Do we now need to invent a new dictionary word to describe this never ending Missouri map saga?

For the first time ever, a local election officials now issuing voter warning notices that you don't have to absentee vote this week.

You might postpone it until we have some more definitive direction from the courts.

Obama in Casey.

But the Hamilton campaign making it clear they're not doing any events with him.

Is the former president now a political liability in this topsy turvy election year?

Could the new chief stadium spell the end to one of Kansas City's beloved traditions, the Renaissance Festival with truth?

Check a slew of new stories that claim the Chiefs footprint is shifting.

We also to check coverage of the sudden death of Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zombie and the rest of the week's news straight ahead.

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of Bob and Marlese Gourley.

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 Metro's most impactful, confusing, and downright head scratching local news stories.

Hopping on board the Weekend Review bus with us this week for the prime time anchor desk at KMBC nine news.

Chris Ketz from our Metro's newest newspaper.

Next page KC Eric Wesson.

KCUR's chief political analyst Brian Ellison and former star staffer, now Mr.

Kansas City stack on Substack.

Dave Helling.

Now, as we record our program this week, the dust still hasn't settled on one of the biggest political dramas of the year.

I'm talking about the ongoing saga over Missouri's congressional map.

Apparently, two trips to the U.S.

Supreme Court weren't enough to settle the issue this week.

The federal appeals court out of Saint Louis has ruled that the new Republican drawn map used in the August primary must be used in this November's election.

And unless the Supreme Court intervenes for a third time before Monday at 5 p.m., local election leaders will have to redo the ballots.

Even though absentee voting is now underway and military and overseas votes are already coming back.

We have now mailed out already about 10,000 ballots to voters, and every day it's increasing by several thousand more.

If you don't have to absentee vote, this week, you might postpone it until we have some more definitive direction from the courts.

Say next Monday, those map lines change.

Walk me through what happens to that ballot.

Well, we don't know for sure because this has never happened before.

And if the US Supreme Court does not issue an order at all by 5 p.m.

next Monday, what changes in this building at 501?

I'm going to defer to my lawyer.

All right.

And we're expecting people around this table to explain what's happening when the top election officials who have to run this election don't even know.

Brian.

But what I found fascinating about some of those clips is we have local election leaders.

I've never heard this before issuing a warning to say, don't vote.

Right.

And for.

To start, I'm not a lawyer.

Okay.

Okay.

But but yeah, that is right.

This is the first time I've ever seen that.

And they seem to be exactly right.

Because if you do vote and the ballot turns out to be wrong, you cannot vote a second time.

And they've all been 100% consistent about this.

Your, your votes on other matters, the ballot issues.

And so on will still count.

But your vote for Congress won't count if it turns out the ballot changes after Monday.

What I find interesting, I was watching one of your reports and how you set up the piece was we are in uncharted territory, I think was the term used.

I'm thinking, do we need to have a new dictionary word for this now?

Chris, I call this from I've called it a mess from day one.

Okay.

And I think I'm.

I don't think that adequately describes it at this point, though, does it, Eric?

No, this is just mind boggling.

Can we use that?

It's just mind boggling how this thing is turning around.

And and every week is something different.

We don't know what's going to be what or who's going to be where or any of those.

And I'm like two dozen scripts every week trying to get in advance of this program.

It keeps changing.

So the final result for this, if there was no change, from the Supreme Court on Monday at 5 p.m., we have to issue brand new ballots to everyone in the state.

Well, remember, the election authorities you just heard from are not parties to the lawsuit.

So it you could foresee a circumstance in which some election boards change and some don't.

It's just really a mess.

I don't expect that to happen.

The court will make a decision one way or another.

By next Monday, so that we'll all understand what the final rules of this road are.

But after November, there is a chance that the Secretary of State would decline to certify the results of Emanuel Cleaver is reelected, particularly if, Missourians reject the 2022 map and install the 2025 map, which they can do in November at the polls.

It's proposition A, there's a chance that the U.S.

House could refuse to seat Emanuel Cleaver, claiming irregularities in January.

We're all going back to court.

At least on some of this.

And then if.

And this is a little complicated, but if voters in Missouri in November approve amendment six, it would prohibit another redistricting battle absent a big vote from the legislature and another vote of the people.

I don't want to, you know, we'll be here all day talking about the what ifs, but it's a mess.

It's an absolute mess.

And I'll just conclude by saying, this should have been figured out six months ago.

It was not for political reasons.

Right.

And that is what the Missouri Supreme Court, chided Denny Hoskins, the secretary of State for, is that this really could have been settled.

Nothing changed between, I don't know, March or so and his decision the day of the August primary.

I do believe that that what happens on proposition A is going to be very important.

I think if the voters, reject the new map, then I think the the wind goes out of the sails for those who are trying to keep insisting, by the way, we have a mike pence moment.

You have a fly on your hand right now.

Okay.

Thank you.

You never know what's going to happen.

Our weekend review Kansas City PBS.

You know, with the midterm elections less than 40 days away, some of the nation's top political names are now rolling through Kansas City.

Last week, it was Vice President JD Vance.

This week, Barack Obama, the former president, taking the stage Saturday at the Overland Park Convention Center for a leadership event hosted by wealth management company Creative Planning.

But while there's been speculation Obama would work in at least one campaign event for Adam Hamilton, the megachurch pastor now trying to unseat Senator Roger Marshall.

The Hamilton campaign insisting we do not have any events planned with President Obama.

In fact, the campaign called us this week demanding we correct any stories suggesting Hamilton would campaign with Obama while he was here.

So what is the campaign so worried about?

Chris, I think this is an illustration of campaign campaign discipline.

This is a campaign that has worked very hard to, as they have said, stay in the middle.

And having the former president as a part of a campaign event.

Adam Hamilton told CNN this past week he was asked if Kamala Harris could if she were to come to campaign for Adam Hamilton, would she would he want her there?

And he emphatically said no.

So, again, this is I think this is all part of the playbook.

And, you know, when the last Emerson College Nexstar poll.

Hamilton's up to.

But within the margin of error.

And here we are 39 days out.

Isn't it extraordinary in this topsy turvy election year, Eric, that Barack Obama has become such a political liability for Democrats in this area?

I think there the Hamilton campaign is kind of behind the scenes saying we want to focus on the issue.

We don't want the star glitz and glamor to come into play.

We want to focus on the issues, the affordability and other things that they're campaigning on.

And Eric's right, but I would only add, an Obama appearance, a Harris appearance.

I don't think that helps him outside of Johnson County.

I don't think it helps him.

I also don't think it hurts them as much as they may think it does.

So I think I think President Obama is in a different place than even two years ago in that in that campaign, I think his, the, his toxicity among Republican voters may be less than it once was, especially in light of the current administration and the comparisons that are made that that would treat him much more favorably.

Before we move onto another topic, I want to introduce you, by the way, to the most powerful man in the Kansas U.S.

Senate race you've probably never heard of.

He is Overland Park attorney David Graham.

And he's polling at 4% in this U.S.

Senate race between Roger Marshall and Adam Hamilton.

If this race, Dave Helling is really as close as the polls claim, could David Graham be the man who costs Roger Marshall this election?

It's possible, but we've spent back in my TV days and newspaper days, we'd spend weeks trying to figure out who gets helped and who gets hurt by that.

And I think at the end, it really experience suggests it's less important than we think.

This is a contest between Roger Marshall and Adam Hamilton.

And at the margins, there could be an impact, but I think the winner will be the legitimate winner either way.

I think that is exactly true.

I also think it's important for voters to understand we have a two party system in this country that, does not have a runoff elections if there's not a majority.

So a vote for a third party candidate who is not a contender is, in fact, a vote against the candidate you would prefer among the other two.

So if you truly have no preference at all between the two, then it doesn't matter who you vote for.

But if you would prefer even one over the other, you are helping.

You're the opponent of your preferred candidate if you vote for a third party candidate.

Last week, we mentioned the tragic death of longtime Platte County prosecutor Eric.

Since then, the story keeps shifting and changing.

And now the family is speaking out.

The family of Platte County Prosecutor Eric Sond is speaking out, asking people to stop the rumors surrounding his death.

Depending on where you get your news, the story is different.

While some news outlets quickly reported that it was a suicide, there's been no official word on that.

As we record, we can review the results of a death investigation have yet to be released.

In addition, Xun's family has irritated media claims that he was under criminal investigation by the Missouri Highway Patrol.

They call that rumor speculation, the idea that it was the cause of his death.

Nothing could be further from the truth, they insist.

And even his age has now been walked back.

News reports that claimed he was 53 have now been updated to say he was 58 last week.

Every guest had a chance to bring this topic up as the big story best.

No one mentioned it, I get it.

I mean, is this just a tricky story to tell and people want to be sympathetic to the family?

Brian.

I think that is true.

And I think sensitivity is warranted in cases of death by by suicide, if that is what happened here as it as it appears to be.

I think the reality, Nick, is that we as journalists and for that matter, we as human beings, do not do a lot of favors by either sensationalizing or by minimizing the reality of suicide.

And I think whether that is people who are who are watching, who, who are themselves having mental health situations, or all of us deepening our understanding and our care for those who who may be in such a position, I think we need to be sensible.

How is that playing out, say, in the KMBC nine news room as you're sizing up that issue?

You know, it's a I think I think first of all, I think all of us at this table have been thinking about Eric and his family in the last few days.

That's number one.

Number two, you know, we that's a really delicate needle to thread between what we think is the public's right to know and wishing and following the wishes of the family.

We do it on a case by case basis.

And in our situation in my newsroom, we we have chosen to wait until the medical examiner's office delivers their findings.

But, but it's a really tough call, and I'm not sure there's one rule that fits everything, because I think every story like this is, is different.

You I just add that one of the most important lessons one learns in the mainstream media newspapers, television, radio, all the things that we are involved in is to wait, wait and see what happens.

See what the investigation reveals.

Don't report more than you know.

Don't report speculation.

Don't report, what ifs or what could BS, particularly in an event like this in which the, you know, having beating somebody else or having a scoop is not that important.

In terms of the overall story.

We live in an age, Nick, where no one wants to wait, where you have to have it on the internet within the next 30s or you're not competing.

But I think one of the important things for viewers of this program to remember is that it's important for journalists to wait until they're sure, report what they know is fairly and accurately.

But again, you're absolutely right, and I couldn't agree more.

I think in this age of social media, though, we have our customers who want the end of the story, and they want it now and then when at the end of the story could take time, it could take patience to to fully tell.

Well, a lot of Kansas City, NS, including myself, will be heading to the Renaissance Festival this weekend in Wyandotte County.

In fact, I've been working on my fake British accent.

Could this be the last weekend fest in Kansas City?

If you've spent any time on social media this week, you might have seen reports that our local medieval site for jousting, gigantic turkey legs and cheesecakes on sticks, is about to be gobbled up as part of the Chiefs new stadium project.

Now, earlier this summer window, County Mayor Crystal Watson expressed her exasperation about the lack of details on the stadium plan, claiming the Chiefs hadn't even settled on a site yet.

So could this impact the Renaissance festival, or is this just clickbait headline stapling?

Well, Jolie, what, will we'll be putting that to go.

Yeah.

No, I think that, based on what we now know, the specific outlines of the footprint of the stadium does remain somewhat up in the air.

But it's hard for me to believe that the Renaissance Festival could not find, appropriate, setting for its, annual event somewhere else near where the stadium is going to go.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know about the sourcing on this story.

With whether the Renaissance Festival is involved or not, but maybe that is the story that this late in the process, after all the water under the bridge about the new Chief Stadium, we still don't even know where it's going to be built, much less the details of the financing.

And I, I think that's quite remarkable.

And it's not just us, but the unified government of Wyandotte County.

Casey doesn't know.

But that site, by the way, is owned by the unified government, which would make it a much easier deal, because we're not even just talking about a stadium.

We're talking about a huge entertainment district next to it, too.

You can imagine hotels and things gobbling up all of the land around where that new stadium would be.

But I was out at the stadium, for the game this past Sunday against the Colts and I want to say it's going to be extremely difficult to create that atmosphere someplace else.

People had headphones on.

The crowd was so loud you could smell the barbecue from right down the road.

I don't know if they're going to be able to do that.

And then the financing aspect of it is still up in the air.

So I hope it doesn't go because that's a great place to have a football game.

Okay.

Well, speaking of sports, Monday marks the end of this year's royal season, eliminated from the playoffs for the second year in a row.

Joe, one of our faithful viewers in Kansas City, asks now that the Royals have the city's cash, does it matter to the stadium deal that the team keeps losing?

Chris, at the end of the day, are our fans going to be upset about the Royals because they're losing their that the management, the ownership isn't putting up money into the team.

Does that have anything to do with the new stadium?

I'm not sure it does.

You know, I, I've been thinking about this and I've said before I think the vote might have gone differently and some of the earlier discussions had they've been playing better at the time.

But but I actually think it's not about whether they win or lose, Nick.

It's about whether the fans have a sense that they are investing in the team, that they actually care about winning.

And I think when you hear it has sort of a community wide despair over the future of the team, then I do think that hurts the political prospects.

Yeah.

And just for viewer Joe, it isn't clear that the Royals have their cash at all.

I mean that that remains very much, like the Chiefs, because the Chiefs are using a similar mechanism that those dominoes have to start falling next year.

In the year beyond.

And by the way, we are moving closer to some sort of vote.

It appears, by the public on the Royals project, broadly speaking, next April.

So the you know, the Royals win and loss record is important, but not nearly as important as the T's and I's that need to be crossed.

And dotted before you can come up with $2 billion to build that ball.

Now, it has been a bad time of late for some of our local museums.

The Jesse James Museum in Liberty is being threatened with eviction.

The Steamboat Arabia museum is about to lose its longtime home in the River Market in November, but has there been a better time for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum?

Plans for a brand new museum complex and an adjacent 144 room Marriott hotel cleared an important hurdle this week with the selection of a construction team.

It comes in the same week as one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Tom cruise visited the 18th and vine attraction, and apparently the show Ted Lasso inspired a 5,000% surge in interest in the Negro Leagues Museum when it was featured in its new season.

Is that Erik?

5,000% more people clicking like on a Negro leagues poster isn't a giant leap in the number of people actually going to the museum.

I think Bob would like it to be, money coming in to build a new hotel and the surrounding area.

It's, it's interesting because there's never really been a downswing since Bob has been there as an executive director.

I know when Greg Baker was there, there was some fumbling of the situation, but I think it's been well supported with by.

Bob is a great storyteller about Negro Leagues baseball.

I think there is a of great interest in his capacity during baseball.

I remember, though, Chris, you know, headlines, I pulled some this was from 2010.

The headline money War was in turmoil threatened Negro Leagues Museum, the pitch referring to it as the beleaguered Kansas City Museum.

We all remember those days.

But, Eric, you're right.

And I think it's fascinating that the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum has really become kind of a crown jewel of Kansas City in a relatively short amount of time.

You've always been skeptical of this program, though, because it does involve public money.

Yes.

And to make it happen and also, you know, would people come again, if you go there once, what what reason do you have to come back?

That's not just the Negro Leagues Museum in that sense.

You know, the steamboat Arabia museum.

Great.

Yeah.

You can go down there and it's a great experience, but you would not necessarily go back.

And so you need to have a wider, attendance pattern, if you will, for all of these museums to make them work without public subsidy.

I do wonder if there's been much discussion about what happens to the Jazz Museum once the Negro Leagues Museum leaves for its new home and the need for public help?

Are they scared to death?

No.

So the one of the proposals is floating around the urban core.

Is it?

Turn it into a black veteran's memorial museum because there's so much.

But Bob has a lot of stuff down in the basement at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

So those exhibits can come out and be a part of the New Orleans just quickly next, the jazz Museum.

If you go down there today, it looks exactly the same as it did today.

It opened exactly a quarter century ago or whatever the time was.

That's my story that we missed and that and that.

Yeah.

And that is an important question for the 18th and vine community to answer.

I think going forward for video cameras, we're in the hot seat in Washington this week as a Senate panel chaired by our own Missouri Senator, Josh Hawley, pressed for answers to growing concerns over privacy and data use.

Different about flock and these other cameras is that private citizens have access to the database.

And it's not just license plates now, but if you thought Hawley's interest in one of America's newest public enemies was about setting the groundwork for a bid for the white House, hold the front page.

Holy has announced he will not run for president in 2028.

Was that a surprise, or was that never really part of his political game plan in the first place?

Brian.

Well, Nick, you're assigning a lot of credence to his words now about something that's really more than two years away.

I mean, I, I would say I'm not surprised that he would say he's not interested.

And I think by all likelihood, he probably is not going to run.

There's a lot of other Republican contenders who would seem to have a stronger chance.

But but I don't think anyone would say they are running now, when they still might make that decision.

I actually there was several publications.

In fact, I found one from the Hill, the national Washington state ranking.

Holly, this was in January as the seventh most likely Republican to succeed Donald Trump.

What changed?

I think, you know, maybe Josh Hawley in part of the calculation here.

There's an old saying you don't want to be the guy who replaced the guy.

You want to be the guy who replaced the guy who replaced the guy.

And of course, in this case, the guy being the president.

So is it Eric?

Hawley versus Quinton Lucas.

Then in 2030, no way.

Absolutely no way on either side.

I think it's just Hawley just grabbing some headlines, making himself relevant in this conversation.

There's a lot of issues he could take up.

Yeah, the flat camera.

I just don't think it's any of the top ten.

But I think we should not discount that.

Josh Hawley has national aspirations despite despite what he may own or recognition.

You know, I think the Republican Party will look at JD Vance as the most likely nominee after the end of the Donald Trump second term.

Julie was name number two.

But, you know, the turmoil that the next two years will involve in national politics is unbelievable.

And so, no matter what happens in November.

And so the idea that Josh Hawley is going to wait and until the dust clears makes some sense.

Probably.

I think so too.

And, well, I don't think it will happen in 2028.

I think there's no he's got this right.

He's very young.

There's no question in my mind that that Josh Hawley will one day run for president and might be very well positioned to do so.

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?

The Indian Creek Trail serial killer is found guilty of first degree murder nearly a decade after stalking middle aged white men on the popular South Kansas City walking path.

Big school closings now impacting suburban districts.

Parents from elite have fired up about plans to shutter six schools because of what the district says is a decline in birth rates and a shortage of affordable housing for families.

Another reminder to stock up the midtown Costco closes Thursday of next week.

It'll be shuttered for five months and return as a Costco business center in the spring.

The Plaza Art fair is this weekend, bringing three days of art crowds and more than a few Kansas City ants, quietly asking, is that the price or the artists phone number?

Do we need another big entertainment district in Johnson County?

The Gardner City Council approving rezoning this week for a $1.5 billion entertainment district along I-35 that will include a 15,000 seat concert space and Kansas City's most famous tower is getting a serious glow up ahead of the Liberty Memorial's 100th anniversary later this fall.

The historic monument adds a free nightly light to music and projection show starting this weekend.

All righty, Chris Katz, lots to choose from.

Did you pick one of those stories or something completely different too?

Real quick, since we met last, in my family, grandchild number five has arrived.

I am, I'm just Jonathan Katz, his father in Kansas City.

I just regret that we didn't headline the entire show without Chris.

Congratulations.

The second thing, by the time this airs, congratulations to Danny Mathews, the longtime voice of the Kansas City Royals.

58 seasons, 83 years old.

His 8,000th game.

Okay.

He stole yours.

Did he did.

That is exactly what I was going to say.

You know, it is incredible.

In a time of, all the things the royals have been through, and all of our talk about the politics around baseballs and stadiums, that that Danny Matthews has been such a unifying figure, the soundtrack of people's lives for so long.

Okay, Derek.

Monorail turning coming down 18th Street.

Clyde Chastain has this elaborate plan.

No money to do it or where the money is going to come from, but voters are going to get to vote on it in April.

My second one is, the American Jazz Museum is looking for another executive director that makes like every two years.

And maybe that's the reason why it can't grow or stabilize to get meaningful exhibits.

As Dave said earlier.

And I don't know, is that the plan or what they're going to do, but somebody with some just common sense needs to step in and take control.

And yeah, we always want to call ourselves a jazz town, yet we have to have a hard time supporting it.

Absolutely.

Just quickly, one of the problems at the Jazz Museum and the Negro League's new museum shares it is that there was never money put aside for exhibit acquisition.

It was just let's build it and they will come.

That's been a problem.

Quickly, Nick, the story that we didn't report, Ice agents are now in western Kansas and apparently doing some arrests at some of the meatpacking plants and other places where there is a large immigrant presence.

And interestingly enough, the two Republican senators from Kansas are complaining a little bit about ISIS tactics out there, which I found interesting.

And on that, we will say a week has been reviewed courtesy of KCUR's, Brian Ellison and Channel Nine's Chris Ketz from the helm of next page.

KC Eric Wesson I missed the Kansas City stack on Substack.

Dave Helling and I'm Nick Haines from all of us here at Kansas City PBS.

Be well, keep calm and carry on.