After a four year quest of the royals, finally found a new home.

Today is a day that, by any definition, is one that is worth the wait, and they're flattening hallmark cards to do it.

Hallmark is also announcing that our headquarters will be moving to make room for the new stadium.

If you've got questions, we've got answers from what stays and what goes.

Who pays?

And is it still all happening without a public vote?

And if the new ballpark wasn't big enough news this week, Missouri lawmakers were doing their best to steal the headlines by placing on the ballot a total elimination of the state income tax.

Income tax hurt.

There's no universe in which we eliminate the income tax without drastically increasing sales taxes.

Plus, Kelly's last hurrah.

Is Hamilton in or out?

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, I'm Nick Haines, and glad to have you with us on our weekly journey through the Metro's most impactful, confusing, and downright head scratching local news stories.

And there are plenty of them this week.

Hopping on board the Weekend Review bus from KCMO Talk Radio, 95.7 FM, Pete Mundo, and a little lower down the dial at 89.3, you'll find KCUR's news host and chief political analyst Brian Ellison, at the helm of our Metro's newest newspaper.

Next page Casey Eric Wesson and former star staffer, now Mr.

Kansas City stack on Substack.

Dave Helling is the royals for your quest for a new home.

Finally over well this week, owner John Sherman delivers one more surprise by announcing the team is not moving to Washington Square Park after all.

But is partnering with hallmark to build a new stadium right on top of the greeting card company's corporate headquarters at Crown Center.

It's a great day for the state of Missouri and for Kansas City, right?

Today we'll have a new chapter in the history of the Kansas City Royals in a reimagined Crown Center that will be home to the best and most expansive ball park district in any downtown in America.

So with John's announcement today, hallmark is also announcing that our headquarters will be moving to make room for the new stadium.

Well, there's a lot of lot of things we'd like here and that our fans like.

Right.

The Crown is very important to our fans.

A water feature like fountains is, you know, governor, I think we're playing the Cardinals that day and I think we're winning.

We must be winning.

Just some of the sights and sound from the big reveal this week on the new stadium.

I'm amazed, Eric, that they were able to keep this secret and make this change at the very last minute, without even though so many people were involved in this.

Yeah, I was really surprised.

And I think the mayor was surprised.

He didn't know much about it.

The word I'm getting is he didn't know that much about it that the negotiations were going on.

I think he had an inkling that this might happen, but the last conversation he had with Dave's group, on an interview on that Friday, he was talking Washington Square.

The city council voted on it.

Being in Washington Square.

Then on Wednesday is suddenly up the street at a different location.

So it is a very puzzling deal, and there are lots of details we're going to try and work out on this half hour's program.

For instance, what does a partnership with hallmark actually mean?

Is the whole family now becoming co-owners of the Royal?

Are they just giving up the headquarters to make this happen?

Are they giving it away for free or are they selling it?

And who is it, the royals or the city?

Brian?

Well, we don't know.

Nick.

I mean, I think that's part of what's the program.

I know you're going to have to find someone else, I'm afraid.

No, I think that's what a lot of this is.

Still to be determined, still to be announced, maybe still to be figured out.

I think one of the things about connecting with hallmark, you know, if you were watching that press conference with Don Hall Jr there, it almost seemed like it was inevitable from the beginning.

Yeah.

Returning to the place where the Crown imagery first emerged for the Royals, that connecting it to hallmark.

You know, it was it was treated as sort of a historical destiny thing.

Clearly the headquarters building goes away.

But hallmark seems to plan to continue to have a presence there, the Crown Center, shops being undisturbed, the hotel remaining in place.

There clearly is a desire for partnership going forward.

It's just not clear what the nature of that partnership I sort of conjured up.

This is like the ninth iteration.

There were five original shortlisted sites by the royals.

Then, afterwards, we then learned that they're looking at the crossroads, which was on the vote.

But they had North Kansas City as a seventh, as a campus in Overland Park.

Number eight, Washington Square Park, and now this one, too.

But does this have less objections than any of those other sites?

Well, it does make you wonder that of all the options that were out there, this does anecdotally seem the most universally beloved choice of the choices that were out there.

The main issue people have right now at this location is the parking and the ingress and egress.

But in terms of just the location itself, much more, appreciated, I think, by Kansas City than the crossroads.

We know about the issues there.

There has not been the squawking on that, issue that we saw two years ago.

So it makes you wonder, where was this plan?

Two and a half, three, four, five years ago when those listening tours began with owner John Sherman?

Well, apparently, though, Don Hall, a junior now running hallmark, came to John Sherman and said just several months ago, why about doing this?

Something that's perhaps lost in the conversation is that very few people actually are at the hallmark corporate headquarters anymore.

It's become a little bit of a ghost town, right?

They didn't talk about that at the news conference.

But you're right, Nick, the last time I visited that headquarters, it did seem in some disrepair.

And the greeting card industry is not what it once was.

And hallmark has had layoffs over the years and lots of empty space, so it's fits their needs to find a downsized headquarters nearby, because I think they are committed to Crown Center in that region, and that creates enough of a parcel that you can build a new ballpark there.

The key moment, I guess, was when the hallmark people said, no, we're willing to move.

And that's what happened here.

Now, we know, for instance, from last week's vote of the City council when it came to a Washington Square Park stadium, there was talk of $600 million coming from the city to make a $1.9 million project happen.

1 billion?

Yeah.

How is this funded?

Well, I think again, we don't know for sure they didn't hand out a term sheet Wednesday.

We haven't seen one.

But the math is pretty simple.

1.9 billion cash cost.

Now remember there's interest paid on that because almost certainly there will be borrowing.

So it'll be more than that.

But 1.9 billion in cash, 600 million from the city.

They said it would be a 1 to 3, 1 to 2 match for the 3 billion cost of the entire project.

That means a billion public, 600 million from the city, 400 million from the state, 900 million from the Royals slash hallmark to build the actual stadium.

And then the other stuff.

Did the governor commit 400 million?

The governor has been a little vague about exactly how much money and exactly from what source.

So yes, there was the special session that that passed the legislation that allowed for state support for our stadiums.

Remember, that was the Chiefs and the Royals at that time.

But it appears that $350 million is pretty clearly established through that law.

There's talk about maybe 50 million more from tax credits from the state, where exactly that money comes from, especially in light of ongoing budget discussions and especially in light of the Missouri General Assembly now approving a reduction in state income taxes, with the to be replaced by sales taxes, all of that is a are factors sort of looming in the background of where that state money might be missing from the head table at the press conference was the head of Jackson County government, Phil Livonia.

Is the county going to give any money?

Well, I had lunch with him last Friday, and one of the things that we talked about at the lunch was they hadn't asked him for anything.

I'm sure they'll probably, pony up something.

But as of last Friday, neither the teams nor the city or anyone has asked them to contribute in any way.

Do they need the county money?

They probably do.

They probably.

Probably do.

They can get their hands on, you know, because you're you're looking at doing this today at these prices, what a price is going to be on steel and the parts and the materials that they need when they start building a stadium.

Now, one of the big questions for the public is about, as always, in any project in Kansas City, of course, is talking.

Now.

Don Hall junior says whole Milk and Crown Center has 9000 parking spots.

So parking surely wouldn't be a problem with it.

If you're in doubt, they brought in Royals legend at the press conference.

George Brett, to drive home the point.

I know everybody's really concerned about the parking.

I think it'll be ample parking.

And I'm sure that's something that John Sherman and that's something that Quinton Lucas and and everybody's going to figure out parking.

We got the tree.

It we got the, train system coming down.

Now it's it's going to be good.

I think it's going to be great for the city.

I'm assuming when he talks about that train coming, he's talking about the streetcar.

Not a brand new passenger rail service.

Pete?

Well, yeah.

No, the train is what, Phil and Eric were planning at the lunch the other day.

Okay.

No.

Yeah.

The, the train is not mass transit in and out of a game.

It's not the New York City subway leaving Yankee Stadium.

The reality is, most people who are going to these games are going to drive if they think, listen, could you feel comfortable with the parking?

Was that a concern for your listeners?

Oh, yes.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

But here's the thing.

No one's going to be happy about the parking till they go experience it.

Yeah, the proof's going to be in the pudding when the stadium opens up, and then people are going to decide for themselves.

The most important part right now is that the team's aware of the concerns of the fan regarding parking, so hopefully they take care of it, but no one's really going to know till we experience it.

I think the biggest issue if they talk about parking might be for tailgating for when, Saint Louis Cardinals come where, where you tailgate at.

But I think the biggest issue is do we have enough work workforce to do a stadium in Kansas for the Chiefs and a stadium in Kansas City for the Royals and Bucky's and the other place that they're building for home, and they'll all be competing for the same labor and they'll be competing for the same labor.

Do we have a workforce big enough to do all that?

I'm so glad buckets could come up in any show.

But but I do.

I, I am mindful, though, that that some of the parking that exists at Crown Center now is probably going to be replaced, I assume demolished some of those surface lots to make way for the stadium.

I what I do think is different this time is that you're not trying to cram the stadium into this small little window, either in the crossroads or in Washington Square Park.

Here you've got this expansive, visibility.

We even heard from John Sherman with those renderings that this is all conceptual.

I think there's a lot of time to work out questions like, okay, the conceptual nature of it.

I'm pleased you mentioned that.

Can we bring up the map again for a moment?

Because, I would seem to have concerns about what stays and what doesn't around Crown Center.

You mentioned earlier that so the Crown Center shops as we know it, that has things like the almost all of those things that stays it does in the renderings that we saw so far.

Yes.

Okay.

And what about the tenants in there, though?

Will we do a sort of country Club Plaza kind of a deal where they just stop raising the rates and they're they're forced out?

I think we have no idea.

But I think, this project wouldn't make much sense if it wasn't expected to increase the fortunes of the hallmark Corporation and the owners of Crown Center.

But I think the part of the map that I'm most interested in, Nick, is the, the things that they assumed needed to stay, including the our Lady of Sorrows church right on the corner, which is just about 150 to 200ft from home plate, which I think could be really useful for Royals players.

Maybe they could stop by for a blessing on their way to the on and the ice rink apparently stays too, right.

And all that stuff has to stay or be refurbished because it needs to create revenue that the city then can use to repay its $600 million borrowing.

You cannot repay borrowing for a $1.9 billion stadium just from the people who go to the games.

It cannot be done that you could not be more clear on that.

You can't pay it just with that revenue.

So you need shops.

You need businesses.

One of the things that this stadium location does do is take it out of a downtown environment in which workers and other people might stay after work and go to a night game.

This is too far south for that.

Really?

It may be more convenient to other parts of the city, but you're not going to have that kind of traffic.

So you need to generate cash, for the city and for the state, for that matter, in and around the stadium to pay for the car.

There was a lot of enthusiasm about this plan this week, compared to the one that was defeated by voters two years ago.

But could this project still be derailed?

Eric, I don't see how no public vote that is going to take place.

There was a big effort to do a petition.

Is that got away?

Well, it's private property.

And you don't take bonds to vote.

You don't take tiffs to vote.

So if you did that, we'd be in a boat, voting booth, constantly with that.

So I don't think and it doesn't displace anyone that housing tends to displace it, raise rates and people are going to be, they will be forced out.

But people that live in the Santa Fe Tower, they got money.

They not really worried about the rates being raised.

Is this a done deal then, Pete?

Just like the Chiefs Stadium in Kansas, or could this still be derailed?

It could be, but I don't see the enthusiasm for it out there right now.

There's a small group of the KC tenants folks, but even the KC tenants folks have totally misplayed their hand here because they're doing a rally next Saturday, but they're tying it into an anti ice protest.

There are actually a lot of conservatives and liberals who agree on this issue of of how to publicly finance, if at all of these projects, but when you tied into anti ice, you've lost potentially people that might join you on the issue.

So it's all I think it's a show right now.

The deal seems to be done, and it does seem like a deal that more Kansas City is embraced than two years ago.

There are people who are going to be opposed to any public financing for stadiums, and that's fine.

That's a value decision that they can make.

But if you're supportive of some public funding because you think sports are a public good in the community, worth supporting, I think people are going to look at this plan and say, that's about as good as we're going to get in this time.

But, Dave, do we ask you this if this were put to a public vote, don't you think this plan would pass up?

That's a very interesting question, because I do think, as my colleagues suggest, this seems to be more popular certainly than the crossroads alternative, which, by the way, did involve a general tax, and maybe even the East Village on the other hand, the people who have proposed the Crown Center site have provided absolutely no financial details.

We have no idea how much the public will be asked to pay on an annual basis to have baseball in, in Midtown.

Everybody says downtown.

That's really a stretch in midtown Kansas City.

Once those specifics are known, opposition to it could grow.

But as it sits today, neck, I don't think there's the enthusiasm for it.

They're also talking about breaking ground on this next year, opening for Opening Day 2030.

Well, I guess what Eric said earlier, both Kansas and Kansas City has said 20,000 construction jobs.

I just looked it up briefly.

Bureau of Labor Statistics says we have about 60,000 of those jobs in the metro.

Where do you get 20,000 for each project going on simultaneously?

I don't know.

The other thing that I think helps Kansas City and Missouri right now is that Kansas is deal with such an abomination and a disgrace that it makes them look better.

And the fact that that deal went down and was such a screwjob the way it was to the taxpayer, it kind of makes Kansas City, Missouri look like, okay, it could have been a lot worse.

Look at Kansas.

All right.

I think we've done as much as we can on this topic.

We have other stories.

I've sort of shortchanged this a little bit, but there are some other things I just want to let you know about.

If the new ballpark wasn't big enough news this week, Missouri lawmakers were doing their best to steal the headlines by placing on the Missouri ballot a total elimination of the state income tax.

Yes, after all the talk, it's happening.

Income tax hurts this is a way we can help those working class Missourians.

Nick and cut Nick and cut Nick and cut with this legal plunder of their hard earned work.

I want to make individuals in district nine and across the state wealthier by eliminating the income tax.

There is no universe in which we eliminate the income tax without drastically increasing sales taxes, or whether we call it a tax cut, a tax increase, attack shift, whatever we want to call it.

The fact is we're we're we're messing with two thirds of our state budget.

So if you're thinking about an $8.5 billion loss in general revenue, that means an 8.5% increase in your sales taxes.

All right.

But if you are going to a polling station, later this year in November, and you see, do you want to eliminate the income tax, wouldn't most Missourians vote?

Yes, I think it depends on the ballot language like it oftentimes does with these deals.

I don't think this is going to be a slam dunk to think that a Republican legislature passed this and that a Republican voter bloc in Missouri will definitely vote for it.

First off, I think that you could have money poured in on both sides.

That is always going to be interesting.

There will be legitimate concerns about are you shifting the burden on to people through a sales tax that actually potentially hurts more working class or working poor folks?

That's fair to bring up.

And I think conservatives will also say this budget's exploded 60% the last less than ten years.

What are you going to do on the cutting side to make sure you don't put yourself in a position like Kansas?

They say it's all tied to we've got to hit certain goals before the rate comes down.

That's a much better play than Kansas had ten plus years ago, but there still are a lot of questions.

I don't I don't think it's a slam dunk.

But you know what?

It is going to the voters, which is the right move.

Now, isn't this about actually just putting a sales tax on goods and services that are currently not taxed, things like Barb.

But when you go to the barbershop, if the plumber comes to your home or your Netflix subscription, there's no tax on that adding it there.

Or is it going to actually add on top of the current state sales tax on everything else, from food to clothing?

Well, partly it's not any of those things yet, because none of those things have been included in this voting measure that the people will approve.

The legislature will have to decide what things are going to be taxed.

This is sounding a little bit like the Royals ballpark thing.

We don't have all the details, and if we had all the details, it probably wouldn't pass.

I mean, this is the important part of this going forward.

The the the governor has said it's not intended to increase taxes on agriculture.

It's not intended to increase taxes on health care.

But there's nothing in the legislation that was passed that prevents those things from being taxed in the future.

You know, the Democrats talking points around this have been not to call it a reduction of the income tax, but to call it a replacement of and an increase of the sales tax.

It's going to have to be that in order for the income tax to come down, we just don't know what will be taxed yet, you know.

Yes, voters do of course, want to say yes.

I believe income tax should be eliminated.

But if you ask the same voters, would you like your Netflix to be taxed?

Would you like to pay more for gas?

They will vote no.

Yeah, them paying more for gas is an important thing.

Missourians, rural Missourians are not excited about the idea of paying more at the pump.

They're already suffering from the fallout from the Iran war.

You say to them, hey, another ten $0.15 a gallon in sales tax and they will pause at the polls.

The other thing to keep in mind, Nick, is that there are a lot of things on the ballot.

There's going to be a lot of discussion of all of this.

Missouri is relatively a low tax state.

People don't realize that.

But the income tax is not as high as it is in Kansas, for example.

Not even close.

And so the impetus for this, seems less obvious.

I think Peter's right.

It is not a slam dunk.

It's going to be a lot of things on the ballot.

They have been everywhere you turn, there's a, petition initiative underway.

But Brian brought up a great point about saying, well, it's not intended to do this is not intended to do that.

But what they intend to do and what they actually do is oftentimes two different conversations, especially when voters pass things.

And then the legislature doesn't like it, they repeal it and do away with it.

So it'll be interesting on how they lay out a platform to voters to get voters to understand whether this is good or bad, that vote coming in November.

But the governor could still change that and put it on the August ballot, which would just be months away on the Kansas side.

Is he in or is he out?

All eyes are on Adam Hamilton this week as he weighs a leap from the pulpit to politics.

Since floating a February bid to challenge Kansas Senator Roger Marshall, his self-imposed decision deadline has come and gone.

Remember when he said he would make a decision ten days after Easter?

Hamilton is one of Kansas City's best known ministers and the founder of the nation's largest Methodist congregation, the church of the Resurrection in Leawood.

So what has been the holdup, Dave?

Well, I think he's being told or counseled by some people that this could complicate, the effort to oust Roger Marshall because it might draw more votes from Democrats than Republicans.

But I don't think that's a major factor for his decision making.

Now, in part because these independent candidates are popping up all over the country, there's a similar dynamic, I think, in Montana.

Underway now.

And in Nebraska, there are some independent candidates.

So I think he's just going to try to decide if he has a chance to win.

And on that basis, go forward.

I think he has a chance to win, but not as an independent.

We already learned in the past week that in one of his appearances, he said that if he is elected, he would caucus with the Democrats.

I think his only chance to be a contender is to decide to run as a Democrat.

There was a story this morning that says that he may be considering and win.

That primary is still running as a Democrat in this race.

How would that change that race, and does that make Roger Marshall vulnerable if he were to run as a Democrat?

Well, I don't think it I don't think it matters a lot if he's an independent.

You have to make sure there's no Democrat.

You got to clear the field.

So it's got to there's eight Democrats in the race already, and I don't know how he really does that.

So to Brian's point, if running as a Democrat makes the most sense because you can't clear the field, then you've got a shot.

But I'm starting to sense that, Republicans are taking this more seriously.

There was a complaint, just on Friday morning here, press release from the Kansas GOP saying that Adam Hamilton's use of church resources for his exploratory committee is a blatant FEC violation that should be investigated.

So I think they think it's probably coming, and they think that that this is going to be a real pretty soon.

And it's inexplicable to me.

But I see David's name still out there.

Still saying that he may still consider this.

Is that is that really I don't think that's likely at this point.

I would say this, though, Nick, I think what Pete is suggesting is that people realize that Roger Marshall is more vulnerable than maybe they thought he was even 3 or 4 months ago, in part because of his own problems, but largely because this may be a Democratic wave year.

And if that turns out to be the case, Marshall's race will be closer than we expect.

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?

Explosions, helicopters and emergency sirens?

No, we're not being invaded.

It's a full scale security drill ahead of the FIFA World Cup for Kansas districts, including Casey Kale.

Later in Shawnee Mission, stripped of federal funding for allowing male students to use female restrooms and locker rooms.

Three murders in less than three hours.

But for all the headlines, homicides in Kansas City down 25% on last year.

The head football coach, at least Summit West, hired amid a student residency scam.

Coaches apparently faked homeless and utility bills to bring in talented players who didn't lift.

Their team also has to vacate all its wins from the last year.

Kansas City housing prices up nearly 8%, the second highest rise in the country.

Only San Francisco posted a steeper increase and the streetcar line expanding again.

An official date now released for the opening of the riverfront extension to Kpcw Park.

It's May 18th already.

Eric, did you pick one of those stories?

Is something completely different?

I did a story on Airbnbs and short term rentals, and what people don't aren't getting the message from the attorney general of the state, the Jackson County prosecutor, the police and law enforcement is people can get scammed.

People can come in there and pay for two days, stay for the whole World Cup, and you can't do anything about it because they have squatter's rights and you have Jackson County.

You have to evict them and that could take months in order to do that.

Brian, I want to go back to Jefferson City, another one of those under the radar.

Things that happened in the Missouri General Assembly this week is that the Senate passed its version of the budget that passed in.

The budget allows the most important thing, the legislature does each year under the radar, frequently has a lot of concerns about whether education is funded at an adequate level.

I think we're going to see a lot of difficult conversations and some controversy in the coming weeks about where the Missouri budget ends up.

Pete, how about Kansas becoming the 18th state to add girls flag football and as an official high school sport in Kansas?

Clark Cotton and the Chiefs were very much behind that.

Congratulations to Kansas.

As the father of three daughters, I don't think I have any outstanding athletes.

But you know what?

Give it a shot.

Good for them, Dave.

It, the calendar is getting away from us.

It's 100 days, more or less, until the August primary.

I think the Kansas governor's race primary on the Republican side will soon become much more visible.

Now that the session is over and that Governor Kelly has continued her parade of vetoes, the competition there will be fierce to see who runs against the Democrat in Kansas.

And on that we will say a week has been revealed courtesy of Pete Mundo.

6 to 10 weekdays on 95.7 FM, KCMO Talk Radio and Eric Wesson of Next page KC from KCUR news, Brian Ellison and news icon and Mr.

Kansas City Substack Dave Helling.

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

Be well, keep calm and carry on.