Missouri’s efforts to keep Chiefs won’t come quickly

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - There may be a pause in the border war over the future home of the Chiefs.

Monday night, a Kansas City lawmaker told residents that the Missouri General Assembly likely won’t come back for a special session to discuss sweetening the deal for the team. This comes after the top lawmakers in each chamber of the Kansas Statehouse announced a plan last week to use their special session to do just that.

Rep. Mark Sharp, a Democrat, representing South Kansas City gave the update at a meeting of the South Kansas City Alliance (SKCA). Last week, he told KCTV5′s Joe McClean he planned to call on Republican Gov. Mike Parson to convene a special session for the state’s General Assembly to mitigate attempts by the Sunflower State to lure the team across the state line.

Monday night, he said the “appetite is not there” in Jefferson City to make that play.

“I don’t want voters to think that Missouri legislature doesn’t have any appetite for it. We’re just trying to be strategic about how we approach it,” Sharp said.

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He represents a district that once saw Kansas snatch a team away. It was 2009. The city’s MLS team was the Kansas City Wizards. The City of Kansas City offered millions of dollars to help them build a stadium at the defunct Bannister Mall. Then the Unified Government swooped in with more favorable offer using STAR bonds, the same financing tool being floated for the Chiefs and Royals. That’s why the team, rebranded as Sporting KC, is now at the Legends in KCK.

Sharp’s father, John Sharp, was a city councilman at the time. The former councilman is now the president of the South Kansas City Alliance and is beyond concerned about Kansas’ overture to the team.

Former city council candidate Terrence Nash and former Hickman Mills school board member Teresa Edens said the demise of the Bannister Park deal was mpre complex than that. They contend the Bannister Mall proposal failed in part because then Councilman Sharp wanted the developer to include more than just a stadium. “The idea of having a soccer complex on the mall site was very appealing; however, Mr. Sharp felt there needed to be more and pushed Lane 4 hard to include more in their project, such as new retail and perhaps a movie theater,” Edens said in an email to KCTV5.

READ MORE: Future of Chiefs, Royals in Jackson County prompts tough questions from county legislator

With a Missouri special session almost certainly off the table, Rep. Sharp is now focused on other options.

“Our speaker right now is still creating special committees,” Rep. Sharp remarked. “There is a chance that I can lean on him to create a special committee of Jackson County reps and even maybe some St. Louis reps because they’ve lost a team too in the past. It might not be bad to put our collective heads together to see what we can do as a state to try to approach this situation delicately.”

The Missouri legislature currently does not reconvene until January of next year.

The Kansas poaching plan came about after Jackson County voters resoundingly rejected a sales tax initiative to help fund a Royals stadium downtown, as well as renovations to Arrowhead.

Last week, Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson and House Speaker Dan Hawkins issued a statement saying they have been in touch with the Chiefs about a handsome offer.

“We have reached out to the Chiefs organization and asked them to weigh in on the possibility of using Kansas’ unique STAR Bond funding tool and explore what collaboration could hold,” the joint statement said in part.

Editor’s Note: This story has been modified to include additional city leaders’ perspectives on the 2009 negotiations that resulted in the Kansas City Wizards moving to Kansas.

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