The presidential election may not be until November, but the first votes will be cast this week.
Saturday is the deadline to mail absentee ballots to military and overseas voters in Kansas and Missouri.
It comes as a growing number of local election officials are ringing the alarm bells about mail-in voting.
Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab says around 1,000 mail-in ballots weren’t counted during the recent primary election due to U.S. Postal Service processing problems.
That represents 1 out of every 50 mail-in ballots cast by Kansas voters.
Some ballots were tossed because the postal service failed to time stamp the envelope as required by law. Others were misdirected to the wrong address. A large portion of the ballots were postmarked on time but failed to arrive at the election office by the official counting deadline.
Rising public anxiety over shootings, car break-ins and property crimes is prompting Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas to call for the immediate building of a new “mini jail.” The idea will be considered Tuesday by members of the City Council’s Finance and Public Safety Committee.
Lucas wants to repurpose space in the Kansas City Police headquarters building to construct 144 short-term detention spaces at a cost of $16 million.
Currently, the city has no place to house detainees. Kansas City has been without a municipal jail since 2009. An arrangement to house inmates at the Jackson County Detention Center expired in 2019.
The project would be a stop-gap measure until Kansas City can agree on plans for a stand-alone jail facility. The mayor has proposed placing a tax measure on the ballot for voters to decide next April.
Some Kansas City businesses say now their experiencing multiple break-ins in the same week.
City Hall is feeling the pressure to respond.
The Kansas City Council is set to vote this week on a new crime compensation fund for business owners.
Mayor Quinton Lucas is proposing up to $3,000 to help pay for repairs.
Up to $5,000 for a business to upgrade its locks and put in better security measures.
It’s not going to cover everyone. The proposed fund is capped at $325,000, which means the money will dry up quickly.
While the money still has to be approved by the full council, the city has already opened up a web form for businesses to sign up.
While homicides in Kansas City are down from last year’s historic high, there’s growing public unease over the alarming rise in non-fatal shootings, car thefts and property crimes.
For the better part of a year, we’ve been trying to get to the bottom of what’s happening. And perhaps more importantly, we’ve been on a search for a possible fix to the violence.
My colleague Micheal Price has been examining how other communities have been successfully bringing down their crime rates, from nearby Kansas City, KS to Omaha, NE.
He’s put together all his findings in a new documentary film, airing this week on Kansas City PBS.
We invite you to join us this Thursday night at 7 p.m. for A Tale of Three Cities: The Search for a Kansas City Crime Fix.
Plans to open Johnson County’s first permanent year-round homeless shelter could be scrapped this week.
The long-debated project is a facing a “do-or-die” vote at a Lenexa City Council meeting on Tuesday night.
Johnson County needs Lenexa to sign-off on the project since the 50-bed shelter would be housed at a converted La Quinta hotel in the city.
Last month, the Lenexa Planning Commission voted 9-0 to deny a permit for the shelter. It was claimed it would detrimentally affect nearby properties and strain law enforcement resources.
The shelter project has also got caught up in the immigration debate, with some opponents claiming it will house migrants who have entered the country illegally.
Johnson County leaders haven’t offered up a “Plan B” if Tuesday’s vote fails.
There’s going to be a lot of public expenses for putting on the World Cup in Kansas City, from transportation costs to security.
But some area cities are seeing big dollar signs.
Prairie Village is looking to rake in more city revenue by slapping an extra guest tax on all Airbnb rentals ahead of the World Cup.
The tax is up for discussion at tonight’s council meeting.
Seeing short term rentals as a possible cash cow represents a big turnaround for the Johnson County city. Just recently, Prairie Village was considering a ban on all Airbnb rentals.
Here’s a national story that has big local implications.
If you are looking for mortgage rates to drop or you’re saddled with car loans or credit card debt, you’re going to be interested in this week’s big announcement from the Federal Reserve.
On Wednesday, the Fed is expected to cut interest rates for the first time in four years.
While Wall Street is divided on the size of the rate cut, the move is expected to lower the costs of borrowing for all Americans.
We may see something this week that we haven’t experienced in a while in Kansas City…rain.
This is shaping up to be fifth driest September in Kansas City history, but it looks like the wet stuff is finally on the way.
The National Weather Service is forecasting a chance for rain and thunderstorms Thursday through Sunday, with the heaviest downfalls expected on Saturday.
Kansas City is nearly 5” below the average rainfall for this time of year.
More than 250,000 people are expected to converge on the Country Club Plaza this weekend for the city’s biggest art show. It’s the first major event on the Plaza since it came under new ownership.
The Plaza’s new management team announced last week that it had “quadrupled” security in the 15-block shopping district and added 150 cameras.
The Kansas City Royals are at the tail end of the regular season and making a serious playoff run for the first time in nearly a decade.
But if you want to watch the team at home, this is your last chance.
The Royals play six games at Kauffman Stadium this week.
The team’s final regular season home game is Sunday afternoon against the San Francisco Giants.
In other sports news…
The Chiefs are out on the road this week.
No word on whether Taylor Swift will be traveling with the team to Atlanta as they take on the Braves this Sunday night.
Nick Haines tracks the week’s most impactful and confusing local news stories on Week in Review, Friday nights at 7:30 p.m. on Kansas City PBS.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
