Rank Hypocrisy from the Kansas City Star?
On July 10, 2015, the Kansas City Star editorial board bemoaned the state of mental health care in Kansas. Of...
How the Convention Hotel Could Drain the General Fund
The Kansas City Business Journal recently published a piece about the proposed catering contract with the Hyatt Convention Hotel. In...
Kansas City Streetcar Advocates Argue Expensive Streetcar Not Country’s Most Expensive
Recently, an article in the Kansas City Star reported that the cost of the city’s two-mile streetcar line is par...
Saint Louis County Would Be Safer With a Rational Policy for Hiring Firefighters
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently called for reform to the hiring practices for firefighters in Saint Louis County. The Post...
It’s Time to Disband the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission
The Metropolitan Taxicab Commission (MTC) regulates all for-hire (and I guess now not for-hire?) vehicles in Saint Louis City and...
Abatement Advisory Board Declines to Catch a Falling Star
It’s been a bad few days for the Kansas City Star. Last week, the Kansas City Business Journal reported that the Star was seeking a 15-year...
The Risks of the New Convention Hotel
Despite being midsized in both population and convention business, Kansas City was rated among the top five cities in high travel taxes....
Father’s Day Thoughts On the Summer Solstice and the Minimum Wage
As first appearing in the Weekly Standard: As this father’s day coincides with the summer solstice, it is an appropriate...
We Didn’t Lose the GOP Convention Because of Hotel Rooms
The 2016 Republican Convention will be hosted in Cleveland. Kansas City was considered but not chosen. Kansas City leaders want...
The News Tribune Gets School Choice Wrong
The Jefferson City News Tribune’s editorial board published an article yesterday called, “Changes in Public Education Complicate Pressing Choices.” They wrote,...
Minimum Wage Bills Under Consideration
The debate over increasing the minimum wage has been a hot topic recently. Below are the two minimum wage bills...
A History of Kansas City’s Convention Pursuits
Consultant suggests convention-center expansion. Expansion disappoints. Consultant suggests 1,000-room hotel. No one questions consultant about previous suggestion. Instead, city officials...
Back in the USSR
The Kansas City Star published a piece this weekend that examined the impact on caterers of the proposed convention deal....
It’s Groundhog Day for the KC Convention Center
Kansas Citians are being told that if we don’t hurry up and subsidize the construction of a new 800-room convention hotel,...
The Future of I-70: “Not a Plan, But a Big Idea”
This week in Kansas City, Missouri’s transportation leaders held a meeting concerning the future of I-70. As we’ve discussed many...
KC Convention Hotel Estimates Are Notoriously Wrong
Right now, leaders in Kansas City, Missouri, are eager to build a convention hotel downtown. But there is precious little information available....
Minimum Wage Increases Not Effective at Fighting Poverty
Should Kansas City double the minimum wage from $7.50 to $15 an hour? Local politicians all seem to think so....
Missouri’s Bridges: Are They Falling Apart?
As we’ve written many times before, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) is facing a serious funding problem. If something...
Kansas City’s Reverse Robin Hood
The poor in Kansas City face a double hit: We are generally a high tax city, and development policy ignores the poorer...
Nobody Benefits from School Buildings Sitting Vacant
I joined Kelly Jackson and McGraw Milhaven on “The McGraw Show” this morning to discuss my new paper, “Vacant School...
