A longtime area congressman calls it quits, leading to a frenzied scramble to replace him.

Quinton Lucas puts us out of our misery, ending a monthslong flirtation with a congressional run.

So he's not going to be a short timer after all.

The Jackson County Executive breaking a pledge to leave at the end of the year.

The long awaited Rock Island Bridge finally opens, and the symphony comes clean on big plans for a 4000 seat concert venue just off the blossom.

It's all next on a Week in review.

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of Bob and Marlese Gourley, the Courtney S Turner Charitable Trust, John H. Mize, and Bank of America Na Co trustees, the Francis Family Foundation through the discretionary fund of David and Janice Francis.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Nick Haines, and thanks for joining us again on our weekly journey through the most impactful, confusing, and downright head scratching local news stories.

Hopping on board the Weekend Review bus with us this week.

Lead political reporter for the Kansas City Star Kason Bayless, former star reporter Dave Helling from KC One News, local government reporter Savannah Hawley- and at the helm of our metro's newest newspaper, Next Page KC Eric Wesson.

Now, at a time when our elected leaders seem to want to cling on to power forever.

A rare local congressional seat has opened up as Sam Graves, who represents parts of North Kansas City, calls it quits.

He is the 57th House member to announce he'll retire from the chamber at the end of his term.

That's the highest number in a decade.

His decision triggers a political frenzy to replace him.

More on that in just a moment.

But did we get a convincing explanation?

Case as why he's leaving now?

He's not.

Retirement age is 62.

Sure.

We haven't heard.

You know this exact reason, but I think you can look at sort of the political environment that's sort of surrounding this retirement.

You know, Representative Graves has sort of amassed a lot of influence in Congress in his 26 years there.

I think there's a broader expectation that Democrats could take the U.S.

House in the upcoming midterms.

In that situation, you know, representatives would have to give up chair, his his chairmanship of the House Transportation Committee.

I do think that that probably played a role in this decision.

Yeah.

Is there anything more to the story, Dave?

No.

I think that, encapsulates it quite well.

Even if the Republicans were to maintain control of the House, it's quite likely that Sam Graves would have been removed from his chairmanship in the transportation Committee anyway, because Republicans like to rotate the leadership positions.

And so whatever happens in November, it appeared likely that Sam Graves would lose the only real job he ever wanted in Congress, which is to run that committee.

He wasn't interested in leadership.

He turned down an opportunity to run for the U.S.

Senate for Missouri against Claire McCaskill several years ago.

So for all of those reasons, and for the fact that he can now make an enormous amount of money, as a lobbyist, particularly given his knowledge of transportation issues, I think it's not a huge surprise, although the timing was and the circumstances, I think, surprised a lot of people.

But the actual decision was not.

We bring in a lot of, politicians from both sides of the state line.

I could never get him on the show after all that time.

Over 20 years.

Never appeared on the program, could never get him to appear.

Now we seeing all these stories, Savannah, about how his finger tips were on almost on all these big projects we've had.

I mean, what was his influence?

He was in Congress for such a long time that he amassed a lot of power in that way.

He didn't really feel the need, obviously, to go out into town halls to go talk to voters, to go on shows like this one.

I think that'll be an interesting part of the race for his seat for his replacement.

Talk show host Krista Gaul is running and also, city council member Nathan Willett, who is sort of in this up to be a very heated election.

So I'm interested to see where that goes.

Let's take a look at that.

Here's Chris de Gaulle's announcement.

President Trump is going to need all the reinforcements he can get in Washington.

And that's why I've decided I'm going to leave my show.

I'm going to leave this microphone, and I'm going to enter the arena today.

And Chris de Gaulle, the conservative talk show host, isn't the only one.

As Savannah mentions, Kansas City Councilman Nathan Willett has also thrown his hat into the ring, which is interesting, Eric, because, well, it was just on, Stickles radio show this past week, and they were all buddy buddy.

They didn't talk about this beforehand.

Hey, which one's got one of us is going to run.

Suppose they did.

And it's going to be interesting to see how they go against each other now, because I've always thought they were cool.

They were good friends.

But now I guess we're getting ready to see politics make strange bedfellows, they say.

And this is going to be one of those two.

Long time political consultant, Jeff Rowe is the fulcrum around which all of this circulates.

Rowe really began his career and based his career on his relationship with Sam Graves.

Chris Tuggle I think my memory fades in my old age.

He used to work for Jeff Rowe and so knows Jeff Rowe well, and so you get the sense that some of this was orchestrated, that when Sam Graves decided to quit, Jeff Rowe new turn just took all, made the endorsement.

And the other thing Nathan Willett has to keep in mind is, we pointed out that the sixth district is huge, it's real.

And people think it's just North Kansas City, but it actually stretches to the Mississippi River.

I mean, it is a massive district, so it means that Nathan Willett will not be well recognized, say, east of the middle of the state.

And so he'll have a lot of work to do out there.

Wouldn't that be true?

Of course.

The goal, though, I mean, has a goal has been on the radio, which helps him, in terms of it's his son, particularly in rural Missouri.

And again, Jeff Rowe's connection will help him enormously.

Not to mention Sam Graves connection in some of those counties that say someone like Nathan Willard has not been.

This is all on the Republican side, of course, but what about Democrats?

Is this a chance now for Democrats to pick up the seat before I get our guests to respond to that?

Remember when Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes took on Sam Graves and he eviscerated her with negative ads?

That actually got a lot of national attention about what he called her San Francisco values in San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi's throwing a party for Kay Barnes, a ritzy California fundraiser celebrating Barnes San Francisco style values.

Yes to same sex marriage, yes to abortion, yes to amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Kay Barnes is raising hundreds of thousands of dollars from West Coast liberals by promoting their values, not ours.

Big city Mayor Kay Barnes and Nancy Pelosi celebrating their San Francisco values.

I'm Sam Graves.

I approve this message.

Remember that Eric?

Yes, I do.

I remember that campaign.

You know, it's interesting because some graves today is being viewed as this not unassuming, quiet, not about all the theatrics.

This is over 20 years ago, this was a kind of an aggressive campaign ad.

Yes it was.

And then they started having these old political groups, run these campaign ads so they could say, hey, I didn't know anything about it.

That's what the of brand political groups were doing, chasing a lot of the attention.

Again on this week is on the Republicans.

What they're going to do.

Who's going to fill that seat?

Do Democrats have a chance this election cycle, or is this considered such a safe Republican seat these days?

Sure.

I mean, there's always a chance.

I don't want to say there isn't a chance, but I Democrats do face an uphill battle.

Regardless of which map is used, I think there's still this out send out outstanding question of, you know, whether, this new gerrymandered congressional map is going to be used in, in this upcoming election or if the 2022 map is going to be used.

Either way, I think a lot of the polling shows that Democrats will face an uphill battle in this race.

Now, after months of flirting with a run for Congress, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas is finally putting us out about misery.

He is not going to run against Congressman Mark Sanford in Missouri's fourth district.

I told you it was a big political week, but he's kept this going for months.

I mean, was there some new nugget of information that came out this week?

Yeah, I think it's still kind of an outstanding question of like when he actually made this decision not to run.

I mean, he told me as, as late as last week that he was still interested in this race.

You know, there is this poll from, representative Mark Alford's campaign, which that would be his potential opponent if he would have if he were going to run.

And that poll did show, you know, we're all for defeating Lucas pretty soundly.

So he's going to be the mayor then Quinton Lucas for the rest of his term, which will expire next year in August.

But he still says, well, I'm going to I'm still interested in future election.

Is there a better fit for him if it's not this race?

No.

Everybody thought this was the race for him to win, particularly this year, right.

And it was like, you know, he had been kind of selling wolf tickets at the beginning.

And then it kind of Peter down to the day before the election.

Here's what the issue that people have that I talked to this morning and earlier this week, the fact that he waited to the last minute to do it.

So now offer doesn't really have a good opponent, whereas somebody could have put a campaign together, done some information, and probably gave for a challenge.

And I think it is instructive that the Democrats are, in essence, giving up on the fourth district, potentially, and giving up on the sixth district in what is obviously going to be a Democratic year.

That suggests their polling shows that Republicans really have strong control of rural Missouri, and that's what's involved here.

I was pretty surprised that he didn't.

Then we'll talk about surprises.

Then.

The man temporarily picked to lead Jackson County after the recall election of Frank white, is now rethinking his political future, five months after making a pledge that he would not seek election to a full term as county executive.

Phil, a voter, has changed his mind.

He's now added his name to the ballot.

Is this the biggest U-turn in local political history?

This is Live Voter five months ago.

I will not be a candidate for county executive for the four year term.

I think it's very important for the interim to be focused on fixing what's gone wrong in the county executive office and not campaigning.

It takes away from it.

I want to be laser focused on doing what I'm doing, so I have committed to that before publicly, to a lot of people.

I signed an affidavit.

I wasn't I'm not going to I don't care who comes up and say, hey, you've done a great job.

I'm not here to find the trappings of the position.

And I think, oh, I want to do this.

You will not hear me doing that.

And I've committed that.

I have to hold me to it because it's just not going to happen.

Okay?

It could have been in any way more emphatic.

And then change it.

Change his mind.

Should any of us, then his voters, ever trust a politician who says they want to be that?

Just say one term.

I think this is Jackson County's worst kept secret, that he was going to run for county executive for a full term.

He said many, many times and many different places.

So nothing changed this week.

This has always been the plan.

Things officially change, you know, he said at the beginning of his appointment that he wasn't going to run.

But remember, that was something that the county legislature wanted to hear from this new appointed county executive to fill in the rest of Frank White Junior's term.

They wanted someone who, you know, wouldn't be running and wouldn't be politicking in the office.

Whether or not fill a voter has done that in his months so far is sort of in the eye of the beholder.

But, you know, he said in that clip that he no information could change his mind.

He said on Facebook.

And an announcement that information did change his mind and that so many voters want him to stay in this position, that he's going to let them decide he's not going to be the campaign commercial for all of his opponents from to.

Ron McGee was in that race, the new the Lee's Summit mayor, who is now put his name in this race, is that the ad?

We just played it for you?

Oh, I definitely think so.

I think it's a very easy thing for opponents in this race to sort of immediately latch on to, as you mentioned, like he was very emphatic, almost to the point where people weren't even asking him if he was going to, you know, run for reelection.

He was kind of volunteering that, at the beginning.

So, yeah, I think it's definitely going to play a role in this, in this race.

And with this election now in November, with all these other candidates getting in, including, again, the least summit mayor, that doesn't that put the pressure now on the Royals to make a quick decision, because we could have a new leader in Jackson County in a few months and they'd be starting from scratch again, you know.

Well, yeah.

Although there they started with scratch when Frank Lloyd left.

So they went back, at least on some of the things they needed to discuss.

And the the exact role of the county in this discussion is not completely clear to be in the I think the discussions are much more with Kansas City.

And if you believe John Sherman with North Kansas City and Kansas, which all in Kansas, trust and trust continues to be an issue in all of our local, politics.

But but, so I'm not sure that that will put any, great, momentum to trying to get a deal done other than other public pressure.

I will say that the idea that the public demanded that Phil, a vote run for office, is one of the oldest tropes in politics.

It goes back to George Washington.

You know, I really don't want this job, but you're forcing me to take it, I guess.

Although, I talked to Phil a couple of weeks ago and he was still undecided, but, when I was having conversations this morning with people, the concept was, hey, the unions, the labor people, they tell him to do it or else.

And I'm like, or else what?

That was the end of the conversation.

Yeah, but he felt like he's done a good job.

I think he's felt like when he got into it, he didn't know there was as much that needed to be done as needed to be done.

And that's his exit ramp.

Now, in other news, this week, three years later than advertised, the Rock Island Bridge finally opened.

In addition to a delayed start, the price tag went up from its original price of 5 million to 17 million at 120 year old span.

Linking Kansas City's West Bottoms to K.C., K is being promoted as the world's first entertainment district over a river.

What was the verdict from those who got to cross the bridge for the first time this week?

How is this being viewed?

Savannah, I think people are really excited for it.

It's sort of one of those things in a very heated time in the metro, we're like, oh, cool, you know, this is fun and we can go and hang out here.

I think maybe the delays kind of in a strange way, helped people's imagination of the bridge.

It build excitement for it.

And they're they're excited that it's finally open.

I think it's sort of a novelty in that way.

And a lot of people thought this was never going to happen.

This is a harebrained scheme.

Why are they even thinking about doing it now?

It's there.

And I spoke to some people who got to see it early on, and they were just impressed by how large it was.

It looks even bigger than it was even in the video that we just shown.

So this shows the possibility that anything could happen in Kansas City.

Eric.

Pretty much, because I didn't think it would ever, ever manifest.

But I guess there's a need and a demand for it.

And people, the novelty of it being new has gotten people into it.

I just I want to pass on, I know, but okay.

But I see that on Saturdays they're doing free yoga sessions on the bridge.

Can we expect you to be one of the participants in that?

Eric, I want to see how it works out first.

Dave, is that you?

Okay?

Oh, yeah.

Yoga will be a big thing for me.

Anyone can watch the show and know how much I'm into exercise, but, the, what will be interesting is, whether the bridge, operation has repeat customers, everyone is going to go once just to see.

And how did they make this work?

And boy, this is interesting.

And the river is under our feet.

But will you go back?

And I think that's the central challenge in terms of entertainment and food and all the other things we do, and we'll see how that works a year or two from now.

Well, it was once Kansas City's largest private company.

Now, who's left Oracle, the tech company that took over hometown sooner, has announced the largest layoffs in the company's history.

And more than 500 of its Kansas City workers got a rude awakening this week.

An email telling them they're out of a job.

It's been ten years since the company opened its innovation campus on the site of the old Bannister Mall.

And didn't they get $1.75 billion in tax incentives to make it happen?

And weren't they promising to add 15,000 jobs to the site, not shrink the workforce?

Eric.

Yeah, and none of that has came into existence.

They were going to do all this development around it.

And I guess Oracle could say, well, that was Sana's deal.

So we don't have to.

Yeah, that's a different company.

We didn't have to do it.

But a lot of that development that they were supposed to do around there just hasn't manifest.

They got a couple of apartments and the school district, I think out in that area that was supposed to get money.

I think they really got the short end of the stick on that.

Are the lessons here on this, Dave?

Well, there are many lessons for Kansas City, which is if you depend too much on any one company, for employment and revenue, you're bound to be disappointed in this world.

I mean, we live in a, in an economy now where changes like this happen all the time.

And artificial intelligence, which is at the root of what they're doing it.

Oracle, Cerner, will have an effect like this on thousands of businesses, arguably.

And so get ready.

This isn't the first time you're going to see headlines like this.

The other lesson is they were pivoting towards artificial intelligence.

And they're using the savings from these layoffs to build out data centers like that one that they're thinking about in independence, or someone is thinking about an independent.

So, this headline will repeat itself.

The other thing is handing out tax incentives can sometimes backfire.

And it did here.

By the way, another big economic news this week with average gas prices across America topping $4 a gallon, States across the country are now considering suspending state fuel taxes to help drivers out.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has just signed a 60 day gas tax suspension into law.

Can we expect chaos in Laura Kelly and Mike Kehoe to follow in Kansas and Missouri?

I'm not sure about that.

In the Missouri side, if you look at sort of Mike Quixote's history, you know, as lieutenant governor back in 2021, he was a supporter of the gas tax.

You know, I do think he has his hands full right now with trying to eliminate Missouri's income tax right now, that might be too much to to add to his plate right now, but, hey, what about an issue to show you're a hero to the public?

Wouldn't it be a substantial benefit if Kansas suspends its fuel tax?

That would save drivers $0.24 a gallon.

Savannah in Missouri it would be even more closer to $0.30 a gallon.

Wouldn't Kelly and Kehoe be viewed as, oh my God, how amazing they are as political leaders?

If they were making that difference with with voters, you know, I think temporarily, maybe because things are so hard right now for people as gas prices rise, as other costs rise.

But what you have to think about in suspending taxes like this is how it's going to impact the state's budget moving forward.

No one wants to be, you know, a Sam Brownback, type of legacy, in suspending taxes like this.

And I think, you know, when they're staring down the barrel of, tougher budgets and years ahead, eliminating a revenue source like this might not be their top priority.

You just quickly two things.

First, if you, lower the gas tax, eventually you're going to have to raise it, and people are going to go around and say, hey, Mike Kehoe raised the gas tax $0.30 a gallon.

So that's always going to be a problem.

And then this is the dirty little secret of energy.

And gas prices in Kansas and Missouri are among the lowest in the nation and have been historically for many.

And so we're not feeling the pain they're feeling in California or Florida, or even some other East and West Coast cities.

So the impetus to do it in either state seems to be less than it might be able to do.

And so, you know, even in European countries, of course, even at $4 a gallon, that's very cheap when you put $9 and more gallon and, you know, we pay out of European countries.

Three 3340 that's where it's not cold.

But it's a difference whether you're getting pinched or slapped.

Yeah.

And if you have a budget and your budget is is set for this, any break that you can and this will be a popular move, don't you think?

I would think so.

But like Dave said, but when you raise it back up again, it was like, hey, wait a minute.

All right.

Well, we talked about it a couple of weeks ago.

Now it's official the Kansas City Symphony, revealing designs for a new 4000 seat performing arts venue next to the plaza.

And so this feels right that Kansas City should have all kinds of music venues.

We have big ones.

We have small ones now.

We have one in the middle that's that's an indoor year round music facility that will bring all kinds of exciting artists, new artists to Kansas City that we haven't had.

Well, there's still lots of skepticism, of course, about why this is needed when the symphony already has a state of the art home at the Kauffman Center.

But is that what is missing?

No.

Places with 4000 seats in Kansas City missing out on acts that would have come here anyway.

I thought the Kauffman Center was great.

Great acoustics, great atmosphere and environment.

I thought that was you couldn't get any better than that.

But evidently, I don't know a whole lot because they're going to build a new place.

Can be put on screen for a moment here.

Here are some of the venues around our metro and their sizing.

And you'll see from this graphic here that we have, there isn't anything in that 4000 range.

I mean, when we look at the Kauffman Theater, that's 1800 Helzberg Hall, 1600 seats, there isn't any with anything in this area.

Well, right.

But, you know, you've got places with 6 or 7000 seats that could seat 4000 people if that's how many tickets they sell.

And, I do think that there is some sense among the public that this seems to be a place where maybe the spending is not as essential as it might be in other places.

I no one, to my knowledge, has said yet how much this thing is going to cost.

And there are lots of needs in Kansas City, and whether we need a new place for musical acts is at least open to some.

By the way, this would be right next to where the Kansas City Plaza Library is just off the plaza.

But they say, well, we have the money to make this happen, to start the whole project.

So should we even care if they're paying for it themselves?

They never paid for it.

They think it's going to impact, at least in some ways.

And the way development goes in Kansas City, often there are seeking tax abatements of some sort or tax breaks.

And so I think in one way or another, this will impact the residents of Kansas City.

I do also love anything.

Anything new happens in Kansas City.

The big question, of course, when you look at the comments on these stories, is parking.

This is going to be a nightmare.

Where are they going to park, you know?

Yeah.

Well, apparently there is plenty of parking structure parking nearby, to alleviate some of that to a problem.

And of course, the streetcar plays a role because the assumption is people might be able to walk to this venue from the streetcar stop.

But of all the needs in the Kansas City region, the idea that a 4600 seat theater is at the top of the list, I think some people would would question that if they pay for it out of their own pocket.

You're right.

There can't be that much of a concern.

They're going to need infrastructure, sidewalks, they're going to need sewer.

And those details will be available.

Some of those things.

Yeah.

Well, they can join it with the ask for the new stadium.

Like we had that by state tax with the sports and arts venues.

Remember that music thing right behind the dugout.

And you'll be fine.

All right.

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?

Another round of No Kings rallies brings thousands onto the streets of Kansas City.

The protest also shuts down the streetcar line, prompting concerns about how Kansas City will handle crowds during the World Cup.

A mini liquor bottle ban is still on pause after major pushback from convenience store owners, who say it'll cost hundreds of jobs and is discriminatory because it doesn't apply citywide.

Matt Lucas says the measure will reduce crime and public disorder.

Kansas getting ready to make it a crime for citizens to come within 25ft of an Ice agent if they've been told to back off.

The measure is now on Governor Kelly's desk, another high profile departure from the Kansas City art scene.

The executive director of the ballet on the way out after less than three years in the job, baseball is officially back.

It's the week of the Royals home opener, and they win.

And last call for World Cup tickets.

The cheapest seat for the first game in Kansas City, $802 already.

Case.

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

I do want to pivot briefly to, you know, Sam Graves retirement.

I think it's it's hard to talk about, the departure of of Sam Graves without also talking about this effort to push out Representative Emanuel Cleaver during the upcoming midterms.

I think if if that effort succeeds, Kansas City's congressional representative representation is going to look a lot different.

And I think that's going to have a major impact on Kansas City's sort of relationship with the federal government moving forward.

It's a lot of experience going out the door.

Eric.

The shot bottles to the liquor bottles, very interesting, concept that they're presenting as far as connecting it to crime.

And there's no real connection to crime.

But one of the interesting, even though they said they looked at other states like Washington state, who have been doing this, and they say it does.

But here's what they don't mention.

Before they went to those single serve issues, they put a moratorium on liquor stores and liquor licenses.

That's what Kansas City hasn't done.

But I also learned this week that the law requires them to go through the state.

The state regulates it.

Anheuser-Busch is extremely powerful.

As Mikio look at his campaign contributions from that, they're not going to be in a position to change that regulation, which is perhaps why they keep kicking the can down the road in getting this to a vote in the city council.

That is correct.

All righty, Savannah, people should be looking at, you know, the cat's budget from the city of Kansas City is lower than what's needed to maintain bus, service in the area.

We're going to be seeing cuts to busses, and I think we need to start with the the agency and other municipalities need to start looking ahead to what stable regional funding source can prevent these sorts of things from happening year after year.

Yeah.

And you mentioned recently that even the bus riders are now forming a union, which seems very puzzling, but that's where we are with regards to that.

Dave, in his interviews on opening day, John Sherman said something new that was subtly did okay stadiums, which was he?

Yeah.

We need to have a public financing package in place before the announcement is made.

Well, that's an astonishing ask because it in essence, if it involves a vote of the people or some sort of local general tax, it means you would ask the voters to do that before you would announce where it's going.

And that doesn't seem possible to me.

So that imbroglio continues.

And on that we will say all week has been revealed.

Courtesy of KCUR While Savannah Hawley-Bates and the stars Casey and Bayless from next page Casey, Eric Wesson and Mr.

Kansas City stack on Substack, news icon Dave Helling and I'm Nick Haines from all of us here at Kansas City PBS.

Be well, keep calm and carry on.