Now that last week's election is behind us, what's left on Quintin Lucas's to do list?

Other than presiding over the World Cup, is there anything more we can expect with him before he leaves office?

Kansas lawmakers are now home, but not before enacting a flat tax that Governor Laura Kelly claims will be financially ruinous.

A crackdown on ATVs after a police officer is run over and hospitalized.

Plus, America's new tariffs for now being felt close to home.

I don't see any future with the high tariffs to keep a store.

Also, this half hour at top business leaders to the list of Kansas City is frustrated with the slow pace of progress on deciding the future.

Homes of the Chiefs and Royals for the 30th have come together this week to produce a video demanding immediate action.

Did it make a difference?

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

Bob and Marlise 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 Haynes.

Glad to have you with us on the program.

That connects the dots on the week's most impactful, confusing and downright head scratching local news stories.

Hopping on board the Weekend Review bus with us this week from our Metro's newest newspaper.

Next Page Casey Eric Wesson, former star reporter and editorial writer Dave Helling.

And from Casey One News local government reporter Savannah Hallie Bates, and tracking the region's top political stories and trends.

Brian Ellison.

Now that last week's election is behind us and Mayor Quinton Lucas is claiming credit for big victories on a new jail and a school bond issue, what's left on his To-Do list?

Lucas was staking his reputation on both issues causing, and he did.

So what now?

Other than keeping the Chiefs and Royals in his city and presiding over a World Cup, is there anything more we can expect from him before he leaves office?

They well, they do have to pick a city manager or at least solve the city manager problem relatively quickly, in part because of the stadium negotiations and the World Cup.

So he gets to have an outsized role as mayor in the selection of whoever fills that job and whatever the plan might be going forward.

The other thing that I think he might focus on is reducing the number of murders in Kansas City.

Remember when he was first elected, he made a pledge to keep murders under 100 for a year.

He, of course, never has, never, never happens to that.

And it may be that in his final year he'll approach is not conceivable, that he could do that.

Eric, keep him under a hundred.

No.

Too much has gone neglected.

We haven't invested in the right things.

I think that the city council hasn't.

Or the previous city council.

I don't think they've invested in the right things.

I don't think they have leadership in the right positions to make a difference when it comes to impacting violent crime day, one of the things he might try to do is finish that cap over 670 that he started, maybe name the airport after himself.

The streets or or some of those things.

But I guess if you look at his agenda outside of the homicides, he's probably pretty much done most of the things I believe that he wanted to, but he does have to get a city.

Is there any other big project up his sleeve before he departs the mayor's office?

In what will be August of 2027?

Well, I think he has lamented that the stadium has sort of taken over most of his job as mayor.

He says he doesn't want to be the baseball stadium mayor.

So I think he's hoping to get that wrapped up quickly.

otherwise, you know, besides trying to to limit violent crime, he's been really working on sort of the bread and butter issues of the city, things like road resurfacing, tree planting, to, you know, get city services quicker to people who haven't maybe gotten them before.

It's always the I always say these tweets and social media messages about how amazing we're doing, how many more miles we're doing.

And yet perhaps the experience of average, residents isn't the same as that.

They still see these huge potholes on the roads.

It really depends on where you are.

Because with their street resurfacing program, they target a few major, issue streets each year.

And certainly, like my neighborhood, may have gotten a lot of street resurfacing, but maybe somewhere in the North Linden or maybe somewhere in south Kansas City.

but sort of on a on a rotation.

so it definitely goes in pockets.

You know, I think when we talk about what the mayor can do to ensure his legacy, I think the new city manager is going to be a big piece of that.

But remember that the mayor's, powers in the city are in some ways very limited.

This the the mayor is not running the day to day government of the city has one vote on the city council.

There is one way that the mayor can make a big difference, though, and that's if he chooses to be involved in the the selection of his successor.

If he throws his support or works for, the next mayor.

And that could help ensure if he is successful at getting what he wants, that his priorities, his, his vision continues after he's just just for the historical record, of course, sly James supporter Jolie Justice, who lost and actually Sly James was very opposed to the election of Quinton Lucas to that job.

So it doesn't always translate or transfer to new candidates.

It is almost every member of the city council fancying themselves as Quinton Lucas, his replacement right now.

Eric.

No, I think it's only three, maybe four.

so far, the other voices that I've heard.

But one other thing I think he probably needs to do before he leaves office.

He needs to buckle down and get something done with public transportation.

Public transportation is still a problem.

And whatever the 38 million they're giving him from six for the next six months, that's pretty much a Band-Aid.

You still have a problem?

in a lot of areas in the urban core, the free fares, I think those are gone away.

So that, that'll help solve some of the problem.

I believe.

And that's one of the things he's staked his reputation on.

Is being the first city in America to institute, first major city to institute free fair.

and he says that's not going away with this new fair system, which will charge $2.

it will offer what they call functionally free, fair, to, people who are low income, who are getting social services, so they can get a voucher or some sort of special call.

It's definitely going to be harder than it is right now where you just get on the bus.

You have to now go to the health department, get a certain card, just briefly, because I know we're going to talk about the stadiums later, but if the Royals or the Chiefs or both leave Kansas City during his time in office, that's what he'll be remembered for, no matter what he has done or will do.

And that's why he has to focus on that in his remaining time.

We did mention the election just a moment ago.

Speaking of that election, some of our viewers are unhappy and confused.

Still, Carolyn writes, why do we need to keep taxing residents to fix up schools?

She's talking about the school bond.

Election wasn't a lottery, gambling and now sports betting supposed to fund education.

What's happening to that money, Brian?

Well, the money, from the Missouri Lottery does indeed fund education.

But you need to know some things about how that works.

it only funds about 3 or 4% of the total amount of money the state spends on education.

And more importantly, it goes into the general state budget.

What?

The money that goes to education from the lottery allows the state to do is spend that same amount of money on other things besides education.

It is, it's putting money into one pocket so you can take it out of a different one.

And that allows the lottery to promote that.

It's supporting education.

it does.

It is a significant part of the state's budget, but the state could still be giving more money to education.

The lottery actually frees it not to do so.

And just quickly.

Most of the state money goes for operation and not for capital improvements in this bond issue was capital.

Right now, our two top business leaders to the rest of Kansas City is frustrated with the slow pace of progress, of deciding the future homes of the Chiefs and Royals.

More than 30 of them came together this week to produce a video demanding immediate action.

Time is not on our side.

While both teams are working hard to evaluate their future in KC, other markets are actively competing to lure them away to keep these cherished franchises in KC, we need strong, realistic public private partnerships that make staying home in our region the only choice.

Okay, Dave, do they make any lick of difference with John Sherman and Clark Kent this week?

Well or anyone else?

Okay.

The position of the Civic Council and the chamber and all the other groups and the Sports Commission have been known for months or years.

They didn't break any real goals.

Why the video then, do you think?

because I do think we're getting to crunch time on some of these decisions, Nick.

not just from the teams, but from the state legislatures, as well as local governments.

news emerged this week that maybe Clay County is back in the running for the Royals Stadium.

That changes the calculus.

I do believe that most of the folks connected with this effort understand that this is the year of decision, that if you put it off again, you're going to have, delays that will not you know, respond to the timetable of the teams.

And the other thing to keep in mind is I think there's a general consensus that if you go back to voters in any way for the chiefs or the royals or both, and you fail again, you're in big trouble.

You can't you can lose once, lose twice.

And it's so I think there's a real effort to make sure that whatever they do is going to pass this time, and that time is with us.

That's the hard part.

There is.

I think everyone can agree.

We want the teams to stay in the Kansas City region.

In this market, where in the market is what everyone's fighting about?

You know, Kansas wants them on, Johnson County.

Clay County wants them in north Kansas City.

Jackson County wants to keep them, whether or not that's downtown.

And I think right now the Royals are courting all of the different offers that they're getting, seeing which package is best.

They obviously they hope the city hope to have Washington Square Park tick by.

Last year there were, again, lots of stories this week about Clay County as being now the top spot.

but come on, how seriously we're going to take that win that was viewed as one of the top options last time when it was dismissed.

Then just before the election, everything old is new again.

It's, the property is still there.

The there's a solid ownership, of a big chunk of property there.

It still makes some sense from that standpoint.

Also, though, the state that's the only plan that the state has seemed to come around.

There's the approval of a Clay County Sports commission by the Missouri General Assembly was a significant step.

what's confusing to me about the messaging of that video and even the whole conversation is that, neither the Chiefs nor the Royals have really made any indication.

In fact, they very publicly have said they're not leaving the area.

We're talking about where and how not not leaving the area.

And so what is the concern is there's some other knowledge out there that is leading these business leaders to, to to quietly sound an alarm.

Can we can we remove, by the way, the sprint, the former sprint campus in Overland Park from the list of options.

Now that the owners of it are offering now up to 2000 new jobs, luring a major new tenant there, there's not going to be space for them.

Well, there is some vacant land that might be used, but but I don't think I think it's way down on the list, Nick.

But we can't rule it out because we don't know.

You know what's going on, at least privately in these discussions.

But let's be clear.

You can have the teams agreeing on a site, local officials agreeing on a site, the Chamber of Commerce agreeing on a site.

But the people who will vote, presumably on coming up with the cash, are much, much more skeptical of these projects than others.

And that effort is still in abeyance.

We don't see any effort to convince people to support this site.

They may not have to vote.

It depends on the plan.

Well, I mean, I I'm, I keep coming back to that.

I think the royals were really burned the Chiefs too by by the how are they going to do that Brian.

How are they going to do it without a vote of the people?

I yeah, nobody knows.

I mean, but that's the mayor whistling in the wind.

Well, you know, I has the solution for all of us.

I think the spark that caused that was, someone across the street in the courthouse saying that neither one of the two teams about real value to the city.

And I think that was something to kind of keep them in this area rather than going to Johnson County or Wyandotte County or someplace else.

But again, the location, you know, people are still grumbling a little bit about being in Crown Center and not on 18th Street, where you got access to the freeways.

You've got, area there, Negro leagues, baseballs or East Village.

East village is still a major, so we still have lots of front page stories, lots of major stories on our local TV news channels, and still absolutely no information on what's what's going to happen.

Now stop calling it, by the way, the South Loop project, Kansas City's ambitious plan to cap the downtown freeway and turn it into an urban green oasis has now got a new name.

Starting this week, it will be officially called Roy Blunt Luminary Park, after the former Missouri West senator who helped secure nearly $30 million in federal funding for its construction.

The city leaders think people will like the project more if they name it after a Republican senator.

I'm not sure that's their goal there.

I think it's just sort of an, does it bring in more money?

They're short of money.

Well, they they are 35%.

They're still waiting on a federal grant that is bigger than the $30 million that Roy Blount brought in.

About $65 million is sort of held up right now, which with the current ministration, who knows how that will go.

Roy Blount certainly helped get the project started after years and years of discussion with that first installment of Federal Money.

but it definitely has not been the majority of money.

and based on public reaction to the park name, I don't I don't really think the public cares what it's named.

They're just question whether or not it will be built quickly.

You've got the, Roy Blount Park on the west side of Kansas City, the Christopher Bond Bridge, which he was responsible for on the east side.

Claire McCaskill must think she's chopped liver.

I mean, what have we named for Claire?

And she's wanted this area named for former mayor Mark Funkhouser or or Jay Nixon or anyone else.

So I'm sure that there are some, some people talking about this, whispering about this, another.

I mean, and in fairness, though, I think city leaders, even at that event, they pointed out that it wasn't just for this park.

Ray Blunt, Roy Blunt made it, made a point of bringing, a publications back to all of Missouri, including Kansas City, during his time, which is not necessarily appeared to be the priority of every senator, including, certainly, McCaskill.

Well, and including the senior senator now, Josh Hawley, who is not known for in fact, he's opposed to that sort of earmarking and, and right on the bacon.

And so it is a different generation of, of congressional leadership that, is reflected in Roy Blunt.

Now, speaking of naming things, what's the best way of honoring former Missouri Governor Mike Parson naming a new bridge or stretch of highway after him?

How about a life size statue outside of the Missouri State House?

Well, how about naming a meat lab after him?

The former Republican governor will be in Columbia today as the university of Missouri unveils its newest building, the Michael L Paulson Meat Science Education and Training Laboratory.

He was a cattle man, after all.

Is that fitting for him, Eric?

It certainly is.

It sure is.

And and I can't think of a more deserving governor to have that named after him.

We could be renaming I-70 after him because he actually is the person responsible now for pulling an extra lane from Kansas City all the way to Saint Louis in both directions.

The third gene, you can drive in the governor Parson Lane.

Okay, not the whole highway.

All righty.

Well, Kansas lawmakers are back home this week after wrapping up a whirlwind veto session in Topeka.

One of their biggest actions was to scrap the state's income tax brackets to impose a new 4% flat tax.

Governor Laura Kelly says it could be financially ruinous, costing the state up to $1.3 billion.

Republicans claim she's being overly dramatic and says the flat tax would be phased in over three years.

Who is the biggest winner from the change, Dave?

Wealthy people.

I mean, whenever you adjust the brackets at the top, you provide more cash for people who are in the upper brackets, which was, was and is the case in Kansas, you are not going to zero, which is what Sam Brownback attempted to do to disastrous results.

If the state of Kansas suffers from a recession, which is possible, or from, the adverse impacts of tariffs which is more likely, they may rue the day that they reduced the income tax intake for the state because they might be back in the same pickle they were in under Brownback.

Yeah.

I mean, I think if you if you look at the state of Democrats in Kansas, it's the reason they have legs to stand on still is because of the ruinous, governorship of Governor Brownback with regard to finances, I think, which a new generation of voters don't even understand, we don't even know.

So the question for Republicans pushing for further tax reductions is, do they want to find themselves in the same situation?

And I guess my point is that it's always easier to cut taxes, particularly income taxes, when times are flush, because you have access, some of it because of Covid funding from the federal government, but also because the economy has been performing relatively well over the years, particularly the Pharmacol.

But if all of that collapses and you've also cut tax rates so dramatically, the and the school starts saying, wait a minute, we're not getting enough money, they go back into court, you could be right back in the soup, you know.

And that's what mortality as well.

And in fairness, this is not what Governor Sam Brownback proposed.

It is it's not it isn't nearly as dramatic a cut.

And yet the question is where does it where does it end?

Does the next legislature come back?

And what even further cuts?

Now we know that Kansas City has been plagued by street racing and a phenomenon known as sideshows.

But Kansas City has a new problem to worry about all terrain vehicles.

Matt Lucas found a major new crackdown on ATVs this week after a Kansas City police officer was run over by an ATV hospitalizing him with head injuries.

until there's a new jail.

But what can Lucas really do?

And would people doing this be candidates for that new facility that was just approved at the ballot box last week?

Yes, absolutely.

And the one that ran over the police officer, he might get to be in the new Jackson County jail until he goes into a state prison.

because that was definitely a serious issue.

But I was at the press conference.

A lot of things that they're going to do maybe confiscate those vehicles, those ATVs.

What I learned that was really interesting is they're illegal anywhere.

You can't ride them in the parks, you can't ride them, around town like they're doing.

So I know police it may be illegal, but people do them all the time.

And you see them in pocket parks all around the metro.

and a lot of them were stolen.

So when they talk about confiscating cars and confiscate the ATVs, the people riding them don't care because they're not theirs.

Yeah.

This has been sort of the perennial issue for the city, at least for the past few years.

Is that, you know, they try as hard as they might to crackdown again.

The city doesn't control the police department, so they might work in partnership there, but they can't give exact directives.

and it's always been illegal.

And yet, you see it spread to more and more neighborhoods, not just downtown, but also the crossroads also, you know, further south in Kansas City, it keeps expanding and getting more popular, more different kinds of vehicles.

This is a big problem to try and solve.

We talked about Kansas lawmakers, finishing up their session this year.

Missouri lawmakers are actually back at it in Jefferson City this week.

They got a jumpstart on marking Earth Day, which is on Tuesday.

They're not celebrating it.

They're walking it back on the agenda.

This week was a Missouri House bill that bans cities and counties from requiring new housing, to be energy efficient, environmentally sustainable or meet any green design codes.

How's that for honoring Earth Day?

I think it's pretty classic for, you know, state of business for the city of Missouri to take more power away from its largest cities.

this is yet we just talked about Kansas City not having control over the police department.

They also now don't have control over their energy codes.

If this goes through, the energy codes were certainly unpopular with developers.

but they would help make things like utility costs cheaper for the people who live in them.

So this this might, you know, trickle down to be pretty disastrous.

The Home Builders Association wasn't happy.

They were saying that they were just building in other parts of the metro rather than in Kansas City, because they had so many more hurdles they had to now, overcome to be able to build houses.

Well, that also wasn't proven true.

Kansas City has not seen a drop in development or building, since these codes went into effect.

It was just more sort of the gripe against having to comply with it when they didn't have to in other areas.

The idea that Republicans support local control and Democrats are about big, centralized government really has not been true in Missouri for as long as Republicans have been in control of the centralized government.

whoever is in charge has tended in Missouri to believe that the people in Jefferson City know better is America's new trade war finally hitting home, the owner of my home Furniture in Johnson County announced its closing this week, a victim, it says, of uncertainty over tariffs.

The store's owner says 99% of its products are imported.

I don't see any future with the high tariffs to keep a store.

When I order a whole container from Italy, I mean, it's $100,000 if there's 25% tariffs on that, I mean, I pay 25,000 more.

I have to add it to the end consumer.

It's not something I can absorb.

Seeing a small business have to shut their doors is, it's heartbreaking and infuriating to Sharice Davids that the Kansas congresswoman and local craft brewery say tariffs on aluminum they use for their beer cans means your six pack is on the rise.

Other businesses are adding a new line to your receipt a tariff C how would you feel if, along with your sales tax, Eric, you notice a tariff C line as you settle up at the cash register?

I would be upset.

I would be upset.

And you know, we have side taxes.

You got sales tax, you got a lot of taxes.

And we pay a lot of taxes, especially in Kansas City.

So I would be upset about that.

And I probably would try to figure out an alternative place to shop and an alternative product to buy.

We also hearing about a tourism slump, a 12% drop.

This time from this time last year in the overseas visitors coming to the United States.

Will that have implications for us when it comes to hosting the World Cup and having to change the number of visitors?

We're expected to come here.

I haven't read I haven't seen research on that yet, Nick, but I don't see how it couldn't.

There are people from whole segments of the world who surely are not willing to take the risk of showing up in the United States and not knowing what they're going to experience here.

Canada, our closest ally.

the percentages are astronomical of Canadians who are saying they will never go to the U.S. again, or they they're not willing to go there right now, and not only because they don't know what they'll experience when they get here.

also, I, you know, internationally, people are afraid to travel here because there have been multiple examples of people from different countries getting detained when they come here, whether or not they have a travel visa or just here on vacation.

so I think that really impacts this.

If you travel to Kansas City and could end up in a Salvador in prison if you don't do things right.

I mean, that is a real concern.

People think it's a joke.

It isn't a joke.

And, it may be one of the points of the president's approach to all of this is to isolate America from the rest of the world.

We got a great response last week to our shaking up of our big story in this segment to focus instead on the newsmaker of the week.

So we're doing it again.

Who would you choose?

Was it Roy Blunt, the former Missouri U.S. senator who now has an unbuilt park named after him?

Kansas City business leaders who tried to do the unthinkable, not just the Chiefs and royals to come to a decision in a new video.

Can Mika Gilmore, who still being viewed as the favorite this week to replace Brian Platt to City manager, was it our police officers who, in addition to dodging bullets in this town, now have to evade being run over by ATV's?

Or is it the residents of Clay County was still dreaming of being the new home of the Kansas City Royals.

Brian, did you pick one of those or something completely different?

I went another direction.

Missouri House Speaker John Patterson, Republican from Lee's Summit the House this week passed the the resolution that could put on the ballot before Missouri voters an amendment to undo abortion rights also to enshrine transgender.

I'm sorry gender affirming care for youth in Missouri.

but Republican John Patterson voted against it, going the opposite direction of the rest of his party, even as he continues to be his party's leader in the House.

That's a pretty interesting move, and we'll have to see what implications it has for his continued leadership.

Eric, I would say Kimiko Gilmore as the city manager, there's been probably about four people that I've heard that have applied for it.

But listening to insider information at City Hall, she'll she'll probably have the votes to do it.

Now, whether the mayor pushes her and presents her to the council, that's a whole different story.

Dave Guy named Doug back.

The senator from Saint Louis is the House of the Senate minority leader in Jefferson City for the Democrats.

The Democrats are now involved in a filibuster to try and stop repeal of proposition eight.

That was the sick leave and minimum wage, proposal passed by voters.

Regardless of what you think of the merits of the issue, the fact that the state legislature is now, routinely overturning the will of the voters deserves our attention and our rep probation, as they say, and including on the abortion question and abortion law, put the constitutional amendment on the ballot.

And walking much of that back.

Savannah, I think it is the residents of Clay County, not just for the stadium, which is, again, a perennial news making issue now in Kansas City, but also a new data center there that's getting $10 billion in bonds from Port Kansas City, and a new career center that the city council is set to approve, funds for to be built, closer to the Kansas City portion of Clay County than it currently is.

they're getting a lot more development out there with these things.

So their star is rising this week.

And on that, we will say a week has been reviewed courtesy of Casey Watts, Savannah Bates and Eric Wesson of Next page.

Casey Casey was Brian Ellison and Kansas City news icon Dave Helling, and I'm Nick Haines from all of us here at Kansas City PBS.

Be well, keep calm and carry on.