Is Frank White stalling on KC stadium talks? He says he wants better deal for taxpayers

Jackson County Executive Frank White Jr. is in no rush to put a stadium sales tax issue on the ballot, even if some of his colleagues in county government are getting antsy.

DaRon McGee, this year’s chairman of the county legislature, tried to light a fire under White on Thursday by proposing an ordinance to be heard Monday that would put a ⅜-cent sales tax measure on the April 2 ballot “for the purpose of constructing stadium park improvements” to retain the Royals and Chiefs in Jackson County.

It was no more specific than that, and it was unprecedented in that the county hasn’t yet reached new lease agreements with either team. The county had signed leases in hand in 2006 before that legislature voted to put the current sales tax measure before voters.

McGee’s move reflected the desire of the teams to get things moving quicker and the fear in the community by some that one or both teams might leave Kansas City for sites elsewhere in the metro area or some far-flung city angling for a pro sports franchise if the county fails to meet their timetable.

The Royals have said they might try and build a stadium in North Kansas City, if a deal with Jackson County can’t be worked out. But they haven’t threatened to leave the metro area, and the Chiefs have made it clear they’d like to stay put at Arrowhead.

In his first extensive interview about the stadium issue since negotiations began several months ago, White asked for patience as he captains the county’s negotiating team. He shrugs off those who have criticized him for stalling, or even impeding, negotiations with the Royals and Chiefs — what he thinks of as his calm, methodical approach.

What would be the county’s share of a downtown baseball stadium and upgrades for the Chiefs at Arrowhead, and what would taxpayers get out of that kind of tax investment?

Those questions won’t be answered until the leases have been signed. White worries that taxpayers could get a raw deal that would cost them and their grandkids far more than it should, if the county isn’t careful and doesn’t take the time to get it right.

“What we’re trying to do is get the teams to understand our needs,” White told The Star hours before McGee’s proposed ordinance was posted online. “We just want to be equitable partners in this agreement. We’re talking about committing ourselves …to 40 more years.

“And so you don’t want to rush into something that the taxpayers have to be responsible for for 40 years without getting some equitable agreement with both teams where the county can benefit along with the teams.”

Renewing the current leases without a substantial rewrite is not an option he favors, he said, describing the current terms as overly generous for the teams and out of step with the times.

“This current lease is not really conducive to the county and the county’s needs,” he said. “It is probably the best taxpayer-funded agreement, maybe in all the sports.”

Best for the teams, he means, not for the taxpayers. The current sales tax does more than pay off the debt for the stadium renovations that were finished a dozen years ago. The teams also split more than $20 million a year from the tax to pay for maintenance and operations at the stadiums. They also get to keep all the parking revenue and other perks.

White thinks taxpayers deserve a better deal than the current one, which was negotiated when the teams had all the leverage because the county had failed to live up to its commitments to keep the stadiums in state of the art condition. The current lease puts that burden on the teams and locks them into playing the majority of their games at the sports complex through Jan. 31, 2031.

That means it’s the county that now has the most leverage and can insist on taking the time to insist on a better deal.

“It’s not like we’re dealing with one year or two years, we’re dealing with eight years,” White said, although his math was a bit off. The leases will expire in a little more than seven years.

“So we have time to get these things worked out,” he said.

When talks with the Royals and Chiefs got serious back in September, White promised the teams that he would not run to the microphones and negotiate in public. And so he has largely kept quiet while others in county government, notably legislator Manny Abarca, have been all too willing to give their views on the need to act quickly, else Kansas City might lose both teams to Kansas or Nashville.

Mayor Quinton Lucas has accused White of bargaining in bad faith because the county executive wishes another way could be found to finance a new downtown ballpark other than a sales tax, which White says weighs most heavily on low income people who can’t afford to buy tickets to Royals and Chiefs games.

“If the county executive is uninterested in public funding in any way to support a stadium, I think it is worthwhile for him to just say that,” Lucas told KCUR’s Steve Kraske on his “Up to Date” program in November.

Then this month the business manager of the Greater Kansas City Building & Construction Trades Council issued a public letter addressed to White raising alarms about the negotiating process and called for a full renewal of the ⅜-cent sales tax.

“For months now, we have watched the conversation around the Kansas City Royals and the Kansas City Chiefs devolve into a situation that has become intolerable,” began the letter signed by Ralph Oropeza. “The current state of this conversation, both in the public and behind the scenes, is now directly threatening to dip into the livelihood of the workers we represent. Let us be clear, if the Royals or the Chiefs bolt outside of the Kansas City-metro, tens of thousands of hours of union labor will be put in jeopardy, further gutting the American labor movement.”

The common denominator, according to White: None of those critics are at the bargaining table with the teams and do not have a full grasp of what the negotiations entail.

White asks that his constituents trust him to look out for the best interests of Jackson County.

“The first thing I want people to know is that I’m very serious about my job,” he said near the top of a nearly 40-minute interview in his corner office on the second floor of the downtown courthouse. “People elected me to do what’s in the best interest of the taxpayer.”

He said the criticism doesn’t bother him, having fielded plenty of knocks both on the ballfield as the Royals’ lead second baseman for much of his 18-year career, and his nine years in politics, first as a legislator and now the county’s CEO.

“I am not one to go toe-to-toe with other elected officials or other people who say I should be doing this and doing that,” he said. “I’m confident that, working with the teams, we will be able to come up with some agreement.”

White understands that the Royals would like to build a ballpark with public tax support downtown for business reasons. Like other teams in Major League Baseball with new stadiums or who are in the process of getting their local governments to build one for them, the Royals envision construction of an adjacent entertainment district with private money (and tax breaks) that would provide the team another stream of revenue.

He is also aware that the Chiefs see opportunity in the Royals moving out of Kauffman Stadium, as that would give them full reign over the county-owned Truman Sports Complex where they and the Royals have been next-door neighbors for 50 years.

White says he is working to meet the deadline that the teams have set for reaching agreements that would get that done. But that timetable is more of a want than a need. The stadiums are in good shape, and the leases are not on the verge of expiring.

An arbitrary deadline should not force the county into a bad deal, he said. And contrary to what some of his critics believe, White said, those negotiations are progressing.

“I think we’re far along,” he said. “All of our concerns have been presented to the teams. They understand where I’m coming from in terms of where the county sits in this agreement. And they know the things we’ve asked for.”

He won’t discuss those specific wants and needs right now, per his promise to the teams, he said. But there must be something in that agreement that benefits county taxpayers and the community as a whole, he said.

“My thing is, let’s see if we can get revenue back from this contract, that we can put back in the community so that we can do some things in the community. That’s really my goal.”