City.

So what are you going to give them?

They want to go to the coach and, upscale stores.

We don't have any of those.

You know, we talked about transparency earlier in this program, and I think transparency is a big part of the effort moving forward.

That's going to be incredibly important for the world Cup.

the organizing committee, because Kansas City and I don't know what this is going to look like.

Yeah.

I think this is something that the committee ought to be focused on, especially in 2025, so that people have at least a pedestrian idea of what to expect.

And they're trying to build up that excitement.

I see, for instance, they going to be very soon putting out these huge countdown clocks in prominent places around Kansas City, making us feel more excited about it.

And I think that gets to the, you know, what is the World Cup experience going to be for these visitors from out of town?

But what is the world Cup experience going to be for people who live here and aren't even going to the games?

you know what?

What's happening with our transportation?

What's happening with our roads?

What's happening with the the the the Airbnbs that are going to pop up all around our neighborhoods full of, strangers from out of the country?

What?

Where what is going to happen for people who live here?

I think we're still trying to get our heads around that.

And on that we will say our week has been reviewed.

Courtesy of Casey.

Was Brian Ellison and KMBC nine news anchor Chris Katz from the helm of our Metro's newest newspaper, next page, Casey, Eric Wesson and Dave Helling, formerly of your Kansas City Star.

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

Be well, keep calm and carry on.