Kansas leaders have stepped up their efforts to court the Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs, offering to assist the skilled football team develop a plan to finance a brand new stadium in Kansas with state bonds.
Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins and Senate President Ty Masterson said in a press release Tuesday that the Legislature will consider the proposal during a special session on June 18. In a May 23 letter to Chiefs Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt, they asked the Chiefs to “comment on the plan.” The executives’ decision was announced Tuesday.
Their actions got here as a brand new nonprofit group in Kansas, Scoop and Score, launched a campaign to bring the Chiefs from Missouri to Kansas. The group launched a web based petition aimed toward the legislature, sent text messages saying the Chiefs “deserve a permanent home in Kansas,” and registered 20 lobbyists to represent them on the Statehouse, including a former House speaker and among the state’s best-known contract lobbyists.
Kansas authorities saw a gap in early April after voters on the Missouri side of the Kansas City metropolitan area firmly rejected to increase a neighborhood sales tax used to take care of the complex that houses the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium and Kauffman Stadium, home of the Kansas City Royals skilled baseball team.
“Your insights and expertise will be invaluable to the success of this project,” Hawkins and Masterson said of their letter. “Your organization’s reputation and experience in professional sport will help shape our understanding and ensure that this initiative aligns with the interests of all stakeholders involved.”
The lobbyists who’ve registered to represent Scoop and rating Members included Ron Ryckman Jr., a Kansas City-area businessman who served as speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives from 2017 to 2022. His former legislative chief of staff, Paje Resner, also registered and was listed as a founding father of the group when it filed its incorporation documents with the state on May 13.
Hunt told reporters in April that the Chiefs would take a “broader view” of the team’s future home after the Missouri vote. The Chiefs had hoped to make use of their share of the local sales tax to finance an $800 million renovation of Arrowhead.
The plan favored by Hawkins, Masterson and other members of Kansas’ Republican-controlled legislature would repay bonds for a brand new stadium with revenue from sales and liquor taxes generated in a delegated area across the stadium. It could be much like how the state and officials in Kansas City, Kansas, financed the development of NASCAR’s Kansas Speedway and an adjoining shopping and entertainment district.
“We are ready to make the Kansas City Chiefs even stronger,” Hawkins and Masterson said of their letter. “It also promises to be a victory for Kansas taxpayers and a turning point for our state’s economy.”
Some lawmakers urged an analogous proposal to construct latest stadiums in Kansas for the Chiefs and the Royals before lawmakers adjourned their annual session on May 1, however the plan never got here to a vote. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly called the special session to think about sweeping tax cuts after Vetoed three previous tax plans, but legislators can give it some thought whatever they need.
The earlier proposal to fund the stadium faced opposition from Americans for Prosperity-Kansas, a small-government, low-tax group that has long opposed the usage of such bonds and is influential amongst Republicans. Critics argue that using the bonds for major projects means the state is picking economic winners and losers reasonably than making the most of the free market.
