KC mayor the Friday before the Chiefs’ news: ‘We haven’t stopped talking’ | Opinion
Editor’s note: Mayor Quinton Lucas spoke with The Star Editorial Board on Friday, three days before the Kansas City Chiefs’ relocation announcement, in a wide-ranging interview that included talk about the teams. We’ve seen Missouri leaders’ responses to the Chiefs’ decision to move to Kansas, but Lucas’ comments before the final deal lend interesting perspectives, and perhaps show what some leaders east of the state line were thinking in trying to keep the Chiefs and the Royals in Kansas City.
The day before The Star Editorial Board sat down with Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, Kansas legislators had announced the team’s unofficial commitment to move across the state line. On Friday, however, the mayor was optimistic that the city and Jackson County still had a path forward. Of course, we now know that did not happen.
“Yeah. I mean, look, big rumors coming out of Kansas yesterday, where the day starts with gubernatorial candidate Ty Masterson basically saying we got them. … Here’s what I’ll say: Kansas City, the state of Missouri and Jackson County, in its latest iteration, have never stopped talking to the teams.”
Lucas nodded to how other cities claimed the teams now and again. “Now, you know, other jurisdictions have taken the approach — whether it be our friends in Kansas or even our friends north of the river — to do a (press release) or social media posts that basically say, ‘Yeah, we’re having substantial conversations.’ That’s what the Kansas Department of Commerce said yesterday, you know, and whatever other list of things they have. All I know is that I think we have material, useful, worthwhile discussions with both teams.”
Lucas went on: “I think that it is fair to say that I don’t think anyone knows. I think only the teams know. And I don’t even know if the teams know what their path ahead is yet. And so I think that all the fodder that exists now is just based both a little on speculation and also based on folks that are trying to push a narrative as to what’s to come ahead. We haven’t stopped talking. We expect to have more conversations.”
It’s clear at least one team — the Chiefs — did know a future location. And even though Jackson County offered a serious proposal in the days leading up to the ultimate decision, the Chiefs obviously felt it wasn’t enough.
As we pondered locations for both teams three days before the decision was announced, I asked Lucas why he thought this decision was taking so long, and he construed that perhaps any deal with Kansas hadn’t been perfected.
“Something I think about all the time is the day that the STAR bonds vote passed was the same day that my youngest son was born. That child is, what, 17 months old now, walking, mouthing some words, all that sort of stuff. … If it were such a clear, you know, kind of rock solid deal, you would have thought it would have been done in the months after that vote. Indeed, that’s what everybody kind of thought it would be. Here we are going on a year and a half … that tells me something that seemed perfect about what could have been a deal to take the team somewhere else, perhaps wasn’t. That’s why we have stayed in the conversation and the discussion, and that’s why I think I’m still very confident our conversation will bear fruit to your question of, ‘What can people possibly still be talking about?’ “
Border truce: ‘I think it’s dead’
Lucas pointed out what some people believe to be the difference between any Kansas proposal for either team and what Missouri could offer — that it’s better than having to deal with Jackson County voters (referencing the failed vote in April 2024 to fund the Chiefs’ Arrowhead renovation and to move the Royals to the Crossroads district).
He disagrees with that perception.
“I was listening to a radio guy yesterday who was almost boasting that, you know, in Missouri, right, you have votes, or perhaps you may need votes for certain things. He’s like, ‘In Kansas, you don’t need it, right? That’s great. Means they can just do whatever and get whatever done.’ And I think that’s why you’ve seen some pushback from folks, particularly in Johnson County, who are just saying, ‘Wait a minute, we want this engagement.’ I think no matter where they go, this radio guy is wrong.”
Lucas counted the opportunities residents will have to make an impact: “You will have, regardless of the jurisdiction, a zoning board meeting, you will likely need a city council in whatever jurisdiction, because even in Kansas, you’re looking to do a property tax break on the stadium footprint itself — all these which I’m almost certain a team would ask for, right? You will have to go through these steps. So there will be very real public engagement. I think it is a misrepresentation of the people who just say it’s super easy.”
Opinion writer Toriano Porter asked what might be the question: “Do you believe the border truce is on life support, or dead?” Lucas was quick to reply.
“I think it’s dead. And I say that with, you know, no animosity or anything of that sort. I’m fine with Kansas. Still teach at the University of Kansas, but look, you just read The Star every day, and look at the different headlines and back and forth. You’ve got legislators on the record basically saying … , Missouri dropped the ball, so we’re going to take the teams. Because at the beginning, they were like, ‘Well, we just want to make sure they stay in the community,’ right? People have moved on from that, and now you have talks about poaching companies across the line. This is precisely the type of behavior we were in for decades before the truce was signed. It’s disappointing. “
Lucas said the border war is frustrating for public policy in the long term. “It’s just bringing us back to shifting money back and forth.”
(Look for the full contents of our year-end conversation with Mayor Quinton Lucas to publish soon in The Star.)
