Government

Voters hand Royals, Chiefs a resounding defeat on sales tax that would’ve funded stadium projects

By Tommy Felts / April 3, 2024

Editor’s note: The following story was published by KCUR, Kansas City’s NPR member station, and a fellow member of the KC Media Collective. Click here to read the original story or here to sign up for KCUR’s email newsletter. The 3/8th-cent sales tax extension would have helped build a new Kansas City Royals stadium downtown as well as fund renovations…

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Advocate knocks mayor for Troost renaming delay; calls slave owner tie KC’s ‘dirty laundry, reeking from the basement’

By Tommy Felts / March 28, 2024

Kansas City can no longer whitewash its history to pretend Benoist Troost — an early KC doctor, slave owner and the namesake for Troost Avenue — was anything other than a monster, said Chris Goode, pointing blame at Mayor Quinton Lucas for a stalled effort to change the east side corridor’s controversial name.  “There’s no…

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Starting a business in KCMO is too expensive, study says; here’s how the city can cut those costs

By Tommy Felts / March 21, 2024

Entrepreneurs in Kansas City, Missouri, face a higher cost of entry to the world of small business than their peers in St. Louis — or even just across the state line in Kansas City, Kansas, said Jennifer McDonald. “We look at things like how expensive it is to start a business, how complicated it is,…

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Scoring Google’s $1B data center feels like Super Bowl overtime as KC keeps notching wins, officials say

By Tommy Felts / March 20, 2024

Kansas City is hitting it out of the ballpark, said Mike Parson, returning from the governor’s office to the region Wednesday for yet another major economic development announcement — this time, a billion-dollar Google data center coming in 2025. “Maybe I should say, ‘You’re hitting it out of the ballpark and scoring touchdowns,” Parson, R-Missouri, told…

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Google to build $1B data center in Kansas City; aiming for 24/7 carbon-free energy use

By Tommy Felts / March 20, 2024

Corporate and government officials Wednesday announced an ambitious plan to build a billion-dollar data center in the Kansas City region — supported by new-to-the-grid carbon-free energy capacity. The facility could open as soon as 2025. “Google’s major investment in KC will have multiple positive impacts long term. Not only will the tech company invest hundreds…

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