In Olathe, the Chiefs’ highly decorated cake was already baked | Opinion
Sometimes in a rigged game, the marks know they’re being played. They just can’t figure out how to stop it.
Tuesday night in Olathe’s packed City Council chambers, resident after resident stood up for two hours to explain, with admirable clarity, why pledging 30 years of future sales tax revenue to the Kansas City Chiefs was a terrible idea.
They cited economic studies showing these deals don’t benefit cities. They questioned the lack of fiscal analysis. They begged for more transparency.
One speaker, a former economics teacher named Ian Pearce, put it plainly.
“Call Clark Hunt’s bluff,” Pearce said of the Chiefs’ billionaire owner. “Tell him that Olathe won’t pay his extortion fee.” The room erupted with applause.
Then the council voted 7-0 to hand over the money.
“Fairly easy decision tonight,” Mayor John Bacon said afterward, praising the Chiefs as a “class organization.”
Taxpayers foot bill for team spirit
There’s one thing in particular that has bothered me since this deal was announced back in December, when Kansas made history by approving one of the largest stadium subsidies ever given to a professional sports team.
The state will use STAR bonds — special tax increment financing — to build a new Chiefs stadium in Wyandotte County and a practice facility and headquarters in Olathe. Kansas taxpayers foot the majority of the bill by redirecting $2.78 billion in future sales tax revenue to pay off the bonds.
That’s all state taxes. But Chiefs and Kansas officials also want local taxes from Wyandotte County and Olathe due to the facilities being located there. And that requires a vote from those cities. Early on, the state’s commerce department suggested that this represents an “opportunity” for Olathe and Wyandotte County to, in effect, show their team spirit.
Here’s my question: If the state already announced a staggeringly generous deal to woo the Chiefs, why would Olathe and Wyandotte County voluntarily chip in more money? The deal is done. Why pledge future sales tax revenues that could pay for roads, police, fire protection and basic services? It’s like paying a cover charge for a bar you’re already standing inside.
‘Significant funding gap’
The obvious answer is that by the time Olathe residents lined up at the microphone Tuesday night, the deal had already been struck in quieter rooms. The cake was baked.
That might explain the contradictions we’ve seen in recent weeks from the forces behind this project.
Korb Maxwell, the attorney representing the Chiefs, told lawmakers in January that the STAR bond package was so solid it might be paid off in 15 years instead of 30. The Kansas City Business Journal reported last month that Scoop and Score Inc., a lobbying group for the Chiefs, circulated flyers in Topeka claiming the bonds could be retired “potentially in as little as 12 years.”
But by last Friday, when Olathe scheduled its vote, the messaging had shifted from optimistic to ominous.
“If the local taxes are not pledged,” Commerce spokesman Patrick Lowry told the Business Journal, “it would create a significant funding gap.”
Meanwhile, Olathe residents were receiving lobbying texts from Scoop and Score urging them to pressure council members because the project supposedly couldn’t happen without local support.
So which version were we meant to believe? That this is such a spectacular deal it pays for itself in a decade and a half — or that it’s so fragile it collapses without Olathe and Wyandotte County kicking in their own future tax revenue?
‘Yes, we are helping billionaires’
I tend to think it’s the latter. Either way, the process made clear how little regard the Chiefs and our elected leaders have for the public.
Olathe announced Friday night that the vote would take place Tuesday. Council members had a handful of days to review a commitment that binds the city for 30 years.
You don’t move that quickly unless you’re hoping the window for real scrutiny never quite opens.
Under the ordinance, for up to 30 years the city would divert local sales taxes generated within a 165-acre site at College and Ridgeview, where the project would be built. Revenue from that “base revenue area” — along with 7% of the city’s 9% hotel guest tax collected there — would go toward paying off bonds tied to the Chiefs’ project rather than into general city services.
City leaders cast the deal as a no-brainer: an empty 165-acre patch currently producing little to no tax revenue, a chance to land the Chiefs, and supposedly nothing to lose but taxes that don’t yet exist. It was framed less as a subsidy than a windfall waiting to happen — a once-in-a-generation opportunity for growth, jobs and development.
“This is money that is going to be coming from a piece of property that’s been sitting there for a lot of years, and I’ve been told that it’s difficult to develop on, and the Chiefs feel like this is a place where they can build a training facility and headquarters and have success,” Mayor Bacon said.
“Yes, we are helping billionaires, but these are the types of events that provide opportunities for the rest of us,” said Jib Felter, an Olathe developer. “Local businesses will have more opportunity for growth. Jobs will be created. Businesses will be started. Tourism will come to Olathe.”
Felter’s wife, LeEtta, was seated nearby. On the dais, actually. She is an Olathe city councilwoman.
‘Momentum and pressure’
But if the goal was to push this through before residents had time to organize, it failed. Opponents came prepared. There were several compelling counterpoints from residents. I’ll quote a few of them.
Derek Christensen: “This city has been successful and has grown over time. Let’s not pretend that this (land) won’t be developed in the next 30 years without requiring taxpayer money. So voting for this ordinance does mean foregoing tax revenue that we would otherwise not have gotten.”
Pete Marsh: “Our officials seem to be working harder at representing the Chiefs than their own residents, the taxpayers.”
Roxanne Gelles: “This vote is not about whether someone supports the Chiefs or not. It’s about whether this council is prepared to commit Olathe to a long-term financial structure before the full facts are known, and whether residents will feel that decisions reflect real due diligence rather than momentum and pressure.”
Christensen again: “If you’re progressive, you’ve got to ask yourself: Why is the middle class taxpayer funding a stadium and a practice field for an NFL owner worth billions? If you’re conservative, you have to ask yourself, why are government handouts going to a successful business?”
Terence McIff: “Where’s the cost-benefit analysis? We’re going to vote on this, and then do a fiscal analysis? Something seems very wrong there. Please do not vote on this until there is some basis for making this decision.”
Olathe’s deadline to make a decision on committing its local taxes is Feb. 20. For a moment, I wondered if the council might acknowledge the obvious — that roughly 90% of speakers opposed the deal — and slow things down for further review. If only to give the appearance that public comment still matters.
They didn’t. They listened, thanked everyone for coming, and then voted 7-0 to approve it.
Wyandotte County ran through a similar ritual Tuesday: Residents took time out of their evening to say they don’t want to hand over more money to the Chiefs. That commission votes Thursday night. But if this process has taught us anything, it’s that these public meetings aren’t really about deliberation. They’re just a chance to vent before the inevitable is made official.
This story was originally published February 5, 2026 at 10:36 AM with the headline "In Olathe, the Chiefs’ highly decorated cake was already baked | Opinion."
