Ever since the Kansas City Chiefs and Gov. Laura Kelly announced plans to build a professional football stadium in western Wyandotte County — plans that local officials said they hadn’t heard about until days before — residents have been asking their local government to stick up for them in the deal. 

County commissioners took notice, adding a series of conditions when they agreed to put local sales tax dollars toward the Kansas City, Kansas, stadium. Months later, instead of voting to remove those conditions as proposed after a challenge from the state, they took a public stance against the state law enabling the stadium deal. Then, they sued the state for more local control of the development and its impact on the county.

Now, Wyandotte County is backing down in its fight — at least in the courts. A settlement between Kansas and the local government was publicly announced but not yet finalized in court, and the county dismissed its lawsuit on Monday. 

And what that means for not only the future of the stadium plan but for KCK residents is becoming clearer.

Although Wyandotte County will continue to help pay for the $3 billion stadium, county commissioners may soon have to rethink previous official actions intended to give KCK a more prominent seat at the table in the team’s multibillion-dollar move, Krystal McFeders, Unified Government spokesperson, said in a statement to The Beacon. 

That includes revisiting a list of conditions set out in their initial pledge ordinance that commissioners designed to give Wyandotte County more power in negotiations, more say in the incoming projects and clarity around who’s responsible for paying for what.

Conditions on local tax dollars

In February, the Unified Government agreed to pledge an increment of local sales tax dollars generated on 236 acres in west KCK toward paying off the bond debt used to build the new Chiefs stadium. That district encompasses the future site of the stadium and developments in the immediately surrounding area. 

The county has previously said it anticipates that those local sales and transient guest taxes could total up to $450 million to go toward paying for the development over 30 years. 

But that pledge came with several terms from commissioners, including giving the local government a say on a state sales tax and revenue (STAR) bond district established to pay off debt used to build the stadium. They ensured KCK would have local representation on the board that will manage the stadium and its development, and that the Unified Government would get to formally consider all final documentation in the deal. And they included stipulations that infrastructure surrounding the stadium be paid for using STAR bonds and not local dollars, meaning the Unified Government wouldn’t need to foot the bill for things like new roads leading to the Chiefs stadium. 

Months later, when commissioners voted to opt out of the Kansas Sports Facilities Authority Act, —  the law outlining how the state can finance and manage the development —  they attributed the move to ongoing concerns around how much say the local government will have on such a huge project within its city limits. 

Their main concerns revolved around whether KCK’s mayor will retain a seat on the sports authority’s board, the Unified Government’s right to exercise and amend its zoning rules for the project and whether the stadium would be exempted from needing to pay fees to the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities. 

But the stadium authority law gives Kansas significant say on the state bond district’s size, its governing board and the kinds of financial exemptions it can offer to developers. And KCK may have to opt back into that law to keep negotiations moving.

“The Unified Government will revisit the conditions set out in that pledge ordinance at the appropriate time,” McFeders told The Beacon. 

A local official not authorized to publicly speak on the matter said that the state has asked the local government to opt back into following the sports authority law and remove all conditions tied to its tax pledge in order to move forward. 

That would be similar to how Olathe has handled its local sales tax pledge from the district surrounding a proposed Chiefs practice facility there.

Lawsuit and settlement

The Unified Government’s lawsuit, which came the day after their vote to opt out of the state sports authority legislation, maintained that portions of the law violated the Kansas Constitution and wrongfully kept the Unified Government from having a say in key decisions. 

Last week, state and county officials in a joint statement said that they resolved those issues, particularly surrounding local control around the development, and that the government would dismiss its suit. 

The county dismissed the lawsuit, which named the state, the Kansas Sports Facilities Authority, Gov. Laura Kelly, Attorney General Kris Kobach and Lt. Gov. David Toland as defendants, without prejudice. That means the Unified Government may refile the suit later on if it decides to do so. 

“Dismissal without prejudice in no way precludes reaching a settlement agreement beneficial to both sides, and the parties are working hard to finalize the details of that agreement in principle now,” McFeders told The Beacon. 

Under the agreement that they reached, which as of Wednesday was not filed in district court records tied to the case, the BPU would have jurisdiction over the additional developments, including an entertainment district, around the stadium — but not over the stadium itself. 

Parties involved in the Chiefs project would be required to adhere to local planning and zoning rules set by the Unified Government and make payments in lieu of taxes to the BPU for the ancillary developments surrounding the stadium. 

The BPU would not receive payments in lieu of taxes on electrical fees for the stadium itself. The utility and Unified Government would provide water services to the stadium, including wastewater. 

The stadium, which the Chiefs will lease at $7 million per year, and its parking area will be designated as state property operated under the sports authority and will be exempt from local planning and zoning codes, according to the joint statement announcing the settlement.

“The agreement resolves several components related to the State’s partnership with the UG including land use and utility services,” it read. 

Resident say

Public officials are not the only ones who can decide whether a community can charter into or out of laws imposed by the state, such as the one commissioners recently passed to opt out of the stadium law. 

Under state law, residents can put a local charter ordinance on the ballot if they get a petition together within 60 days of that ordinance’s final approval.

A percentage of registered voters would need to sign that petition to put a charter ordinance on a ballot. The number of people required to sign that would be based on the number of people who voted in the most recent election.

If a special election were called on the charter ordinance it would need to happen within 90 days of the petition’s filing.