Didn't see that coming.

The mayor of Wyandotte County calls it quits.

Plus, amid the new rumors that the chiefs and royals are considering a move to Johnston County, Missouri Governor Mike Parson says he'll have a deal in place before he leaves office.

But that's just a few weeks away.

Has he run out of time and is the Steamboat Arabia Museum about to sink the new plans to turn the attraction into a boutique hotel?

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. Myers and Bank of America, N.A.

Co Trustees.

The Francis Family Foundation drew the discretionary fund of David and Janice Francis.

And by viewers like you, Thank you.

Hello, I'm Nick Haines.

Glad you joined us.

And our journey through the week's most impactful, confusing and downright head scratching local news stories hopping on board the week in Review bus.

With us this week, Eric Wesson from our metro's newest newspaper, Next page, KC It's also great to have former star reporter and editorial writer Dave Helling back with us alongside longtime Kansas City journalist and nationally syndicated columnist Mary Sanchez, and tracking the region's top political stories for KCUR news, Brian Ellison now at the start of the show, I want to revisit something we talked about last week.

Remember I said Kansas City area Congressman Sam Graves was tantalizingly close to being named the nation's next transportation secretary.

Well, scratch that, Donald Trump picks someone else, a Fox News business host, in fact, which makes it official, the Trump cabinet will be a Kansas and Missouri free zone.

No.

Mike Pompeo.

Kris Kobach, no.

Eric Schmidt, No.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey.

I'm curious, though, why did Sam Graves get passed over after being on so many shortlists?

Did he not genuflect enough to?

Sam Graves was never going to be appointed to a Trump administration.

Ron Paul even though they unhappy about it.

Here's why.

Sam Graves, most important political associate over the years has been Jeff Roe.

Donald Trump hates Jeff Roe with a passion.

You can go back and look at the stories of a year ago when Roe was helping Ron DeSantis run against Trump and Trump, World was telling Republicans don't even get within 50 yards of Jeff Roe.

So it was almost impossible to see how that animus toward Roe would not transfer to Graves and some position in the Trump cabinet.

And this is now going to kill our World Cup plans because he was supposed to be the savior of that.

He could be bringing lots of money to us because transportation was is still the big vexing headache.

Transportation is a big vaccine headache.

But as far as like the Trump administration goes, you could kind of sort of count Marco Rubio.

He went to college for one year in northwest Missouri, which is where Jeff Roe actually spoke at Tokyo College until it closed on a football scholarship.

But I would say, too, though, I mean, and all these Trump nominations, this is who you're starting out with on the list, not there, not confirmed yet.

So many of them have real issues.

A lot of it does seem to be playing along the lines of who has done Trump a favor so far.

And then he tends to go through staff.

So there's still may be hope for some of these names.

So there was perhaps a small consolation prize for our area when two Missouri attorneys were picked to join the Trump White House team.

John Sauer, a lawyer you probably never heard of in your life before he was chosen to be solicitor general.

And Will Scharf, who ran in the Republican primary for Missouri attorney general, has been named white House staff secretary.

Is that a made up title or a slot with some cachet there?

Ryan Actually, staff secretary in the White House has been a pretty important role, but but one that operates below the radar.

It's the person who's, in theory at least, responsible for organizing the papers and determining what the flow of business to the president's desk is.

Now, President Trump, in his first administration, was not known for his prodigious devouring of policy notebooks.

So it's not clear if it will have as much power in that.

But it is a it's a West Wing office.

It's an inner circle.

Assistant to the president usually travels with the president.

So it actually is potentially a pretty influential role.

Now, speaking of jobs, right after the election, we mentioned how Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas says he would be interested in a top job at the DNC.

The Democratic Party's main fundraiser, Housing and Campaign Coordinating ARM.

Well, The New York Times is out this week with an expansive shortlist of names now vying for that job.

And guess what?

Quinton Lucas doesn't make the list.

Now, what has Lucas run out of options for a comfortable place to land with his time as mayor?

Running short, Eric County executive, Where would be a step down?

Well, it would be the county versus the city, and the county does have more landmass.

But let's also remember that his term does not end until 2027, that he has a long, a long runway here to make decisions about his future if he wants to take that time.

We have the World Cup and other things in 2026 that I, I think he'd like very much to be at the forefront of.

Now, speaking of mayors, I didn't see this one happening.

The mayor of Wyandotte County in Kansas City, Kansas, is calling it quits.

Tyrone Garner announcing this week he will not run for reelection next year after serving just one term.

Now, it's rare to see a local politician voluntarily leaving office.

Usually you have to drag them out, kicking and screaming.

What is going on here, Dave?

Garner had things he wanted to do in Windowed County and realized that a, it was going to be extraordinarily difficult and maybe his skill set was not completely congruent with the changes he wanted to make.

There are a lot of competing interests in one county, and he's had some health problems, so that may have played into it as well.

It is strange, however, that when he ran, of course, he said, I can fix Wyandotte County.

And then once elected, decided I can't fix it.

Is that because he was a police officer prior to getting into political office?

He was an outsider.

Is it a reflection of the fact that it is very difficult for somebody with no knowledge of politics to be successful?

Or are there things in Wyandotte County's system of government that makes it really very challenging to actually achieve anything?

I think both all of the above and probably some other factors that we don't know about.

Law enforcement is very military in how the rank and file and how you answer to someone above.

You know, it doesn't mean that, you know, people don't go rogue, but it's just very different than a political system that has so many moving parts.

He's got to unify government.

But you've got the BPU that has so much power.

They also somewhat neutered him a little bit early on.

And what, 2022, I think when they changed the commission, did they change the power of the mayor so that he can't he can't really set the agendas for the meetings the way he used to before.

So that really took away some power.

And Eric, it was interesting story in the style back in August with him.

They did an interview and he said some spectacular things, including he was terrified in his job.

There were so many questionable things happening.

He was worried.

And at one point he says he may have had the title of mayor, but in the end felt like he was in the middle of a lake in a boat and there was no way to row it.

Some people whisper that his position over there was just a glorified gofer.

I'm going to be.

She does have some health issues.

Yes.

He was gone for like six months.

Yes.

Dealing with the issues.

And this is, you know, this election now for a person who was going to be the next mayor of Wyandotte County takes place in November, that's less than a year.

So it's going be a lot of scrambling going on behind the scenes.

And I don't know that there are obvious successors.

I don't know that folks have been angling for the position.

The bill, David, L.Z., Mike, fancy getting back in the role on my call and he only beat Alvey by a few hundred votes.

So it was very close in my mind is I think in about two or three weeks.

Roger Gallops He goes on trial in Wyandotte County for a a generation of corruption in the police department in Kansas City, Kansas.

And Tye Garner.

Tyrone Garner had some connection to some of that at some time.

And he may have some concern that the testimony in that trial will expose things in the police department that they've tried to hide for many, many, many years, and that may have played a role as well.

So when is the last time you heard any stories in the news about the Kansas City, Missouri school district?

For most of my time here, the district has been a punchline to a bad joke with a revolving door of superintendents plummeting enrollment and one problem after another.

But guess what?

Have we failed to update the story after decades of kids and their parents fleeing the district?

Kansas City schools just reported a surprising new development.

Enrollment is up for the third year in a row.

We may still be plagued by crime in Kansas City, but can we finally take the Kansas City School District off our unsolved problems list?

Eric We should be able to.

And they announced their bond plan this week seems very supportive.

My only real concern with that bond issue is it's going to be on the same ballot as the safety tax for the city.

And I just don't see people in that area passing to taxes.

I just don't I didn't see I did see it in the reporting, though, Mary, that they haven't passed a bond election in Kansas City since 1967.

That's 57 years now.

They're asking for about a half a billion dollars to fix up schools and classrooms.

Why would this be different?

One thing and one big factor may shift this quite a bit, and that is that the nine charters are also in on getting some of that money.

And so their population base, those parents.

That brings a whole different kind of demographic to the voting around the Kansas City School district.

And frankly, I'm with Eric like I was just at Purcell High School.

I think a lot of the district critics haven't even stepped in a school.

Right.

If in decades, if ever.

Right.

There are so many children there and that growth is largely from children who are US born of immigrant parents.

And so that's a whole other population.

It mirrors the United States.

I mean, it's population growth.

Those children deserve a solid, good education in schools that have air conditioning that have good resources.

This is for building and maintenance is what the bond would be.

And so the district is accredited now.

So that means that they are moving in the right direction on the terms of education.

And just to put it into perspective, the last time they had a bond passed, there was a thing called penny candy.

We remember that for those of us that are old enough, you know, Dave I'm sure remembers it over that it's not that Penny Candy didn't.

And Martin Luther King was still alive in 1967 when they passed it.

So that's a long time ago, I have to say.

Mary mentions the growth in the students coming in are actually from English language learners.

It's a two thirds are English language learners from families coming from Honduras to Tanzania.

So couldn't some voters, Brian, look at that and say, why are you asking me to pay $200 more in my property taxes just to fund schooling for immigrants?

Would that be a case that would be made in that election?

I think that's what the district has to worry about.

The current electoral environment is not exactly favorable to to immigrants and to efforts to support immigrants.

I think it's also not a small bond.

You know, the average $200,000 home will pay 230 more dollars in taxes.

You're going to need a lot of support from people who have homes that are worth a lot more than $200,000.

I think the philanthropic community of Kansas City is going to have to get behind the campaign if it's going to be successful and treat this as as a philanthropic campaign that needs to pass for the sake for the better good of the community.

Watch any town hall meeting with local leaders, talking about violent crime in Kansas City within the first few minutes, you'll hear that guns are the problem and how they can't do anything about it.

Well, Jackson County has decided to go it alone and pass a new law that goes into effect immediately, banning residents under the age of 21 from possessing guns or ammunition.

What's fascinating is that Jackson County executive Frank White vetoed the measure.

That's puzzling to some of our viewers, especially as White is a long time Democrat.

Wouldn't you think he'd be all in on reining in guns?

What are we not seeing?

His stated concern was that he thought that the measure was unconstitutional in the sense that the state has against the state law is really what he said.

He is probably right that there will be state legislators who will who will certainly go after this.

And it might be challenged in the courts.

And by challenging in the courts, I would cost the county a lot of money in legal fees.

Yet Jackson County, Eric, is about to lose $70 million in unspent COVID cash because Frank White and the legislature can't agree on how to spend it.

Problem number 999 When you drive in front of the county.

But yeah, I think it is an interesting conversation to have as far as gun control.

But what I found interesting with County executive White's comments was he was talking about hunting and where do we hide in Jackson County, maybe Green Valley or some of those areas.

But I thought that that was interesting.

But he is correct.

It is going to be unconstitutional to be able to implement that and it's going to cost them some money legally.

So it was more of a performative measure than something that's actually going to happen.

Yeah, it brings up the conversation because there's no other way to talk about guns in Jackson County unless you start taxing bullets or those kind of things.

Now, while White is still at loggerheads with county lawmakers on everything from property taxes to how to spend that COVID cash, sometimes they can work together.

Case in point, they've just agreed to sell a portion of county land so Kansas City can build a brand new jail.

It'll be on the ballot for voters to decide in April.

So what are we talking about here?

Another sales tax to lock up lower level criminals at a time when the city has no place to hold them?

Mary?

Well, I think you're already feeling a lot of pushback on this, but what is the pushback to it?

They don't want more people being incarcerated or incarceration.

And, you know, law enforcement will even tell you, you there are so many of the issues that really trouble people that you cannot like arrest your way out of this.

That often comes up with homelessness, you know, addiction problems.

There's and there's going to be some real changes at municipal court coming down the line to try and help people more with addictions and mental health.

Some reorganization is about to happen.

So there's that.

But yet at the same time, you have all this crime of cars and, you know, a new prosecutor coming in.

So I think there is time to have this larger conversation to get people on board about what do you really need to be managing that when law enforcement arrests someone and it's pretrial, where do they go if they have a violent, you know, charge against them, that that's the issue.

Is it a done deal?

It's on the APR ballot.

Oh, yes.

Okay.

But but it brings you back to the conversation about the $70 million and where some of the legislatures want to put the money into programs and crime prevention programs, giving money to nonprofits for some of the work that they're doing.

So this week you had a stalemate with those legislators that wanted to do that, didn't go to the meeting, so they didn't have a quorum to talk about what to do with the 70 million.

And then you've got the county executive veto and what they want to do with the money, which is to put it out into the community.

So it's just, you know, I think that's problem number 998 when you talk about the things that are going on in Jackson County, really it's turning into a circus.

Yes.

But we still have a few more weeks left of the year.

So we can't top the 1000 list of problems by the end of the year with you, Eric, we already know it's a it's a story that simply won't go away.

The rumors continue this week over a possible plan by the royals to move to Kansas and more specifically at the former Sprint campus across from Town Center Plaza in Overland Park.

But hold the front page.

It's Missouri Governor Mike Parson about to ride to the rescue this week.

Missouri's outgoing chief executive says he's still hopeful he can strike a deal with the chiefs and the royals before he leaves office on January 13th.

That's ambitious.

We've got Thanksgiving and Christmas in that stretch.

Dave has passed and left it too late.

Yeah, it's going to be very, very difficult.

It's very complicated.

There are lots of moving parts.

And Nick, the thing that viewers need to keep in mind is we are talking about an enormous amount of money and trying to move that kind of cash around this close to a deadline for both the chiefs and the royals is going to be very difficult, particularly since the royals don't really know what they want to do, apparently.

And the chiefs are still trying to figure out exactly how they want to proceed.

Let me just tell you a quick story.

The Chiefs played the Buffalo Bills last week and they're building a new stadium right next to the old one.

Do you know how much that stadium costs?

$2.1 billion.

Of that 600 million is coming from the state of New York and 250 million from the local taxpayers.

And the team is coming up with the other 1.5 billion that those are enormous numbers.

I don't see.

Maybe my colleagues disagree.

I don't see the state of Missouri coming up with $600 million for a stadium.

And by the way, the chiefs, if they build new well, undoubtedly pay more than $2.1 billion just because of inflation and because they would have to tear down the old Kauffman Stadium, which would be expensive as well.

So this remains very much an unsettled pass and did concede, by the way, on Fox to now in Saint Louis this week that it is likely chiefs will build a new training facility in a different location, possibly outside of Jackson County and potentially on the Kansas side.

Brian, could that end up being the compromise that keeps everyone happy?

I don't know, Nick.

There are there are five capable journalists around this table.

And the one thing that we know is we don't know anything about 60,000.

We brought you in for either team.

Every week we have new rumors, new ideas, new proposed sites.

And I think partly it's that, as Dave said, the team themselves that both teams don't seem to know exactly what they want to do.

But but, you know, when you hear Governor Parson talk about a different county, when you hear Laura Kelly continuing to make a play for the Kansas side, I mean, you know, the question that really matters is whether I will be able to take the streetcar to Royals games from my home.

And I feel that it's less certain today than it was before, but I still don't know where it's going to go.

The things just quickly, one of the things Mayor Lucas has talked a lot about is having a royals proposal which doesn't have to go to a vote of the people, but you can do a referendum on anything in Kansas City for about 30 504,000 signatures.

So I think at some level there will have to be a vote in Kansas City, and that hasn't been factored in.

John Sherman does not want to go back to the he may have any choice if there's a petition drive after something passes, you just put that back, I think is there if the only solution is to have to in order to have something in Jackson County as another vote of the people, I think we won't be in Jackson.

I have to say, please, this problem.

936.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

I'm going back to Jackson County with that.

I have to say, on a personal note, I am reluctant to give too much validity to these stories that the royals and moved to Johnson County, especially as the team's owner, John Sherman, say absolutely nothing about it.

But more flash was put on the bones of that story this week when the Kansas City Star took out its tape measure and reported there would be ample room for a ballpark on the site.

And perhaps just as significantly, they counted the parking spaces.

According to the Star, there are 12,500 spots there spread throughout 14 parking garages in addition to parking in Town Center Plaza and other nearby developments.

Is that though half the bottles sold Mary parking if they're interested in that side, if that site is available.

I mean I just think there is so much about, frankly sometimes news it is a little bit too much people sitting around tables going, well, you know, that's the chin stroking and I'm going to make a list of who I think might end up in the cabinet or I'm going to make my idea about.

It's like, no, there's really nothing to it.

And we just don't know enough.

Sometimes you just have to.

I think just because we have nothing to report since the election is over with, with twiddling their thumbs, wondering what we're going to putting in our newspaper and on telecasts, it's not downtown that said, the other problematic thing about the Overland Park sites, Nick, is they're in residential areas.

Yeah.

And, you know, single family home owners did not count on a 40,000 seat baseball stadium as a neighbor.

They will they will resist with vigor if this ever becomes.

All righty.

Is Kansas City, Steamboat Arabia museum about to sink?

The attraction has been told there are plans afoot to turn the space into a boutique hotel when its lease expires next year.

That after 25 years as an anchor in the city market, people travel across the country to see it.

They don't travel necessarily across the country to stay in a hotel.

So this museum is unique.

Hotels are nice, but they're not necessarily unique.

It seems they've been threatening to move for over a decade, claiming they've been courted by cities across America.

Has the city markets simply got fed up of them?

Eric?

I don't really know, but I think it's an attraction to that area.

But with the new parking regulations that they have with people having to pay $30 to park, do they consider that a deterrent for people going down into that area?

So there's going to be interesting to see what happens with that.

You know, it's also interesting.

I see David only this week.

He is trying to get his lease renewed.

He's not being successful getting that done, but he is interested in moving to the American Royal building.

And that's going to be they're going to be vacating that soon to go to Kansas City, Kansas, and a new campus there.

Wouldn't that be a deal worth making perhaps?

I think that area, though, the whole West Bottoms has seen a revitalization.

And so that would be a good place to go into.

You know, any museum has to continuously uplift and upgrade its you know, exhibitions and bring in new things.

And it would allow him a restart on, you know, some property on his things that he showcases that are really pretty stagnant.

So they could also move into the Mission Gateway site, which is still just a construction zone after how many years the Royal stadium is going to go.

Let's go back.

That's be a good place for him to start.

But but moving the Steamboat Arabia closer to the river might be a good thing.

On the other hand, the streetcar has really changed the calculus.

Nick.

And city market, because people will be able to visit that from all the way down to you and Casey once the streetcar is finished.

So I think they're expecting more traffic.

I just find it interesting that David Hawley has for years threatened to leave and now all of a sudden is complaining because he wants to stay.

Well, where do 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?

Nearly 2000 autoworkers at GM's Fairfax plant, a pink slip this week.

General Motors is temporarily shutting down production at the Kansas City, Kansas facility to transition to electric vehicles.

The move signals the end of the line for the Cadillac Xt4 and the Chevy Malibu, two models that are being retired by GM.

So the sky didn't fall this week just because the Chiefs lost the perfect season may be over, but the dream of a three peat continues Sunday as the Chiefs take on the Panthers in Charlotte.

At one time, it could have been the site of the new Royals ballpark.

Now the former Kansas City Star Printing Press Building gets a new use.

It may not be as glamorous, but it's going to be turned into a mega data center.

The CBS Morning show brought its entire team to Kansas City this week ahead of this weekend's National Women's Soccer Championship final at Sea Peak Stadium.

But it's going to be a bittersweet event for Kansas City.

The KC current isn't playing after a heartbreaking semifinal loss.

We now know what it will cost to snag a seat at one of Kansas City's World Cup matches at Arrowhead Stadium.

FIFA just announcing ticket prices will start at $323 with a spot in a skybox.

A business suite topping 4300 Tickets for the tournament will be available late next year.

And the wait is finally over.

The new Chiefs Hallmark movie premieres next week.

Andy Reid and Donna Kelsey among its stars.

You can catch it next Saturday at seven.

Okay.

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

I didn't.

And it's not necessarily a big story, but just one that kind of moved me.

You know, I did see where overnight there's been another traffic accident where I think it was a man in South Kansas City, near Red Bridge, who was in a wheelchair and was hit by a car.

But we have so many traffic fatalities and we're coming up on the holidays, people, if you're smoking pot, you shouldn't be driving a car.

Brian.

You know, last week we spoke on the program about at least summit Republican John Patterson, who is the incoming Missouri House speaker, who had taken a position that actually drew him in a challenge for the speakership by saying that Missourians should and the legislature should reflect the will of the voters and not attempt to limit abortion.

He changed the wording of his position on that this week after a meeting behind closed doors with the House Republican Caucus came out and said that, you know, laws can be, quote, improved or changed.

I don't know if that will change the substance of what he allows to go forward.

But but I do think we're we're seeing the impact of Republicans having continued supermajority control.

And Jeff said he taped National Public Radio, MPR has a fascinating story on its Web page this week which talks about the shift of voters in 2024 to the right, except Kansas.

That will increase the pressure on Laura Kelly to run for the Senate in 2026 against Roger Marshall.

Because I think Democrats believe that.

However, it's happening, when you combine Johnson County being a little more blue with the rest of the outstate shifting that way a little bit, that a Democrat with with a good resume, they might have a chance.

Wow, that's an interesting prediction they are on that.

We will say a week has been reviewed.

Thanks to Marie Sanchez from the Tribune News Service and Erik Wesson from next page.

Casey Casey, was Brian Ellison a news icon?

Dave Helling.

And I'm Nick Haynes.

There's no show next week because of Thanksgiving.

And I know you're going to be disappointed, but we're heading into our holiday membership drive.

Hey, it's what pays the bills around here.

We'll see you back here in a few weeks.

From all of us here at Kansas City, PBS.

Be well.

Keep calm and carry on.