Coming up.

What happened to all that talk of an Ice detention center in Kansas City?

Is it yesterday's news?

Roaring back.

Kansas City doesn't want them.

We welcome them.

Here.

Kansas City finally acts to restrict data centers.

But with 30 of these mega facilities already built.

Why now?

And is it too little, too late?

As Missouri lawmakers work on ways to punish the chiefs for moving to Kansas, is Jackson County next?

Also this week, sporting KC gets a new owner.

Is a new stadium name on the way.

And many of our viewers still want to know what the Chiefs are going to call their new stadium in Kansas.

Our panelists weigh in and it's a good news.

Bad news week for Kansas City's World Cup organizers.

Four national teams now say they'll use Kansas City as base camps during the tournament.

The bad news?

European politicians are now pushing for World Cup boycott.

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 S Turner Charitable Trust, John H. Mize and Bank of America and a co trustees, 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 you could join us on what is being a going to be a bone chilling weekend in Kansas City.

Also, a little hoarse after almost 15 events in three days, so apologies for that.

But removing their heavy coats, hats, gloves and snow boots to be with us this half hour.

Pete Mundo tracking the news weekdays from 6 to 10 on KCMO Talk Radio 95.7 FM for KC one.

News local government reporter Savannah Hawley-Bates, leading your Kansas Star editorial board of Yvette Walker and former star staffer.

Now Kansas City's attack on Substack a Dave Helling.

Well, a week after the Kansas City Council votes to block the opening of an Ice detention center in city limits, what happened?

Did the issue simply go away?

I wanted gangs and ice to know that if Kansas.

City doesn't want.

Them, we welcome them here to Cash County.

County.

Vote for Trump almost 70% countywide.

So they were in favor for these policies that he's putting in place now.

All righty.

That's Kansas City area Congressman Mark Alford and the head of Kansas County government.

But does that mean Kansas City itself is no longer being considered by the Department of Homeland Security?

And they've moved on, Savannah.

No, it does not mean they don't.

The owners of the property or, platform Ventures say that it's as good as a done deal.

However, there's some disagreement in that because, port KC, which is given, many bonds to, to this company, to this area, is still listed as the owner.

There's some contractual obligations or they would have to release those.

They've not been contacted about this.

And the city meanwhile, has this, ban or moratorium on non municipal detention centers.

Will it hold up in court?

We don't know.

Maybe not, but the goal here, I think, is to slow down the process so much that maybe they do decide to go elsewhere.

We were asked to be almost legal experts on this conversation today, because we heard that the moratorium will leading up in court.

We talked to about a thing called the Supremacy Clause.

So why does that make a difference?

Well, there is a Supremacy Clause in the United States Constitution that says if there's a conflict between state law and federal law, the federal law is supreme, is trumps the state law.

Now, how it would apply to this particular situation isn't clear to me.

There's if Congress passed a law to say you must put an ice facility in Richards Cobo or, or the former Richards Co Bauer space.

That's one thing.

But to just, establish a lease and then the city, puts restrictions on it.

It's happening in Leavenworth.

There would be a real play in the joints as to what the laws do or do not apply.

And so the Supremacy Clause comes later.

One other quick note it's interesting that people have discovered the Supremacy Clause in Missouri, where they passed the Second Amendment Protection Act that nullified federal laws on gun possession and other things.

So the Supremacy Clause is sometimes applied sporadically.

So a moratorium, it doesn't mean that much, Pete.

Well, Mayor Lucas was on my show Thursday, and he didn't sound super confident.

He said he welcomed legal challenges, which tells me he knows it's coming.

I wonder, too, if he's just looking to buy some time and maybe similar to to the Missouri Kansas deal with, the Chiefs and the Royals.

He's basically hoping the feds basically say, hey, you know what?

This is not worth the fight.

Let's find somewhere else.

The problem is, this location in this building is attractive because the bones are set up.

They just have to do the inside and they want to have this thing up and running by the end of this year.

So it makes it attractive from that perspective.

Was was he under pressure though also to act and be seen to be doing something after the death of Rene?

Good.

Some activists in town took him to task on Twitter to say, you know, you haven't given much of a response, too little, too late.

Yeah, it was a great virtue signaling opportunity.

And it passed 12 one.

So, you know, they can all go to Twitter and say, we did what we could and and the rest is out of our hands.

But can I ask about I mean, how much of this has been speculation all along?

The Department of Homeland Security says they've issued a statement.

They have no plans to open a facility at this time.

The story that captured all the attention was a Washington Post story.

It wasn't even knew it was from Christmas Eve, December 24th.

It does seem like there's been a lot of saber rattling that's gone.

So I think that's unclear at this point.

I think that, just from, people here in Kansas City, I think it's clear that a lot of people really don't want to see this.

Of course, we just heard that Cass County welcomes this.

So I think that's something to take a look at.

And and one other thing with us too, is, yes, the city might be, you know, taken to task with the federal government, chooses to open the Ice detention facility, but this moratorium does protect it from something like what core civic did in Leavenworth.

It protects it from a private actor coming in and open the Ice detention facility.

So if a federal government chose not to do it, but maybe asked another private prison to do it, it wouldn't be allowed.

Just quickly, the litigation would go on for some time.

And I think you were right in some respects, Nick, that this is, a bit of a delaying tactic.

There would be discussions, lawsuits, depositions, the whole bit.

Looking at all the news accounts this week, though, it didn't seem like everyone in Cass County wanted it.

The mayor of Belton went gulp.

We're going to have one.

I don't think he wanted one there.

No.

And listen, I understand without knowing what exactly is in the backyard of each of these locations.

There's, you know, a not in my backyard mentality for Republicans and Democrats, depending on what locations we're looking at.

So I think that's the belt in there in that case, covering his, backside.

Now, while the mayor is letting or telling the federal government they need to be more transparent about their plans to open an Ice detention center, why is he not following his own advice when it comes to building the city's new detention facility?

Voters in April approved the building of a new Kansas City jail next to the Jackson County Detention Center near Truman Sports Complex.

But hold the front page without any meetings or public input.

The mayor has changed the location, he says.

It should be erected now, seven miles north near the Missouri River.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that we unilaterally, within moments, voted to, relocate the municipal, detention facility that we spent months telling voters was going to be at I-70 and 40 highway.

All righty.

Dave, your colleague Melinda Helling Burger says this is a switcheroo, a bait and switch on voters.

But if the mayor says the jail could be built cheaper somewhere else, is he looking out for taxpayers on this?

Well, first of all, we have to make sure it can be, constructed cheaper.

The whole idea of building it at 40 highway, and I-70 was to partner with the Jackson County new jail construction and maybe share some of those expenses.

But the other thing is, voters were told for years that this is where it would go, and to at the last minute, move it somewhere else without any real public discussion is probably a bad thing for the mayor.

And leads to distrust of government, which is the bigger issue because the city is going to the ballot in April to renew the earnings tax.

You don't want people thinking they don't keep their promises.

And in this case, they certainly didn't.

But for some people would say, why should we care?

All we want is a jail.

Kansas City hasn't even owned a jail for more than a decade.

Pete.

Well, it doesn't make you wonder, too, if, speaking of delaying tactics, this buys little time on whatever else is, planned around this thing.

But it's been over ten years, so why start the process and expedite it right now?

It's just it is something with Quentin Lucas right now that is becoming an impediment for him during his final 18 months.

There's a lot of talk about can the Royals stay in Jackson County in Kansas City, Missouri, without a vote?

Now, this without a vote.

And he's.

Well, yes.

You know, it happens.

James had the same thing.

It happens to a lot of politicians as they kind of wrap up that lame duck term where it's, you know what, it's no skin off my back.

And you do wonder if these things are stacking up and coming together in many ways.

Okay.

So how does the mayor defend himself on this?

He says it would be a cheap aside.

Yeah.

So the vote was a or the you know, the public safety sales tax was approved without a, official location for the jail, to be fair.

So yes, it was for years said to be this site.

There was no on the ballot.

This is where it will be built.

The, you know, the sort of city council rigmarole was that, the Jackson County Jail site had a lot more site mediation that needed to be done.

It's on a floodplain, and it would cost dozens of millions of more dollars to actually get the site ready to even build.

And then the tens of millions of dollars to build the site.

So the assumption here, the pitch here, I guess, from the mayor, is that this site where the temporary modular jail facility is going to be built before the World Cup along French Street, will be cheaper overall, to run and can also include the Community Resource center, which would have more wraparound social services for people who might be in the jail versus if they had to spend all this money to remediate the site for the jail, they might not be able to have that there.

Does this do a disservice to voters event?

Of course.

I think people are trying to wrap their head around, okay, wait a minute.

Where and how close is it to a school?

That's an issue.

And just a question of, I thought it was going to be this and now it's this.

And I think that there is a question of transparency.

I don't myself, I don't quite understand the timeline, why we had to rush this through.

What could have taken that much longer, at least to give the city council a heads up if not to have some public discussion.

Well, speaking of, stories that are kind of complicated to get your arms around, the Kansas City Council votes this week on new rules for building data centers.

Now there seems to be one on every corner right now.

What is the city planning to do?

And is this the end of these mega buildings, we're told are great for economic development, but most of us.

Come on, Savannah, I'm totally clueless about what is actually even in them.

Yeah, I mean, I think we are totally clueless about it.

And the problem was before, Kansas City passed the zoning code change, data centers could be built anywhere that they were approved.

So this zoning change restricts pretty heavily what sorts of zoning districts they can go in.

For example, it can't go in a residential area.

It can't go in a a mixed use area, mostly only the manufacturing areas.

The sounds really, I'll admit, boring and sort of, you know.

Actually, only nine of our viewers switch channels.

Right during the Sox.

But I think the interesting thing here is that now, data centers that may, need special approval, they need public, engagement sessions.

And so there's more feedback there.

Okay.

But is this a little too late?

I mean, we have 30 of them already in the city, including in your former workplace, the Kansas City Star Printing Press building.

Now on to I campus.

So why was 31 considered just too many?

We need we need to now evaluated after having 30 of them already.

Yeah, well, it's too late for the 30, but, but as you said, it seems like they're just popping up.

I still think people just don't quite understand how much economic development is going to bring.

How many people, once it's finished, how many people actually work there, how many jobs are you going to have and what's it going to do with costs, energy costs?

Water.

Can I think that's it isn't it the utility bill.

What happens to.

That?

You've seen electric bills go up around the country in areas especially where you have heavy, data center usage.

So with that, combined with what are the jobs beyond construction jobs are fair questions people are asking right now, and what value these things add to the communities that they're built in.

A little known, noticed part of a mike Kehoe state of the state address was a full throated endorsement of nuclear power in Missouri.

And you're also saying discussions of new nuclear power potential in Kansas.

Both of these, I think, are driven by the desire for more electricity for data centers.

And that will be one of the great issues over the next 4 or 5 years, as these things are built out as to whether people want to endorse more nuclear power, to help provide the energy needed to run them.

Now we're going to be dealing with a lot of stadium name changes around here pretty soon.

While everyone is fixating on the new homes for the Chiefs and royals, there's big news happening with our other big professional sports team, Sporting Kansas City.

Now under a new ownership.

As Peter Luke, the CEO of Overland Park based financial firm Creative Planning, takes over as the team's majority stakeholder, is a stadium name change now on the way, Children's mercy just ended its ten year naming rights at sporting KC.

So should we be prepared to get our time times around saying a creative planning park?

Or does anybody really care what the name of these stadiums are?

Naming rights are one way.

Well, I'm sure we'll talk about that involving the Chiefs.

Naming rights are a way for a team to make money.

It's not really about, the fans caring one way or another.

It's just a way to put extra money in the pockets of the owners that presumably, is then spent on players trying to make things better, regardless of the sports.

So I assume that's what's at work here.

Well, stadium name changes are on a lot of your minds right now.

We can review viewer.

Dennis asks, are the Chiefs going to keep the Arrowhead name when they move to Kansas?

What does the deal say about that?

Does the state of Kansas and Wyandotte County get a say in what she should be called?

Pete?

Well, I think I was thinking through it before the show.

The only stadium I can think that was knocked down, rebuilt and kept its name was Yankee Stadium.

That's the only one I could think of.

So I don't think they're going to keep Arrowhead.

I mean, there's a lot of ways they could go.

Bucky's is going to be down the street.

That may be an option.

Bucky Stadium, I don't know, something like Bucky Stadium, sponsored by the Kansas taxpayer and the jackals who got abused on the star Bon district.

Is that too long or you think that works.

That's an.

Okay.

The term sheet the vague as it is between the Chiefs and the state of Kansas, does give the Chiefs the right to name the new stadium.

Now, it does give Kansas an ability to say no if it thinks that the name that Chiefs, choose is offensive or wrong or some sort of, you know, out of the ordinary.

And so there is a role for local government and state government to play.

But basically, again, the Chiefs are going to, one assumes, try and make money from the naming rights to the stadium.

There's also a question as to whether the name Arrowhead is owned in some sense by Jackson County, which owns the current stadium, whether there would be a copyright or some sort of legal, interface between, the Truman Sports Complex and the New Deal in Kansas so that story will play it.

So our viewers, though, have, workarounds on that.

Dave.

They've actually given us some of their suggestions to any of these.

Appeal to you.

The arrow dome event, Panasonic field at the arrow dome.

Bucky's field at the Arrow Dome, which is what Pete just mentioned.

Or a University of Kansas Health System.

Nebraska Furniture Mart dome sponsored by Hollywood Casino.

Any of those have a ring to it?

I would say this.

I can see why.

Maybe the Chiefs would want to keep or have a little throwback to the name that was used in Missouri.

Right.

Hard feelings.

However, if we're going to change the name, just asking the question, is it time to get away from using Native American culture naming?

I'm not sure the chiefs themselves would be interested in doing that.

They haven't shown any support for, renaming or being more sensitive to Native American communities when they were, when they were still, permanently in Missouri.

I kind of like the billion dollar dome.

How about that's what it's going to cost times three.

So let's name it for the cash going into the structure.

Well, while Missouri lawmakers are actually continuing to work on ways to punish the chiefs for moving to Kansas, is Jackson County next.

Now, there are now calls for the county to stop paying any repair and maintenance bills the Chiefs submit on Arrowhead Stadium.

This is just an opportunity for us to represent taxpayers in a different way and say, look.

Let's put this money towards this long term strategy of trimming sports complex as a whole.

We don't have to reimburse this team money if they're not committed to us.

We're not going to need legal battle up here.

We understand there are going to be some, difficulties dealing with the future of the stadiums, but we're not going to get in the middle of messing with the leases.

All righty, Pete.

So we now have the new county chair saying one thing.

And the new county executive for pushing back.

Are we in sort of clash like we saw when Frank white was county executive between the legislature on this?

We are not because, as is par for the course.

Manny Abarca doesn't know what he's talking about.

Talking to people on the Jackson County Sports Commission.

If they suddenly take that money away, the county is on the hook for the money.

So there's no way around this.

It gets some headlines, it gets people on TV.

There's nothing there.

They're those conversations we're had this week.

It's over.

It's done.

They're going to get what they're owed to the end of the contract.

And that's how this is going to go.

We did hear, though, in later comments from Phil the voter this week that he said, well, you know, the deal may still fall through.

So is he just being very magnanimous and positive about making sure we keep the Chiefs happy because he thinks they can still snag it?

Yeah, we chatted about that just for the show.

Again, you have to show me just what has to happen for this deal not to go through right now.

It just doesn't seem very likely.

And I think that perhaps as you say, he's just trying to keep his conversations open.

Yes.

Well, it was in Topeka this week, a big hearing, a bipartisan hearing for the first time, lawmakers weighing in with a Chiefs attorney about what the details of this deal were, is was there any evidence from that conversation that people may be saying, you know, we don't want this to go through?

No, in part because the, legislators on the panel didn't seem particularly interested in any of this other than to pat themselves on the back for its passage.

But but there was some a couple of interesting developments.

One is Cor Maxwell, who was the lawyer for the chiefs, said, we think we can retire the SA bonds in 15 years or less, not the 30 that are planned, I think, and I think most people believe that's unrealistic.

They say that because it's not just the games, but this huge district that will be built around it, a huge district.

And they say their phones are ringing off the hook with people wanting to be part of it.

Oh yeah.

And a lot of the jobs, temporary construction jobs.

Let's add that they said 20,000, the Buffalo Bill Stadium right now that's opening up this year, 10,000 jobs, SoFi Stadium in LA, which is about seven times the size of Kansas City as a metro, use somewhere between 15 and 16,000 construction jobs.

If 20,000 is the number, the workforce isn't here anyway.

Those are one of the many questions that came out of this hearing, on top of the fact that, you know, this was kind of bipartisan.

It's interesting to see this is not falling along party lines, one lawmaker said.

Senator Titus said, hey, what happens in 30 years with this whole project, right?

If they walk up and go to Missouri, we've got an empty stadium with an empty commercial development property, a mixed use that no one's going to want to be a part of.

Who's on the hook?

Maxwell wouldn't answer it because he knows the answer is the state of Kansas already?

Well, it was a good news.

Bad news week for Kansas City World Cup organizers.

The good news sources say four teams will now headquarter out of Kansas City during the tournament, boosting our global exposure.

At breaking news on Fox four News at Six, we now know four countries will have base camps in the Kansas City area during the World Cup Argentina, the Netherlands, England.

And we've just confirmed Algeria.

This is absolutely huge.

News.

For the.

Metro area at the number.

Already.

Help us understand here what is the benefit of being a base camp and how will we benefiting from that?

The idea is that the teams will have their base camps here, will draw more fans to stay here throughout the duration of the World Cup, who will then spend more money, who will stay in their short term rentals or hotels for longer, and Kansas City would see more of an income generated from these games.

We don't have a specific number.

But Kansas City is, you know, the planning team, Casey, 2026, has been saying since we're so centrally located, we have, you know, a benefit to these teams to be their base camp so they don't have to fly from one end of the country to another.

Every time they have a game, they can go from the middle.

There's also a backhanded compliment that goes with this, which is that when I've been looking at the international soccer boards on this that they talk about, oh, it's great to be in somewhere like Kansas City because you can avoid the media scrutiny, the media scrum, which is having bigger cities.

Whether or not you believe that if the fans believe that and you know Savannah said, if we get more people here spending more time here, even if the 13 teams aren't playing here, you know, you can see some kind of an economic driver.

Of course, what that number is, is always it's questionable.

And all of the money that is supposed to come to Kansas City be the World Cup, that number has been questioned as well.

Well, I said it was a bad news week as well as good Newsweek.

The bad news is that we have European politicians now calling for a World Cup boycott over Trump's plans to take over Greenland.

How seriously should we take that, Pete?

Not at all.

It's kind of like when he was quick.

Well, it's like when people wanted to boycott the NFL over Colin Kaepernick.

It's the same thing.

I mean, they'll talk a big game.

This is their favorite sport, not our favorite sport.

They're addicted to it, just like we are football.

Politics are not getting in the way of that.

No, but I do think that there will be some fans, across the world who will look at the disorder in the United States, particularly around immigration and visas, and say, hey, I can stay home and watch this on television.

I don't have to go to Kansas City or Los Angeles or any of these other places.

And I do think that there will be some damage to attendance of the World Cup precisely for that reason.

You can't put those pictures on worldwide TV and not have some people go, why spend thousands?

I'll just watch it on my television now.

What was the story we missed on this week's program?

We can't get to everything in the news.

If you pipes burst this weekend, that will probably be your biggest story of the week.

But there were some other interesting stories we didn't get to foreign trips, and inappropriate spending has pushed the Hickman Mills School District on the brink of financial collapse.

They're now cutting 70 staff members and shuttering an elementary school that faces a $14 million budget crisis.

Jack, it gets a hearing.

That's the new effort in Jefferson City to split Jackson County from Kansas City.

Yet nobody quite seems to know what it actually means and how seriously to take it.

Kansas City marks Martin Luther King Day, and a familiar face rejoins the Chiefs.

Is this the beginning of the turnaround?

What was your story, Savannah?

Mine is.

There's a big hyperscale data center that's proposed to come to independence out in eastern Jackson County.

It's it's a huge data center.

It's going to take up a lot of water and electricity.

And I'm hearing that residents are getting upset about the thought of having it near them.

And they are, sort of mounting a protest or resistance to having this data center.

And we'll see how that plays out.

An independent city Council event.

I think childcare is very important.

And over on the Kansas side, a report came out last week that said that 7%, only 7% of eligible children are actually taking child care subsidies.

We know how much child care costs, so why wouldn't they want to take the money?

And it's because of a lot of convoluted, issues that's going on.

United Methodist Health Fund did a study and made some recommendations.

I hope they get that figured out.

I think that's very important.

Dave.

New York Times had a story this week that the murder rate in the United States has dropped, or will soon drop to a 100 year low, the lowest rate, that is murders per 100,000 in a century.

That, of course, is not the case in Kansas City.

And I think there needs to be much more attention paid to understanding why Kansas City may stand outside the national trend for a dramatic.

They said there was a 5% drop in homicides last.

Year in some cities, 60%, 70%, I mean, and that in Baltimore, for example.

So I recommend people to read that times story and then understand why perhaps we're not part of that trend.

Pete.

Well, on a similar note, the death of Chris Wells last week, the 41 year old father who was, killed by shot by his neighbor, Jeffrey King.

We now know Geoffrey King's attorney is going to use the stand your ground defense.

How does that play out now?

The man was shot.

Reportedly eight times in the back.

And it seems strong for Stand Your Ground.

But we also know Missouri has very robust stand your ground laws.

So watching how that plays out and what that means for that neighborhood in the Northland and the implications on Kansas City, with a lot of allegations flying around, will be interesting.

And on that, we will say all week has been reviewed courtesy of the stars of Ed Walker.

And 6 to 10 weekdays on KCMO Talk Radio, 95.7 FM Mundo from KC, while News Savannah Holly Bates and news icon Dave Howling and I'm Nick Haines from all of us here at Kansas City PBS.

Be well, keep calm and carry on.