Crown Center baseball stadium may face a double play

If a petition group has enough valid signatures, Mayor Quinton Lucas and the Royals face a difficult political decision

By Dave Helling

My friend Patrick Tuohey helped break the news Friday that a citizens’ group planned to file petition signatures regarding the Royals’ Crown Center stadium project.

Reports say the submitted petition doesn’t directly involve the stadium itself; rather, it proposes an ordinance that would require another public vote before the city can become involved in stadium construction.

Put another way: If the petition is valid, Kansas City would have a November vote; if “yes” prevails, there would be an up-or-down vote on the stadium itself in 2027.

The second-vote requirement would not apply if the stadium is built with federal, state, county, or private funds. If city money or borrowing were to be involved, however, a citywide vote would be needed.

The stadium petition was apparently modeled after a similar petition, more than a decade ago, on the airport terminal plan.

This new petition effort forces the city and the Royals into a difficult political corner.

Do the team and stadium supporters want to finance a major campaign against the November initiative? If so — and they win — the stadium issue would appear to be settled.

If they lose, though, they face another expensive campaign on the stadium itself, next year. That’s two costly campaigns in a six-month period.

Mayor Sly James and the city council faced a similar dilemma in the years before the KCI vote. Supporters of the old terminal gathered enough petition signatures to require a public vote on a public vote requirement for a new terminal.

Our friend Lynn Horsley reported next on a possible work-around:

Councilman John Sharp … said the council should just agree to the petitioners’ proposal for a future election on any airport improvements and be done with it, without requiring an election.

That is, of course, what happened. Petitioners dropped their effort after the city agreed to put the airport itself on a future ballot.

You’ll remember the airport proposal passed overwhelmingly.

We’ll soon see if Mayor Quinton Lucas and/or councilmembers agree to negotiate with the petition committee. Regardless, it now appears — assuming the petitions are valid and sufficient — that the stadium project is headed to polls, one way or another.