So is this it?

The mayor says we now just days away from a big royals announcement after the council in park Sport greenlight a new Royals ballpark next to Crown Center.

The move isn't sitting well with some members of the council who are threatening a petition drive to force a public vote.

I think it's unfortunate that the mayor and my colleagues who are supporting this measure are doing it behind closed doors without a vote of the people.

Also this week, when the Royals by Crown Center, it's an intriguing new storyline as the team fleshes out its plans for a new stadium.

Entertainment district 110 National Guard troops ordered onto the streets of Kansas City for the World Cup.

Under the governor's robust plan to maintain law and order during the games.

But what happens if there are unruly fans?

Turns out the city's new temporary jail won't be ready after all.

And Kansas lawmakers finally head for home with new laws that make it a crime to come within 25ft of an Ice agent.

And crackdowns on student walkouts.

We look at the biggest winners and losers of this year's session.

Those stories 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, glad to have you with us again 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 week this week, KCUR news host and senior political analyst Brian Ellison from our Metro's newest newspaper, Next Page KC Eric Wesson, former star reporter Dave Helling and from the world of television news KSHB 41 political reporter Charlie Keegan.

Now.

So is this it?

The mayor says we're now just days away from a big royals announcement after the council and parks board greenlight a new Royals ballpark next to Crown Center.

Now, now it's time to get the Royals across the finish line and secure Kansas City's future as one of the most desirable sports destinations in the country.

And you don't have money to come up with the busses, but you can wave a wand.

And now billions of dollars out of nowhere.

A snapshot of the testimony this week on that ballpark.

Last week, the Royals were uncommitted on this project.

They were keeping their options open, saying they needed to learn more.

Has that now changed, and are they now fully on board with Washington Square Park being the next home?

Charlie?

I wouldn't say they're fully on board, at least publicly yet, but we did see Royals brass at City Hall this week, so that's a good sign that they're interested in this.

The president of real estate development, Brooke Sherman, no relation to John Sherman, did say that there is a great project and that will ultimately come to pass.

Yeah.

So what's a promising more than promising that sounds like this is a done deal.

Well, I think we all speculated to Nick that the mayor would not have made this announcement unless he had some sense that the Royals were going to buy into it, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense to make an announcement.

And let's face it, for all the Royals sort of hemming and hawing, it was their last option.

I mean, North Kansas City was appeared to be off the table.

Kansas written off long ago both at the state and local level.

So this is the last train to leave the station.

So it shouldn't be a surprise.

Now.

It was a surprise to me.

Maybe not my colleagues that the royals didn't testify Tuesday.

They might have stood up and said, hey, this is a you know, we're interested in this.

Instead, they sat apparently in the back of the room and didn't make any public comments.

That is to come.

All of us had a lot of questions about what happened this week.

You know, we heard that the mayor says the city will commit up to $600 million with no new taxes required using bonds and what it called tax increment financing.

He claims if you don't go to the ballpark or the surrounding entertainment district, you wouldn't actually pay anything.

So if you're somebody who was angry in 2024 and you live in Lee's Summit, Grandview, or South Kansas City or Midtown or downtown, right?

You can say, if I never go to the ballpark, I'm not paying for this team.

I think that is something that is strong for us.

And I think, frankly, that's going to be very fair for our taxpayers while being fair for our team.

Okay.

Is that true, Brian?

Well, it depends.

It depends what the words mean.

I mean, I think it is an attorney.

Well, it is it is true that tax increment financing works by taking funds that are raised in a particular district and applying them toward a particular cause.

But the question is, what is the impact on the rest of the city's finances?

So so if money, for example, is being spent in that district now instead of in other places, that's money that is being directed to a particular cause rather than what it would have gone to otherwise.

Presumably, city services, education, whatever that might be.

If you're not buying a Royals t shirt that the neighboring entertainment district or a B at the ballpark, you won't pay anything, according to the mayor, to say that there won't be any tax money used in it.

I have to see that to believe it, because you still have to do infrastructure.

Now, the move isn't sitting well with some members of the council who are threatening a petition drive now to force a public vote.

I think it's unfortunate that the mayor and my colleagues who are supporting this measure are doing it behind closed doors without a vote of the people, and that they're not valuing, the sentiment.

And what really is, the respect of the voters.

The voters made their voices clear.

And as elected officials, we should respect those voters.

Is there a petition drive underway, Eric, I believe there may be one coming from the KC tenants in that group.

And, the people with the, minimum wage, I think they might be putting one together.

They were the ones that basically testified.

And honestly, it was the same testimony they gave when in the 2020 for billionaires are demons.

They're bad people.

They can pay for this themselves.

So it's the same thing.

But I don't think that the issue is the same because you're talking about voting for a tax and there won't be any tax in this process.

But could this derail the project?

Dave, at this last moment?

Well, we haven't seen the petition.

We don't know if they have enough signatures when it might go on the ballot.

Would it be in August, would it be November.

Would it be next year?

There is a, some undefined point of no return once they start turning dirt.

It's a lot harder to stop a project than it is at this point in time, but it won't take much to get the signatures they need.

And the ordinance that they might propose would be relatively simple.

And if that's the case, we could have a vote going forward.

One other quick thing I want to throw in when we talk about the tax impact of the using the taxes generated in the district, you have to count the fact that Coffman is closing and will not provide any more revenue to the city of Kansas City and Arrowhead won't either, in 4 or 5 years.

So if you have to backfill that amount with whatever revenue you raise from the new facility, that's much less than available for the debt service, which means you have to go to the general fund, which means taxpayers are paying for it.

You know about the petition, Nick, I don't I don't think it is possible, but the way I understand the city charter for them to challenge the act that is putting this, moving this forward right now, they have to create some kind of new petition, new ordinance that prohibits building stadiums or something along those lines.

Remember that the voters on such a vote would not be the same pool of voters who voted last time.

That was all of Jackson County, all of rural Jackson County got to vote no on moving the stadium from the K to downtown Kansas City.

I think there's going to be a lot more support for a downtown stadium in the city limits of Kansas City.

And I think just quickly that that ordinance or that initiative with Kansas City proper voted down the tax in 2024, even independent of what happened, they did by a smaller margin.

But I do think we're going to be very different.

You I've heard from a number of people this week who also have said they've been calling the governor to demand a public vote on the stadium.

Apparently that's coming from the Save our Stadium group that was behind the 2024 effort.

But do you think Mckeel would do anything?

I mean, I mean, would he, for instance, say, we can't you wouldn't get any state money unless there was a public vote.

I do not see governor Mike.

You were there with him this week.

Yeah.

I saw, governor on Monday and no, I he he's fully supportive of putting public funds toward a stadium project.

He called a special session in 2025 to bring all the legislators back to pass this, show me sports investment Act that would allow the state to contribute money without a public vote.

So I think he's happy with what he has set up right now.

I think Kansas City is right now in a do or die situation with this stadium.

And I don't know if a vote by the general public would be voted down under the guise that we've already lost a chief, so we would wind up losing this team to.

I don't see people vote on a big distinction, though.

In 2024, you were asked to have a sales tax that would come out of pocket.

This is being viewed as something that isn't going to increase your tax, right?

Although the sales tax in 2024 was an extension of an existing tax.

So the argument was made that it really isn't going to cost you any additional money.

One of thing just technically to remember, Nick, if there was a petition drive and a vote to stop the stadium by ordinance, that ordinance can be overturned by the city Council immediately with a vote of nine members.

And here's something that you really have to take into consideration.

Next year, we'll have a new city council, because all the people on this city council will either time out or be leaving.

So we got a new city council that's going to be underway, and you're going to have a new Jackson County legislature, too, and they'll be a part of this next year.

You'll also have a new man and a new have a new man.

Absolutely.

And remember, we have Lucas Oil Stadium, for instance, in Indianapolis.

Could this be Lucas Oil Stadium for all the work he has put into this?

No, he's not seeing that.

Okay.

Nicely done.

All right.

Well, well right now also this week will the Royals by Crown sent us an intriguing new storyline as the team fleshes out its plans for a new stadium entertainment district that could go in next door.

The Business Journal reporting that the whole family could sell all or parts of the Crown Center complex, including its parking garages and surface lots, to the Royals.

If that were the case, wouldn't this deliver half the project without the Royals having to build anything?

It sounds intriguing, right?

But it's part of me always.

One almost wonders if if you're the halls, you know, owning Crown Center and they build a stadium right there, you're about to make a bunch of money with more visitors coming to your Crown center.

Why would you sell right now?

Well, one of the reasons I think it's interesting, and they said the Business Journal, doing quite extensive reporting on this this week.

Is that what they've Helling said recently on this program is that John Sherman may be fatigued as the owner of the royals and may be looking for a different relationship in terms of the ownership of that group, could the whole family come in as potential owners of this?

Well, I would make it so sensible.

There are all kinds of potential owners, for the royals at some level.

I mean, the group that bought them paid $1 billion.

That's a lot of money.

And finding someone to pony up that kind of cash will be difficult, particularly since the financing for this stadium appears to commit the Royals to about $750 million in just the stadium.

And then the cost of Crown Center on top, and then the cost of rehabbing Crown Center when you would not theoretically be able to use the tax revenue, you can't have two TIF districts.

That's a real piece of the pie to swallow.

It seems to me I agree.

I think there's a lot of challenges in imagining how this would come to fruition, although it does make some sense to when you think back about 120 years ago, when we first started talking about the stadium, that that the what, the what the Royals really envisioned was a whole village, a whole complex of businesses and maybe office parks and things associated with, even when they were talking about other sites, Crown Center has almost all of that right on the spot.

So it would make sense with the original vision.

And the idea from the district was to generate revenue for the team to make it easier to get money.

Well, if you're spending 750 on the stadium, 500 on Crown Center Rehab, the math is we need to pay attention to the mathematics.

Okay, let's have options.

Never forget that billionaires have.

I know that if you if you look at any of the comments on any of the stories about this wall as complex, one of the big words you see on that, of course, is parking.

But I was he was a little bit more sophisticated, more nuanced on that.

We're hearing lots of questions about, from people like Richard who ask, what on earth is going to happen to the historic statue of George Washington in the park?

And what about the Korean War memorial there?

And Mary asks, what about the hundreds of mature trees are they all about to come down?

Well, the the statues actually came up during the parks board meeting on Tuesday, and park's board didn't have an answer, but at least it's part of their discussions.

They're thinking about that.

And, Councilman Nathan Willett introduced an ordinance or resolution to, you know, direct the city manager to find a new suitable location for the Korean War memorial.

Now, the tree issue is very important to us right now, because I don't know if you know this, but we're about to release a new documentary on the politics of trees in the Metro and the battle between concrete and canopy in Kansas City.

Everyone claims to love trees, so why aren't our cities doing more to protect them when they're tearing everything down?

It's like removing the city out and out and out.

More housing.

We need it to be more affordable.

Hello, I'm Nick Haynes before it hits the air.

Be the first to see our latest documentary, The Politics of Trees, Tuesday night at six at the Kansas City Plaza Library.

And join me afterwards to meet the filmmaker and have you three questions answered by the experts.

All right.

I look forward to seeing you Tuesday night.

Then at the Plaza Library.

I look forward to shaking your hand there.

We've already got a huge response to this.

So people do love trees.

In other news, 110 National Guard troops have been ordered onto the streets of Kansas City for the World Cup, part of the governor's new robust plan to maintain law and order during the games.

But what happens if there are unruly fans?

Turns out the city's new temporary jail won't be ready after all, the city even relaxed many of the normal building codes to make this happen.

They threw more money at it to make the project move faster.

So what's been the holdup?

The holdup has been the location that that was the biggest delay on where they were going to put it at, and the clock was taken.

So now, you know, access to material is different now because you have the war going on.

So I think that was the biggest delay in getting it together.

And there'll be concerns also not just about the infrastructure, but how do you even staff this.

Right.

So you got to have new detention center employees, which is something the Kansas City doesn't have because it hasn't had a detention center since 2009 or so.

So the council did create a new Department of Community Public Safety or something that'll, hire these folks.

But when I asked the police chief, Stacy Graves, about this on Monday, she said that she's hopeful that the World Cup crowd doesn't require going to jail.

And in fairness, there is some hope that it may be partially operational.

It just may not be fully operational by that time.

But remember that part of the the touted benefits of this space was that it would also be around after the World Cup.

And so the city doesn't have to write off the entire thing as a failure if it isn't fully operational in a week.

Yeah, and speaking of security for the World Cup, if you hear lots of massive explosion noises, military helicopters overhead, massive amounts of security vehicles and ambulances and fire trucks zooming into Kansas City on Tuesday, that's because they're doing a full scale emergency preparation with people, even with makeup, putting blood on their faces to be a scenario before this World Cup starts.

Right.

It's part of that kind of, preparation exercises that they've been doing here or will be doing and just trying to get everybody on the same page.

We have so many different, law enforcement agencies coming together to help out on this.

They want to make sure that there's that communication factor there that folks know what to do should the worst happen.

So you have been warned Tuesday, if you hear all of those loud noises and a massive military presence, we haven't been invaded.

Now when we are trying to present a global image around the world just ahead of the World Cup, why was Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas making headlines this week for statements that will make overseas visitors nervous, and some local leaders wince?

An exhaustive report in Britain's Guardian newspaper quoted the Kansas City mayor calling the city's police department, quote colonial, anti-black and anti almost everything we stand for.

Even the reporter points out that in most cities, speaking this way about the local police would lose someone an election.

So what's behind these latest pointed words, Eric?

And why is he speaking about it so candidly in a British newspaper?

Just as the city is trying to actually get Europeans to come over here, not to deter them from coming?

Well, he didn't really say anything wrong.

I just think his time and probably was a little off, but he's a lame duck, so he didn't have to worry about being reelected.

But he does have to coexist with the police board, since he is a member of the police board.

And what is he trying to do to change that culture?

That's in the department.

But it is interesting.

It comes at a time when Democratic strategists are telling candidates, you know, to downplay talk of things about did downplay talks about, the things that attack police or climate change.

And they he's weighing in right at the center of that battle internationally.

It is interesting.

I, I don't have any inside knowledge on this, Nick, but I do think that the Guardian is pretty widely read, in the US as well, especially on the left.

And I think it might be interesting to wonder if he is trying to to build his, his reputation among American progressives, and saying things that will get attention.

Yeah, it should have been a thing where he said some of them and not just give the whole department a blanket, sweep with them.

That is the resentment left over from the state control of the department, which all mayors chafe at in this one, particularly.

The other thing to keep in mind, Nick, is for all the statements that may or may not scare visitors away from Mayor Quinton Lucas.

The other parts of the national environment are much more impactful.

On the chance of people coming to Kansas City for the World Cup, the, pictures of ice, enforcement across the country, statements from the white House, statements from other members of Congress about, immigrants and bonds that might have to be posted.

And we need your search history on the internet.

I mean, that those things are all I, I'm fascinated to see how many people actually show up after all of this chatter in the background about these.

I don't think it'll be 600,000.

No, I don't either.

It could be a million.

Eric.

We'll have to wait and see on.

I would be totally shocked.

Okay, we're going to play this tape back.

What?

After the tournament?

Okay.

Now Kansas lawmakers are back home after a whirlwind finish of this year's legislative session.

Schools, cities and universities are all still sorting through the fallout from a late night burst of votes that stretched into the early hours of Saturday morning.

So what happened?

Well, for starters, Kansas now has a new criminal offense on the books.

You can now go to jail.

If you come within 25ft of an Ice agent after you've been ordered to back up in schools, a crackdown is coming.

Beginning this fall, districts could be penalized if students walk out during the school day and lawmakers enact the Charlie Kirk Free Speech law, which means public universities like Ku could be on the hook financially if they block conservative groups and speakers.

And then there's what didn't happen no redistricting to squeeze out Sharice Davids.

And despite months of build up and repeated promises, property tax relief the session's top priority never quite made it across the finish line.

What went so terribly wrong on that?

Well, property taxes.

Fixing property taxes is enormously complicated and difficult and expensive.

And the Republicans for, all the talk about property tax relief, were unable to settle on a specific approach.

Someone had to use money from the state general fund to compensate local governments.

Others said, no, let's have this sort of, petition process that was jerry rigged to say the least.

One other quick comment, Nick, to to to pass the free speech law, about Charlie Cook, just after passing a law that prohibits high schoolers from walking out of class.

I will note the irony in all of that.

It wasn't apples to oranges, Charlie.

What's the biggest change people will notice as a result of this legislative session?

Well, yeah, I guess the biggest change was what they won't notice is any change in their property taxes.

That seems to be the number one thing that people talk to me about when it comes to what they expect their government to do.

Yeah.

I'm by the way, Missouri is still in session, so they've got another month left of that, haven't they?

Right.

And some pretty big news this week.

When after midnight on Wednesday night, the Missouri Senate passed a bill, 18 to 11.

That's a lot of absences.

Counted in that vote.

That will would appear to move the ball forward on governor Mike Quixote's plan to eliminate the state's property tax, but not in the way that the House vote did.

And with a lot of uncertainty left to figure out later, this plan would would put on the ballot the opportunity to replace the property tax with sales taxes.

But it doesn't name what those taxes would be.

Future legislative sessions would have to identify the specific sales taxes that would be increased to offset property tax decreases.

It takes out the House's plan, which would automatically start lowering the property.

Unlike the Royals ballpark, though, this would have to come before the voters to decide for themselves would all start with a vote of the voters this November, right?

But if the voters did agree to the shift from income taxes to sales taxes, that would have an enormous impact on the Royal Stadium and the financing for that, because it's going to rely to a large degree on sales taxes.

So that's something to keep your eye on as well.

So you might be paying 32%.

Yeah, you're the hot dog or a $2 for the hotdog and 250 for the tax.

I mean, the interesting thing is that the Democrats, all voted against this in the Senate, but they didn't block it.

They actually barely spoke against it.

And so it's interesting what sort of deals were cut there to allow this to go forward and where we think this is going to end up before the end of the session.

Now, I know many of you are still trying to get your arms around soccer, with the World Cup just weeks away.

But didn't you know that the new CPK Stadium here in town is being transformed into a rugby arena this week?

As for the world's most successful women's rugby teams, take the field in Kansas City.

Now, Matt Lucas says the moment carries big stakes as the city learns whether it's being picked to host the men's Rugby World Cup in 2031 and the Women's Rugby World Cup in 2033, Lucas says if our bid is successful, the games will be played at the newly vacated Arrowhead Stadium.

The mayor is convinced the venue will remain a premier destination for major events, even after the Chiefs moved to Kansas.

Really, Charlie?

And maybe for that 2031 men's rugby Cup.

But by 2033, I don't think the, that sales tax that funds the stadium maintenance right now that ends in 2031 and but they've had concerts and things out there and they could be, you know, truck poles and other things like that.

That's not going to be enough.

I don't think it'd be enough.

No.

Notice that this event is happening at CPK Stadium.

That is a much smaller arena.

And I think the cost of maintaining Arrowhead is a whole different conversation.

I did notice also this weekend in the story about the star talking about, you know, never mind the how Arrowhead will go away.

The name Truman Sports Complex would go away.

So it's going to have to be called something else.

So again, the Truman Data Center or something else on in fact, the county executive, Phil Laverty, appointed the members of the task force, this week that will try and figure out ways to do what has not been done in 50 years at the complex, which is actually being a development that's not a stadium.

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

What was the big local story we missed big cleanup underway after tornadoes ripped through our region.

Kansas City's richest man making a $30 million commitment to opening ten inclusive and accessible playgrounds across the metro, starting at Roy Blunt Luminary Park, now scheduled to break ground later this year.

What I love about this is this is going to make Kansas City the gold standard in the world for inclusivity, and the World Cup trophy is in town.

Part of a thank you tour of host cities.

It'll be at the Power and Light district Saturday and Sunday.

Are you willing to wait three hours in line to go and see the World Cup trophy at the Power Light District this weekend?

Is that your big story?

Missed?

No, I'm that's not on my agenda.

What to do this weekend, but I'll get down there to see him.

The thing I thought about was will it is campaigning city councilman, city councilman running for Congress.

They already started the hit ads on him already with this kind of early, but they already start putting out ads against him and they're those dark color ads that make him look so sinister.

I thought that was interesting already.

Brian.

Well, you mentioned the trophy from the World Cup coming to town.

There was another World Cup story this week.

So you are reporting about the the cost of transit in Kansas City to get to and from the various World Cup events is way lower than in many other cities.

There's been outcry, of course, in some large cities, $100 round trip to get out to even to the stadiums on top of outrageous ticket prices.

But in Kansas City, $15 round trip and free to come in from the outskirts of the city into the center for Fan Fest and those things, it's actually pretty interesting, which is why we could probably get up to 1.5 million visitors coming here because of the cheap bus fares compared to other cities.

I only I went on the FIFA, you know, news machine as well this week with the release of the entertainment, who's going to be performing at the fan festivals, they announced that on Thursday.

Were there any big names that we weren't expecting?

Well, some there were some bigger names.

We have a Chainsmokers, Flo Rida international names, but also Kansas City names.

You know, you know, Tom Jones, Lady Gaga.

Okay.

All right.

Local, small local ones are getting a chance.

And that's going to be a free event too, though, that everybody's going to get to experience.

There's as long as you go through a metal detector and have a QR code with your poster in advance.

Yes, Dave, in other parts of the country, there's a real hassle going on now about how much metropolitan transportation systems are being asked to subsidize the World Cup in New Jersey, the governor saying, we didn't sign off on any of this to spend tens of millions of dollars for transit.

So that remains an issue across the country as well as in Kansas City.

And, that and that and that we will say our week has been reviewed courtesy of Charlie Keegan from KSHB and from the helm of our Metro's newest newspaper, Next Page, KC Eric Wesson.

KCUR's Brian Ellison and 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.