The Kansas City Royals lost yesterday. Local taxpayers decisively rejected a sales tax plan that would have provided funding for a new ballpark and stadium renovations (for the Chiefs). Clearly, the public said no thank you to funding another billionaire owner’s venue while receiving nothing in return. Why couldn’t locals see that this deal was worth it?
The Royals committed nearly every blunder that could have been committed when they attempted to persuade the public that this deal was worth the trouble. Based on the results of the election, the public was apparently unsure about how much they would be giving compared to what they would be receiving. Considering that the final details and drafts of the agreement never saw the light of day, can you blame the public for not wanting to just hand over free money?
The agreements were never released because the Royals either wouldn’t release them or thought they could push this package through without a full agreement with the city. Either way, the Royals wanted it done quickly and privately so that people would not look at the small details.
The Kansas City Star was correct in their editorial on why the public should vote no on this election. The public was being asked to give millions, even though the details of the proposal were “far too hazy and unclear”. Why were they unclear? As the Star wrote, the teams were falling spectacularly “short of the transparency essential for voter approval”.
So let’s dive into that for just a bit:
1) CBA
For example, for almost two years, the Royals have been promising residents that the team would agree to a CBA that benefits locals. Then time passed by with no CBA. A week before the sales tax vote? The CBA is finally agreed upon. The public can’t see it yet because it isn’t really finished. Instead, the public got a list of promises by the team with zero accountability. The Kansas City Star framed these promises as “various vaguely defined social and economic causes”. One nonprofit group noted that the lack of details, much less any actual agreement, showed how this deal was just a “fake CBA”.
To this day, we have not been told or shown any agreement on a full CBA. So to summarize, even though people have been voting for weeks, no resident has seen any details of this agreed-upon CBA? When KCUR talked to a labor economist who studies CBA agreements in other cities, she talked about how the Milwaukee Bucks signed a solid CBA that “included a living wage” for employees and a possible path to unionization, among other things.
How about this deal signed by the Royals?
“A community benefits agreement that attends to the long-term question of the quality of service sector jobs in properties that relate to these giant economic development deals — that’s what I’m always looking for…There’s nothing about that in this agreement” — Laura Dresser, KCUR, 03/25/24
2) Property Owners
The Royals held off on telling the public about the location of their new ballpark until just months before the sales tax election. This meant that when the team did announce the location, the people who live in or around the area of this proposed ballpark were likely to be quite shocked. The Royals proposed a new ballpark on a big piece of land that at the moment had “as many as two dozen businesses and organizations” currently operating and open. They would need to be removed.
Not to worry, though, as the Royals owner claimed to have a “pretty good handle” on how to deal with those property or business owners. For that reason, the Royals openly discussed their expectation of coming to agreements “with all of the properties” that were in the way of the new ballpark. The Royals were quite confident in how fast they could move on this land, as the team proudly talked about “acquiring those properties in very short order”. The Royals told us that they were going to “outreach” to any affected business or property owners and “make sure their concerns are being addressed”. The team specifically told those living near the new ballpark that they wanted to be a “great part of (that) community” and be “good neighbors”.
Instead, the team took one of three actions:
- They would ignore the business/property owner or
- They would lie to the business/property owner about whether their property will need to relocate
- They would talk once to the property owners then never return any phone calls
“Every time we tried to reach out to somebody — we’ve been trying now for months to reach out to everybody from the city, the county, the Royals, city council, the city manager — it’s just been a giant hot potato that everybody just says, ‘Oh, you need to talk to somebody else.’ No information…Everybody plays stupid” — Jill Cockson, Chartreuse Saloon; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News, 02/15/24
“But there are businesses in the footprint who have not been contacted (by the Royals). This first official (team) statement is where they learned that ‘Well, I guess my business won’t exist here in five years.’ And that’s a big part of why this feels like a very disrespectful process” — John Pryor, owner of Madison Stitch, photo by Savannah Hawley-Bates, KCUR, Startland News, 02/15/24
About that…on the day of the election, the Royals were “still negotiating with property owners, business owners and tenants to come to an agreement”. Instead of choosing several parts of the city that would have loved to take on a new ballpark, the Royals picked a part of town that would enrage and “frustrate dozens of current business and property owners” in the area. The only thing that the Royals accomplished was pissing off a handful of business owners who did not want to move. When local media would ask the team for specifics about the Royals helping businesses out if they need to move, the team claimed they would help the businesses move yet would “not offer details on what that could include”.
3) Lease Agreement
Arguably the most important document in this entire plan. Months ago, local leaders and team officials “promised” that leases would be finished before voting even started at the end of February. When that deadline passed, the Royals did what they seem to do often these days…blame Frank White. While White negotiated the lease until late last year, he had no involvement after that. But the team claims that White somehow stopped the teams from getting the lease done earlier.
According to the teams, they tried for years to “to directly engage in constructive conversation” with White and were met “with barriers to progress”. They claim that they have always been “working tirelessly” to make sure a deal gets done, while White is “playing political games with our county’s future”. Royals Owner John Sherman told KSHB that White “wouldn’t negotiate with us, wouldn’t meet with us. A lot of obstruction”.
Much like the CBA, the Royals signed a lease agreement just a week before the sales tax election. However, this so-called contractual document that the team proclaims is a lease agreement is missing basic financial information:
- Total project costs? Missing
- The Royals will contribute to the construction of the new ballpark. How much? Missing
- Cost of entertainment district outside the ballpark? Missing
- How much do the Royals and Chiefs expect from taxpayers on certain projects? Missing
- Who pays for the demolishing of Kauffman Stadium? Not clear so…Missing
- Essentially, anything essential that deals with money is likely missing from this signed document.
In the past, the Royals have promised to pay for the cost of the estimated $1 billion entertainment district outside the new ballpark. This was even mentioned in advertising done by the team over the last few months. Yet, the lease says nothing about that, nor as the team reiterated this as of late.
The fact that the Royals tried to blame White for prolonging this process is laughable. The Royals are the sole reason for their loss last night and for the mini-lease being signed so late. What the Royals did show throughout the last two years is just how unprepared they were for a ballpark push.
4) Behind closed doors
Was there any part of this process that was done in actual public view? In 2017, the Royals were again trying to start another campaign to see what the public’s appetite was for a downtown stadium. By campaign, I mean they met with local leaders in secret to sound out what they could get without the public being aware of it. As the Kansas City Star wrote at that time, “the fact that Kansas City has pursued these discussions largely in secret is cause for concern…This idea shouldn’t be vetted behind closed doors”.
When the city did put together a group of leaders to deal with the Royals and Chiefs ballpark/stadium issues, they started their first meeting by arguing with each other for 4 minutes and then going behind closed doors for 90+ minutes. Transparency! Other media outlets in Kansas City have found Royals executives meeting with stadium companies, but that is really the only information available.
Just this week, KSHB had an article that discussed how great the Royals and Chiefs were being by having “community conversations”. But the first part of the story focuses on the Royals agreeing to a secret deal with several labor unions…all done behind closed doors. Nothing screams community like private meetings.
5) Figuring out the details
Did it ever bother other people how often the Royals pushed for things that they themselves had not even figured out? Even today, I am curious what the Royals were thinking when they continued to set these deadlines for selecting the location of a new ballpark. Yet, the deadlines would come, and the team would release nothing. Even so, the Royals were also pushing for the sales tax election to be put on a ballot. The Kansas City Star talked about this craziness by noting how the Royals were trying “to gain support for the project” while also leaving out “the exact nature of the project for which they’ll want that support”.
Do the Royals not understand that it comes off as crazy to ask voters to pick a side when nobody can figure out what the city/state would pay? Or whether the CBA is even enforceable? As one newspaper reporter wrote recently, handicapping this election is quite the “confounding matter”.
