Josh Merchant is The Beacon's local government reporter in Kansas City. After graduating from Seattle University, Josh earned a master’s degree in investigative journalism from Columbia Journalism School with coursework in data journalism. Josh has contributed reporting to The Seattle Spectator, The South Seattle Emerald and THE CITY in New York. They're a former Beacon intern. At The Beacon, they reported on issues of traffic safety, with a focus on roadway design, as well as tax-incentivized development at a variety of Kansas City agencies. They have lived in Kansas City since 2021.
Kansas City, Missouri
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If three Missouri Supreme Court judges had their way, voters would not have a say on whether to legalize abortion statewide on this year’s general election ballot.
This November, those voters will have the option to use a power they’ve never used before — to boot two of those judges off the state’s high court.
Until they get in touch with him, organizer TJ James says, many people with a felony conviction have no idea that they have the right to vote.
And it’s not for a lack of interest, said James, an organizer with the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity, or MORE2.
“I’ve had people that I work with where they’ve been told specifically at the polls that they cannot vote,” James said. “They’re being told while in prison, ‘You can never vote again.’ And people, unfortunately, just don’t do the research.”
Voters will be asked this November whether to amend the Missouri Constitution to make it the 11th state to ban ranked-choice voting.
Ranked-choice voting asks voters to rank candidates from favorite to least favorite, rather than requiring them to pick only one candidate. Maine and Alaska have adopted ranked-choice voting for some of their elections. So have cities such as New York City, Minneapolis and Ann Arbor, Michigan.
On a warm summer day, bikes pile up on the sidewalk outside Bluejacket Pool, the centerpiece of a cozy neighborhood on the western corner of Overland Park.
Jennie Punswick has been taking her six kids to this small outdoor pool for 18 years. Her son used money from his first communion to buy popsicles at the concession stand. Now, she sees former neighborhood kids bringing their children to Bluejacket.
“I remember all of the swim lessons that our kids took here and sitting with women that are now my best friends,” she said.
But she and more than 800 of her neighbors said goodbye to Bluejacket Pool this month. The 51-year-old pool — leaking 1,500 gallons of water every hour — has closed.
Even on a weeknight, KC Current fans fill nearly every parking spot at the women’s soccer stadium at the Berkley Riverfront.
Parking spaces are in short supply by design — to encourage people to stick around after games and to rely on public transit.
A proposal making its way through City Hall would do add more parking. The Parking Co. of America, or PCA, wants three kinds of public subsidies to build a 1,500-spot parking garage next to the stadium, where the temporary parking currently sits.
Free internet?
It sounds like a nice dream. We’d all love to ditch the $80 a month we pay for the ability to stream movies, do doctor’s appointments from home or check in on our cousin’s latest Facebook post.
But in North Kansas City, residents get a steady online connection covered by their taxes.
Traffic experts and city planners in Kansas City have tried to make it quick and easy to drive in and out of downtown.
At the time, it was great for getting office workers home in time for dinner.
But over the years, interstates and highways bloomed to carry commuters into and out of the city center more quickly. That meant four-lane surface streets became an overbuilt legacy. With so many lanes and so little traffic, drivers went faster and the roads became, counterintuitively, more dangerous.
The sort of heat wave baking Kansas City looks to be increasingly common, and increasingly dangerous.
“The climate crisis isn’t one single moment of disaster,” said Laela Zaidi, an organizer with Sunrise Movement KC, a group fighting climate change. “It’s also days and weeks of extreme heat, of drought, of failing infrastructure.”
Here’s why severe heat is so dangerous and what you can do to keep yourself, your neighbors and your loved ones safe.
Imagine cruising down the street at 45 mph with a line of green lights ahead. Your mind wanders. You don’t notice that one of the lights has changed to a yellow, then to red.
Before you know it, you’ve crashed into another car at a right angle — and maybe even killed the driver.
Instead, picture seeing a flurry of yield signs ahead and a roundabout with a steady stream of cars. Now, you’re paying attention.
Eight people have died in traffic crashes along Ward Parkway since 2022, and four of those crashes happened when cars cruised past a red light or stop sign.
People make mistakes. Even the most experienced drivers misjudge the timing on a yellow light or roll through a stop sign.
But on roads like Ward Parkway — where traffic regularly tops the 35 mph speed limit — such mistakes prove deadly.
