If you\u2019re anything like me, you have seen headlines like this one: Royals stadium vote effort moves forward after signatures verified<\/a>, and wondered what the heck is going on there. After all, didn\u2019t the Kansas City City Council already approve a new deal<\/a> for a development at Crown Center? Certainly Mayor Quinton Lucas, members of the council, and the team would like you to believe that it\u2019s a done deal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But after speaking with members of Missouri Workers Power<\/a> (MWP), the 501(c)(4) organization behind the effort, I gathered information that I haven\u2019t seen covered elsewhere.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The organization submitted a petition that was certified last month<\/a> by the city clerk with over 4,500 signatures. The petition proposes a new ordinance<\/a> that would require a public vote and approval before any kind of work can be performed on the construction of a stadium with at least 2,500 seats with \u201cmaterial support\u201d from the city for a for-profit entity, including ancillary development or necessary infrastructure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n (a) Except as provided in this Section, any and all City officers, agents, and employees are prohibited from in any way implementing, advancing, furthering, or fostering any plan to design or construct, with material support from the City, a stadium, arena, or similar venue, with a seating capacity of 2,500 or more, for use by a for-profit business, or ancillary development or necessary infrastructure support for that stadium, area, or similar venue.<\/p>\n (b) For any city officer, agent, or employee to implement, advance, further, or foster any plan to design or construct, with material support from the City, a stadium, arena, or similar venue, with a seating capacity of 2,500 or more, for use by a for-profit business, or ancillary development or necessary infrastructure support for that stadium, arena, or similar venue, that plan must first by ordinance be submitted to the voters in an election and be approved by a majority of voters in that election. The City Council shall submit an ordinance for that purpose to the voters at the next available municipal or state election held not less than thirty (30) days after such submission by the Council for which the City can lawfully provide required notices to the election authorities without seeking a court order.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n If all that legalese confuses you, it can also be described like this: \u201cThe city isn\u2019t allowed to fund or work on a large stadium for private benefit without first putting it to a public vote.\u201d It would also preclude doing infrastructure work to support such a stadium, meaning if this ordinance were passed into law and John Sherman suddenly decided to stop trying to get public money to pay for his stadium, the city still couldn\u2019t pay for or do any work on infrastructure changes without passing a vote about it, either. It\u2019s a pretty comprehensive piece of legislation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It also, I think, makes perfect sense. As things stand, the Kansas City Government has earmarked up to $600 million for the construction of this stadium. It sure seems, this being a democracy and all, that the people should get to have a say in the allocation of such a colossal chunk of their tax dollars to a private enterprise. And, of course, in 2024, when Jackson County put to a vote the option to fund a new stadium, voters convincingly rejected the proposal<\/a>. That begs the question of why Kansas City is dodging that requirement and whether it should be able to.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Whether the city should be able to avoid a vote is the question that will be answered by whether this new ordinance is enacted. However, the why is a question we can answer right now: the Royals and the stadium backers in city government don\u2019t want to run the risk of having a plan rejected again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When the Chiefs and Royals were rejected in 2024, I wrote that both teams needed to take a hard look<\/a> at the efforts they had made to win the public\u2019s support and do better next time. Instead, the Chiefs jumped at an offer made by politicians in Kansas (which also, notably, lacked a public vote component) and moved across the state line. The Royals chose to deal with the officials in Kansas City*, who passed an ordinance<\/a> authorizing their city manager to negotiate with the Royals on the new stadium project using an accelerated effective date. Using that strategy ensured not only that the public wouldn\u2019t vote on the initial ordinance, but that they couldn\u2019t even force a referendum per the city\u2019s charter<\/a>. That\u2019s what appears to have led MWP to draft this broader ordinance and work to get enough signatures to get it to the ballot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n *This is a bit tangential, and might be obvious, but I can\u2019t let it slide that the Royals made absolutely no effort to improve the sham of a Community Benefits Agreement they proposed last time, either.<\/em> Just further evidence that they do not care what the public thinks unless the public thinks they should have a lot of money with no strings attached.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Literally minutes before this article was scheduled to go live, the Royals announced a \u201ccommunity engagement meeting<\/em>\u201d to discuss their rezoning plan. That <\/em>might be a sign they\u2019re changing their perspective in the wake of MWP\u2019s efforts, but I\u2019ll hold judgment until I see how the meeting goes.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\nWhat is this petition anyway?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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How does the petition process work?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n