JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Last Tuesday, a good friend sent me and several other people a breathless text about a press conference the Kansas City Royals had announced for that afternoon.

And what, pray tell, was so urgent about this press conference? Could the Royals be announcing a new, extended contract with star catcher Salvador Perez? Could they be firing General Manager Dayton Moore? (Which, by the way, I would applaud. Time for fresh blood and new ideas.)

No, no. The text concerned a much more urgent matter…Rumor was the Royals were going to be talking about the possibility of a Downtown stadium. Let me say that again — A DOWNTOWN STADIUM!!!

Now, I love my friend’s enthusiasm; it’s one of his most engaging qualities. But I was pretty sure there was not going to be a definitive announcement about a downtown stadium, and I thought if that was the subject, it would be pretty damned lame.

And that it proved to be.

When Royals’ principal John Sherman took to the microphone, his pitch for a downtown stadium was the equivalent of casting a nightcrawler into the middle of Truman Lake and hoping to catch a record-setting bass.

Here was his blockbuster announcement:

“We are conducting an internal process to help us evaluate our options for where we play, and one of those options is to play downtown baseball.”

That’s it. Nothing about who he might have talked to…because he probably hasn’t talked with any political leaders. Nothing about cost…because that’s the last thing he wants to talk about. And nothing about who would pay for it…because that’s waaaayy too sensitive.

This was strictly a fishing expedition aimed at getting sports talk radio hosts, Kansas city Star columnists and TV sports anchors to start talking about the issue in hopes of applying pressure on political leaders, like Mayor Quinton Lucas and Country Executive Frank White, to start considering a “public-private” partnership to build a downtown stadium for, oh, $1 billion or more.

What Sherman wants, of course, is a public-private partnership that tilts very heavily toward the public side. After all, Sherman put together a group that paid a staggering $1 billion in 2019 for a franchise that was purchased in the year 2000 by the late David Glass for $96 million. To all appearances, the Sherman group significantly overpaid, and the last thing the owners plan to do now is dig a lot deeper to pay the lion’s share of the cost of a downtown stadium.

(Another thing here while I’m putting the magnifying glass on Royals’ owners: If you were doing the math, you know the Glass family made a profit of $900 million on the sale to the Sherman group. And unlike original Royals’ owner Ewing Kauffman, whose family set up two huge foundations here, the Glass family took all the money back to Bentonville. It is outrageous and beyond appalling that they have zero interest in philanthropy in KC, where they made so much money.)

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Now, as recently as last November, I also was caught up in the excitement of the prospect of a downtown baseball stadium. That was when The Star broke its lease on its printing plant, and the plant’s owner broached the possibility of selling the building to make way for a downtown stadium.

But after that initial blood rush, and after talking with people who are clear-eyed about business deals, I have come to my senses.

First, the Royals’ and Chiefs’ leases are not up for another 10 years. Second, it makes the most sense for both teams to renew leases at the Truman Sports Complex, where both stadiums got hundreds of millions of dollars in improvements (financed by Jackson County residents) slightly more than a decade ago.

Do you think people coming in from Iowa and Nebraska — not to mention Lee’s Summit, Leavenworth and even Johnson County — are going to want to drive into downtown (at night, oh god!) and make loop after loop in a huge parking garage or, in the alternative, scout around for an hour or so for street parking?

The answer is obvious…What they want is surface parking that allows easy-in, easy-out access and they’re on their way home, or to the hotel, minutes after the game ends.

But here’s the next, and even bigger, issue: If we are serious about a downtown stadium, Who’s going to pay for it?

And here, fellow Jackson Countians, is where we must put our foot down…The cost should not, cannot, be borne by Kansas Citians and Jackson Countians alone. That was okay back in 1967, when Jackson County voters, smelling the prospect of a new baseball team and eager to find a suitable home for the Chiefs, generously approved a $100 million bond issue to build the first twin stadiums, plus the access roads. (It was and always will be the best stadium deal ever.)

The only fair way to finance a downtown stadium now would be to do it like we did the renovation of Union Station back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. That is with a bistate tax, with at least Jackson and Johnson counties sharing the cost.

For the edification of readers under 30, and to refresh the memories of those who were around but don’t recall the details, here’s how that worked. (And thanks to the Mid-America Regional Council’s website for the primer.) The governing bodies in five area counties authorized placing the question of forming a bistate district on the ballot. In 1996, voters in Platte, Clay and Jackson counties in Missouri and Johnson County in Kansas approved the measure forming the district. (Wyandotte County voters turned it down.)

The proposal provided for a retail sales tax of 1/8 of a cent to be collected from within the district until $118 million had been received. The tax proceeds could only be used to renovate Union Station and build Science City in Union Station. From April 1, 1997, to March 31, 2002, $121,393,565 was collected. The tax expired in the first quarter of 2002.

A second bistate effort in 2002 — to benefit performing arts and cultural organizations and to renovate the sports complex — failed.

The good news is the bistate law remains on the books in Missouri, and a new bistate commission conceivably could be rolled out. Just as it was 25 years ago, however, a bistate arrangement could not go forward without voter approval in both Jackson and Johnson counties. Contiguous counties within 60 miles of Johnson and Jackson counties would be eligible to participate, but not one taxpayer dollar could be spent on a downtown stadium without Johnson County’s participation.

Fortunately, Mayor Lucas sees the light on this. In a recent LinkedIn post, he wrote: “If folks are thinking a KCMO-funded-alone model, that would be tough/imprudent. A bistate would be preferred, but would KS play ball?”

He’s absolutely right. And let’s get this straight right now: If our Kansas brethren want to see Major League baseball played downtown, they’d better be ready to pony up. The tailgating can go on, but the riding of coattails has gone on way too long.