Quinton Lucas ‘happy to share all I know!’ about failed stadium bid? Let’s see proof | Opinion
With apologies to Winston Churchill, the April 2 vote in Jackson County is not the end of baseball negotiations in Kansas City, but the end of the beginning. Discussions continue behind the scenes.
According to Clay County documents, the Royals suspended negotiations on Jan. 16 to “work through a competing opportunity in Jackson County.”
Clay County Commissioners Jason Withington and Scott Wagner, as well as Jackson County Executive Frank White, have all publicly stated that Kansas City made some sort of significant offer to the Royals that changed the course of those negotiations.
What was that offer?
On March 1, I submitted an open records request to Kansas City and sent the same request directly to Mayor Quinton Lucas and City Manager Brian Platt. The requests were identical. I sought copies of any proposed term sheet submitted either to or from the city to any of the following: the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority, Port KC, the Kansas City Royals organization, the Kansas City Chiefs organization and Jackson County.
Having received no response, on March 13 I emailed the point of contact for such requests. Missouri law requires requests like these be acted upon within three business days, and I still haven’t heard back from Lucas or Platt.
I was told the request had been wrongly assigned and had been sitting idly for almost two weeks. It was now properly assigned. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed” that it will work this time, the spokesperson wrote.
On March 28 I was emailed: “All responsive records pertaining to this request are closed records pursuant to Sec 610.021(12) because such records are related to negotiations for a contract prior to its execution.”
Section 610.021(12), however, relates to “documents related to a negotiated contract until a contract is executed or all proposals are rejected.” I don’t think there is any question that the voters soundly “rejected” the team’s proposals. City leaders just don’t want to tell us the plan they’re hatching.
Yet on April 4, Lucas wrote on X in response to a critic: “You know I’m the city guy, not the county guy, right? Not our tax question, but happy to share all I know!”
Let’s be diplomatic: That’s false. The mayor does not want to share all he knows. Which is a problem, since Missouri law states that these documents are public. Regardless of how a court may rule on this matter, Kansas City leaders are not required to close the records in question; they are choosing to.
Clay County similarly refused to share documents relating to their negotiations with the Royals, but eventually relented. Those documents are now available online.
What did those documents tell us? Clay County’s commitment included a 5/8-cent sales tax for 40 years. Clay County required the lease, development agreements and community benefits agreement be determined before a referendum was considered — exactly what Frank White demanded in Jackson County before his veto was overridden by the County Legislature.
The April 2 campaign in Jackson County was marked by a lack of transparency. Far from learning any lessons from its overwhelming defeat, Lucas — despite his claims — seems intent upon keeping Kansas Citians (and possibly City Council members) in the dark about what exactly he is committing to on their behalf.
Whatever is in those Kansas City term sheets, it seems tempting enough for the Royals to back out of their negotiations with Clay County abruptly. It may have caused them to scrap their two supposed finalist sites for a downtown park and instead choose the east Crossroads — a location they previously dismissed. And it may have been good enough for them to seek a rushed April 2 election from a county executive they disliked, and spend millions of dollars on a campaign for which they clearly were not ready.
Let’s have those documents, Mr. Mayor. The people you serve, and serve with, deserve no less.
Patrick Tuohey is co-founder of Better Cities Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on municipal policy solutions, and a senior fellow at the Show-Me Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to Missouri state policy work.
