This week, the mayor outlines his final to do list before voters pick his replacement next year.

The Royals, who are in Arizona for the start of spring training.

That was the man's self-imposed deadline to lock in a stadium deal.

So should we be refreshing our newsfeeds for a big John Sherman announcement?

After years of hype, Amazon officially rolls out drone deliveries in the Metro.

Was it all soft landing?

So close calls, crashes and howls of complaints?

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 we are thrilled to have you back with us on our weekly journey through the Metro's most impactful, confusing, and downright head scratching local news stories.

Hopping on board.

The Week in Review bus with us this week from the anchor desk at KMBC nine News Kris Ketz and he is Mr.

Kansas City stack on Substack.

Former star staffer Dave Helling.

It gets a little easier with all those essays now at the helm of our Metro's newest newspaper.

Next page.

KC Eric Wesson is with us and tracking the region's top political stories for KCUR news Brian Ellison.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas delivered his state of the city address this week.

Ladies and.

Gentlemen.

Please join me in welcoming my gold mayor, the mayor of Kansas City.

Quinton Lucas.

Already before a packed city hall, the mayor laid out his final To-Do list before his term ends.

Voters will choose his successor next year.

Wow, that went fast.

What is on the top of his To-Do list?

Eric?

Well, I think to finish a lot of the housing projects that he started just finishing those, I thought what was interesting was a 5% increase in the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department budget.

I thought that was extremely interesting, given you thought that.

You know just about right.

Oh, I thought that was really high.

And, you know, one of the things.

That they wanted more, though.

They wanted more, but I'm trying to figure out what they're doing with the money that they get.

And I think a lot of taxpayers are too.

Besides paying lawsuits.

They wanted 54 million.

Right?

They got 17.8.

Now you're 5% over the year before.

So anybody who says that the police department, is it funded properly.

That's a pretty tough argument to make, especially given the overall financial situation in the city.

What's the biggest thing left on the mayor's To-Do list, Brian?

Well, he certainly spent a lot of the time talking about affordable housing and the investment that the city needs to make in that that's clearly been identified year after year as a need in the city that's not being met.

I thought the end of the speech was the most interesting, where he talked about inclusiveness and where welcoming people.

The message could not have been more clear in terms of immigrants and sexual preference and age and all the things he was saying.

We don't care about any of those things.

We welcome you to Kansas City.

That's an interesting and good message, really, to hear.

So at the end.

Can the mayor, cross off the opening, stopping the opening of an Ice detention center in Kansas City from his to do list?

Because I see that deal has now fallen through to use a warehouse at the Wichita.

A former which quarry.

As far as we know.

Platform ventures apparently on Thursday issued a statement saying we're no longer interested in, negotiating with the federal government for this property, which everyone assumed would be used for an immigration center.

That debate will not go away, because it's possible Ice will look for some other place in the region to build.

Of course, Leavenworth continues to be a concern.

So you do get the sense, though, that at the national level, the Trump administration is really trying to back away from the problems that this immigration crackdown caused.

They're pulling out of Minnesota now.

They announced that on Thursday as well.

There is an attempt to really bring down the heat on that issue.

And I think this may be a part of that.

Near the top of the mayor's priorities has to be, of course, delivering a successful 2026 World Cup.

That's the largest event in our history, moving us off one of the national lists of the most dangerous cities in America.

And among actually, did you see that one dead last when it comes to homelessness among large.

Cities, we are set to double our homeless population in less than four years because we're not doing this right.

Homelessness is the most solvable problem America has chosen not to solve.

Chris, we've seen the homicide rate, the concerns over deadly violence in Kansas City.

But number one, in major cities in terms of the rate of homelessness, and that the city this week talking about adding $1 million to try and fix it, what does that do?

It's a program that has apparently works successfully in some other cities.

The city's initial investment right now is 1 million.

They're hoping to get that up to 10 million with the help of the business community in Kansas City and in painting a very broad stroke here.

But it's an attempt to move people off the street and into some sort of temporary permanent housing, which, of course, that an issue that has been talked about at this table.

Yeah.

What surprised me about the story was it the deputy housing director said there are 214 providers and 333 programs serving our homeless population.

That's an awful lot.

But they're all moving separately on this.

Is this really an issue of coordination?

It's an issue of coordination, and it is an issue of vision.

And what exactly do we want to do and how to do it?

I think they've been throwing balls against the walls, hoping some of them stick rather than having a really solid plan on what to do with homelessness.

And one of the things I thought was interesting when we talk about homelessness, we get a lot of people from Kansas City, Kansas, Johnson County, they come to Kansas City.

So I think that increases our homeless numbers.

But we don't we got to do something better in that leadership department.

Right.

I think the other thing we have to acknowledge is that this isn't just a Kansas City problem.

It's a problem in all of the municipalities in the area.

It's also not just a Kansas City solution or even any of those municipalities.

The states have to be part of this.

The problem, as you're as you're pointing out here and as this number of agencies that are involved, points out, is way larger than any one entity working on its own or with any strategic million dollar investment is going to be able, such.

As finding the suitable housing.

The mental health crisis is is such a big part of this and and something that has gone largely, unaddressed but for far too long.

Bringing things back to Quinton Lucas, here's a data circle in your calendar January 12th.

That's the filing deadline to announce your running for the office of Kansas City mayor.

So 11 months from now, we're going to know every single person who wants to be the next mayor of Kansas City.

Eric.

Yes.

Is there a betting line at this point in time, is somebody more favorite than another?

Or most of the names are not even part of the mix yet.

Sports betting is legal in Missouri.

Yes.

I think, Councilwoman Ryan and Parks, our mayor pro tem, is spending more money than the other people.

But I don't know that there's a frontrunner in this.

I don't think bar 11 runs out.

Either, and I don't I don't think we make the assumption at this point that we know who all the candidates are.

I, especially the non council candidate, someone may just emerge and become the immediate frontrunner.

And what we do know, at least from recent history, is that it will be a very big field.

There were 13 candidates, a seven and a half years ago when Quentin Lucas and Jolie Justice emerged from the primary.

Everyone who is involved in politics in Kansas City sees himself or herself as a potential mayor.

So they're going to be a lot of folks, I think, running.

And if you remember, we did lose our, our federal funding here.

But one of our biggest funding issues was the fact that we had about 13 podiums.

Yes.

Well, that mayor.

Yeah, I'm not kidding.

That wasn't a popular move on my.

Part, but we needed them.

Now, the Kansas City Royals are in Arizona for the start of spring training, and that was the mayor's self-imposed deadline to lock in a stadium deal.

So should we be constantly updating our news feeds?

Brian, for a big John Sherman announcement in the next few hours as he unveils where the Royals will build their next home?

Look at this.

You know, I've been thinking about one clever or innovative or new thing.

I can say an answer to this question, and I feel like we've exhausted all of the options, over the past, I don't know, 24 months that we've been discussing this, I, I have no idea.

We have as much reason to think it's happening this this week or this month as we have any other week or month.

Certainly.

Spring training does, put baseball back in the news and in the front of people's consciousness.

In his speech, though, the man did say this week yet, you know, we're going to have a deal this year on.

And then we had the Jackson County executive said, I can tell you one thing.

It's not going to be in Kansas.

It's not going to be in Clay County.

And then just before leaving for spring training, John Sherman himself, the owner, says, we're still looking at sites in Kansas, and Clay County is still on the table.

Exactly.

And the mayor yesterday at his speech said, hey, we still looking at a downtown stadium, which I think is a terrible idea.

When Washington Square, because it has to go to a public vote.

And right now people are not warm and fuzzy about building that stadium there.

And John Sherman also said that, you know, it's not their first preference, of course, but they could still stay where they are, at least temporarily at Kauffman Stadium even after the contract ends.

I don't have a crystal ball on this one anymore.

Maybe you guys do.

Well, me, I will say this, when the mayor said what he said the other day in his state of the state message, I made a couple of calls around town with some sources, and they all said the same thing.

The royals have kind of gone silent in terms of negotiations right now.

What that means, I have no idea at this point.

I know the Chiefs, when I'm.

With trying on this.

End up in Kansas.

That that is exactly right, by the way, because John Sherman said he was open to staying at Kauffman.

We heard from our own viewers, including Carl, who asks, how about demolishing Arrowhead Stadium and building a new Royal Stadium on that site?

Now, that would certainly remove the Royals earlier concern about concrete cancer, right.

And, and, that was, of course, the initial concern that, Kauffman Stadium was not suitable for Major League Baseball, but a tearing down arrowhead is going to cost you $150 million easily.

And then on top of that, building a new $1.5 billion baseball stadium in the same place that has shown absolutely no development over the last 50 years, or any economic stimulus whatsoever other than the stadium seems like an option at the bottom of the list.

Now, I'm as cynical as it comes around this table, but I do also get the sense, on a serious note that, the time is running out for the Royals to make a decision that people are really losing patience one way or another, that they will have to have some sort of public buy in by the mayor, by an elected official, wherever they go, even in Kansas.

And the idea that you can string these people along forever, it reflects the arrogance of professional sports.

They are the most arrogant people I've ever met.

And second, that they have an indecision in their inner workings that needs to be resolved quick.

Well, sometimes it's the little things that get people hot under the collar.

The Kansas City Royals has announced its new promotion schedule for the upcoming season, and it's causing lots of gnashing of teeth as the team quietly benches its popular dollar.

Our hot dog night.

Is this the surest sign yet that a recession is on the way?

In previous years, fans could enjoy Buck night every Tuesday at Kauffman Stadium.

Now it's reduced to six games a year.

When you're trying to win over the public on a multi-billion dollar stadium deal.

Chris, how is this announcement over?

When I saw this story, the first thing I thought of was this, and I'm taking a little bit more of a 30,000ft view here, but just how expensive?

And this isn't anything new, but how expensive it is to take a family to a Royals game.

God forbid a Chiefs game where you're talking about many hundreds of dollars.

I think these professional sports teams, whether it's Major League Baseball, the NFL, fill in the blank, they have priced themselves out of a significant chunk of their fan base and they don't.

It doesn't seem to.

Matter and how expensive it is even just to watch the Royals on TV.

No, now you have to pay for subscription.

The other thing is, hot dogs are expensive.

I mean, the cut price has gone up, but the bigger problem for for I think the Royals and it ties back into the stadium discussion, is the very real threat of a baseball strike at the end of the season, when negotiations begin on a new collective bargaining agreement, if baseball is canceled in 2027, for any significant length of time, which appears likely or at least possible, enthusiasm for using tax money for a new stadium will drop dramatically.

So there's another impetus to get this done in 2026, before that happens.

And again, it's where do we go from here?

Because we've been in limbo all this time and people just aren't fuzzy, warm and fuzzy about a new stadium.

Now.

After years of hype, Amazon officially rolled out drone deliveries in the metro this week.

The company says customers within a 7.5 mile radius of its KC fulfillment center can now get items under 5 pounds, delivered in roughly an hour straight from the Sky.

Prime members pages for 99 for delivery.

So if something zips over your back yard today, no, it's not a UFO.

It's likely your neighbor's toothpaste order.

Brian.

Quite, quite.

Possibly.

Nick.

You know, it's funny how many people I mentioned this story to this week.

Who?

Whose response?

Even if they're not big fans of Amazon, even if they don't need to buy a lot of extra toothpaste, all said, I'm going to try that.

That sounds really cool.

And how could that be?

Why are we seeing so many grocery stores closing?

Thank you.

No you didn't.

We are two price shoppers just closed on Metcalf Avenue.

We've got a sunfish in the Northland just closing.

You know, people are not just going to get, you know, running in.

They're getting Band-Aids, you know, toilet paper or toothpaste.

Now you can get it all delivered in just an hour.

Right on your front steps to a, drone.

And it it's a it's a unique idea, but there's rainy days.

There's snow, there's windy days.

How is that going to work?

And it's only 5 pounds.

That's the price of, you know, the weight of a book retailer not going to get a whole lot of goods or anything.

Retail continues to change.

And this is one more element of that, you know, and these drones aren't the ones that Amazon is using.

These are 80 pound vehicles.

So these aren't insignificant vehicles at all.

And again if you're going to take if you want to take part in this, you got to live within, I think seven and a half miles of the warehouse in KC.

K they want to Amazon.

I guess it's talking about a half a million of these deliveries.

By the time 2031.

This happened.

By the way, in the same week we just had a crash with one of these in Texas.

But was it plain sailing here or were there incidents I didn't see anything on your newscasts?

There have been there have been incidents throughout the country where drones have hit power lines and buildings and things like that, but there really isn't right now.

And I think this is something that the FCC is going to have to address at some point sometime soon.

There really isn't any way to force Amazon to report these to the federal government.

So I guess we really don't know exactly just how many of these incidents have happened down through the years, but.

Grocery stores have door, front door deliveries.

What's going to be so different about Amazon?

I guess the novelty.

Of the.

Time, I don't think your grocery store is getting it to you in an hour.

Is it?

There's also the ease.

The ease of ordering online in such a quick fashion.

Payment takes place.

It's all one stop shopping in a very quick fashion, making it harder for grocery stores to compete with.

Lots of political news happening this week.

Sharice Davids getting lots of attention as one of the only Democrats in Congress backing her party to oppose the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Liberal activists in the district say they are beyond disappointed in her, according to the Johnson County Post.

She was also one of the only Democrats to vote in favor of temporary funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

Is this something more to her votes?

Is Davids now running for higher office and trying to show a more politically balanced voting record?

When she takes on Roger Marshall, Dave.

Well, that would be the assumption.

You know, the the outrage of the left of the Democratic Party is probably not her greatest concern.

They don't really have a lot of options in Kansas except the Democratic nominee.

So I think there there's always typically a move to whatever the center is perceived to be.

And Sharice Davids may be involved.

The top head of the Democratic National Committee was also spotted in Kansas this week, and he was saying she'd be a great candidate.

Yeah.

And I think she's keeping her options open.

And I think the Democrats are keeping their options open with her.

But I think we also forget with Sharice Davids that she's never been the far left wing of progressive firebrand of the party, and she represents a district that is not 80% blue.

It's, you know, 55% blue, perhaps.

And and she she has always sort of walked this much closer to the center line than maybe people remember.

And as has been pointed out at this table, Dave, you I remember you saying that not too very long ago with the house, with the margins so close as they are right now, is the Democratic Party really going to want Sharice Davids to run for the Senate or for governor when, again, seats in the House are going to be so critical here in the midterms and what is essentially a safe seat for Sharice Davids.

And no matter how far she moves to the middle in advance of a statewide run, she would still be a long shot candidate for either governor or senator.

Yes.

A legal question with national consequences is playing out this week in a small Missouri courthouse, a judge is deciding whether the next election will be governed by a new congressional map just approved by lawmakers there.

Does the old maps still apply while voters are challenging it, with candidates filing about to begin with just days away from that, the answer could shape the 2026 race before it even starts.

What did we learn, if anything, from inside the courtroom this week?

Dave?

Well, I think the argument that supporters of the new map were making before the judge is, if there's a, difference between what the people have said and what state law requires and what the legislature passed, you should go with the legislature and put the new map into place pending this referendum, rather than wait whether the judge will buy that or not, or not is not clear, in part because it's very clear that when a statute is referenda ized in Missouri, its imposition is delayed until the referendum.

If the new map is approved, and that will be for this upcoming election.

Does Quinton Lucas immediately announce he is running against Mark Alford for the fourth district in Missouri?

He probably does.

I had the opportunity to interview Ken Martin.

He is the head of the DNC, when he was in town last week.

And one of the things he said, regardless of what happens there, ready.

So, Quinton would more than likely be running against Mark Alford, who really need someone to run against him.

And then what they would do with the fifth Congressional District voters and how they would split him up is something that they're still negotiating.

And Rihanna, Park Shaw, who is the mayor pro tem, would then become the mayor of Kansas City.

And then she would be an incumbent and she would be harder to beat in a mayoral.

Eric.

Yes, election.

Whatever the judge decides in this case, I think the decision is expected to come fairly soon and then the appeal will happen.

This will go before the Missouri State Supreme Court at some point and at some point soon.

Yeah.

Well, Missouri lawmakers have already mercilessly sliced and diced Missouri's new voter approved minimum wage law.

They killed its paid leave provision and removed a requirement that the wage rise each year with inflation.

Now, there's a new plan to make the law look barely recognizable to the one voters approved in 2024.

On the agenda this week in Jefferson City, as a measure lowering the minimum wage for minors instead of the 15 bucks an hour they now get.

Under the law, Missourians under the age of 18 would get $12.30.

Just passed the Senate.

Brian, what's the problem they're trying to fix here?

Well, according to the sponsors of the bill, the problem they're trying to fix is that the higher minimum wage has made it more difficult for teenage workers to work in these, entry level, low skill jobs that they traditionally have made money in.

Some of them, the sponsor even says are important for supporting their family, with some of that money.

I think the question that a lot of folks are asking about this bill is, what about the adults who are working in those jobs who, essentially will now be, undercut in their ability to get those jobs by underage labor?

It's sort of an unusual move, though.

I say there were like 30 something states that are already doing that.

They have a different, lower minimum wage for, adults than they do minus.

Yeah, but a lot of know and a lot of he makes a good point about the difference between the two and having kids.

But what they don't take into consideration is the number of children that feed into the household income by having these jobs, making $15 an hour, especially with the inflation being what it is.

But even at $12.30 or so, that still makes it about $5 more than Kansas is providing, which is one of the lowest in the entire country.

It's still not a bad rate, but it's not $15.

Yeah, the restaurant industry has obviously been down of Jeff City lobbying, because most of these jobs are at fast food restaurants where kids work and the owners are not willing to pay the higher wage.

What is also at risk, though, here, Nick, and you mentioned it in the intro, is the evisceration of the people's right to make statutory decisions like this.

The argument about kids labor was made during the election, and the people voted and decided, and now legislators are trying to toss that aside.

And what they have guaranteed in this effort is that any other provision like this, going forward in Missouri will be a constitutional amendment and not a statute like this one, because.

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

What was the big local story?

We missed hanging up his cleats.

So one more year now that the Super Bowl is over, Travis Kelsey says he's ready to meet with the Chiefs to decide his future.

Wyandotte County advancing a moratorium on new Ice detention centers this week.

Kansas City pushing forward with a ban on so-called gas station drugs.

Some people may get cigarets, something may get a little bit of beer, but you're not supposed to be able.

To get legal aid.

Is something that is more potent than heroin.

Also this week, the Kansas Senate approves Charlie Kirk Free Speech Day, a new day of remembrance to be celebrated on October 14th.

Two years ago this week, a deadly mass shooting at the Chiefs Super Bowl rally put Kansas City in the international spotlight and planning ahead for the World Cup.

Well, so is everyone else, a new study finds.

Kansas City leads the country in demand for Airbnbs and short term rentals across.

All the markets in the US.

We're seeing the highest occupancy levels in Kansas City.

All righty, Chris Katz, did you pick one of those stories or something completely different?

You know.

We touched on it, near the top of the of the program, with the ice facility in South Kansas City.

And and, of course, this week, Port Kansas City took some steps to take themselves to create some distance between them and platform ventures.

Obviously with the developments as we are coming on the air here today, there's a lot more to the story that we'll be following in the days to come.

Eric.

Marc offered, going after an investigation for Bad Bunny for the Super Bowl.

I think with all the other things that we have health care, affordability.

I went to the store, paid $3 for a package of celery.

You want to focus on Bad Bunny's performance?

That is just a total waste of time.

Ryan.

Well, I want to pick up where Chris left off, talking about the Port Authority of Kansas City, Port Casey, and not only did they break ties with Platform Ventures this week, but but they've also been in the news as unions are rallying against Port Casey, for not demanding prevailing wage rules around the projects that they finance.

Port Casey has also been in the news, as we talked about the stadiums, with the possibility that tax incentives might be offered, perhaps without a public vote.

Not not many people know about the Port Authority of Kansas City, about who appoints it, what its authority is.

Port Casey could see this as an opportunity to conduct their work with a little more transparency and let people know who they are.

Or it could continue to be a negative thing for them in the news.

And the expectation is that Port Kansas City could play a major role in the funding of a downtown Royals ballpark.

Yeah.

Somebody could explain some time how the Port Authority in Kansas City is involved with Richard's gumbo, or which is as far as you can get from an actually water way.

That's another discussion for another deal out of.

The riverfront port.

Makes more sense.

We've talked a lot about just quickly.

We've talked for a while.

We've talked a lot about the, community benefits agreement in Wyandotte County for the Chiefs.

There will be a real push in Kansas City, Missouri, for some sort of agreement if the Royals indeed go downtown anywhere downtown, including things like prevailing wage job training and other things.

We haven't heard a lot of discussion about that.

The Royals and Quinton Lucas and others should be paying attention to that need as this process goes forward.

And that one, before we wrap up, I want to issue an apology to Weekend Review.

Watch a Kevin King.

He's one of the two candidates on a glide path to be the next mayor of independence.

After last week's primary election, the city a last.

I mentioned his opponent last week but failed to mention him.

Mr.

King, would you please forgive me?

And on that we will say how we can.

Review has been reviewed and corrected courtesy of Eric Wesson from next page KC and from the channel nine anchor desk.

Chris Ketz KC was Brian Ellison and 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.