Casino, BPU, Woodlands at top of the list in 2008

The top stories of 2008 in Wyandotte County are marked by scandals and elections, economic downturn and economic development.

1. Casino review process

When the calendar rolled into 2008 nearly 12 months ago, the year’s top story was going to involve Wyandotte County’s attempts to land a destination resort casino.

The casino saga was indeed the top story of the year, but how the review process eventually unfolded and how Wyandotte County’s efforts were quickly engulfed in a national economic crisis painted a story with much larger impacts than just affecting 2008.

The year started with a half-dozen casino proposals – Kansas Entertainment, Legends Sun, Pinnacle Entertainment, Las Vegas Sands in Kansas City, Kan., and Sands and Golden Gaming in Edwardsville – in various stages of review by officials in the Unified Government, Edwardsville and Kansas Lottery Commissioners.

Sands’ KCK submission – the proposal was the company’s second casino proposal in KCK; the first had been turned down on planning and zoning considerations – never formally made it to the state-level selection process, as the UG’s Board of Commissioners deemed the company’s second proposal to be in violation of the UG’s casino review process completed in late 2007. Sands’ KCK proposal never made it to the state.

But five proposals did make it to the Kansas Lottery, and by the end of Spring, all five had successfully negotiated contracts with lottery officials, and all five set out for the final stage of review before the Kansas Lottery Gaming Facility Review Board during the summer.

At the same time, a credit crisis had started to brew in American financial markets, a crisis that found its way into the casino review process in early summer when Sands officials pulled out their Edwardsville proposal.

The remaining four proposals soldiered on, and started to present their applications to the seven-member review board.

Just days before the review board was scheduled to hold a final meeting to select the winning bid, the financial crisis came back into the fry, this time forcing Pinnacle Entertainment to withdrawal its proposal.

In September, three proposals remained: the $705 million Hard Rock Hotel and Casino at Kansas Speedway, Golden Gaming’s $660 million proposal in Edwardsville and the $770 million Legends Sun proposal at Village West.

During the final vote tally, the Hard Rock proposal received four votes to Golden Gaming’s three (Legends Sun was shutout), giving the proposal enough votes to move on to the last part of the process – a criminal background check by the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission.

The background check was due to be completed the first week in December, but KRGC members never got the chance to officially approve the Hard Rock project.

On the night before that approval was set to take place, Hard Rock project front man Joe Weinberg, a principal with the Baltimore-based Cordish Company, informed the Kansas Lottery that Cordish and the second partner in the project, International Speedway Corporation (parent of Kansas Speedway) were pulling out of the project.

Weinberg and other project officials said the faltering economy necessitated the project having the ability to be built in phases. But because the group had already successfully negotiated a contract with state officials, the ability to change the contract to allow phasing after initial negotiations were complete wasn’t allowed.

Despite pulling out at the last minute, Hard Rock project officials say they plan to come back with the same proposal – only this time the components will be phased in – in 2009.

In the last casino-related decision of 2008, the Kansas Lottery Commission voted to re-open the casino review process, mandating the lottery receive all applications by April 1, and that applications receive endorsements from local governments no later than June 1.

Though local governments in Wyandotte County have yet to outline a request for proposals timeline, it appears likely that Wyandotte County’s plans for a destination casino – which were supposed to conclude in 2008 – could still become reality, but perhaps not until 2009.


2. BPU faces indictments, EPA violations
Kansas City Board of Public Utilities officials started the year answering questions from a Wyandotte County Grand Jury, formed after Kansas City, Kan., resident T.J. Reardon gathered hundreds of signatures on a petition calling for the Grand Jury.
As a result of the grand jury’s deliberations, BPU Chief Administrative Officer Marc Conklin and a former contract attorney for the utility, Rodney Turner, were indicted on more than 50 counts of theft, presenting a false claim and preparing a false claim totaling more than $400,000 since 2003.
Both men pleaded non-guilty to the charges, and will likely face trial in 2009.
But the indictments were far from the only damaging news for the utility in 2008.
In attempt to quell its loudest critics – the aforementioned Reardon and Kansas Sen. Chris Steineger – a handful of members of the BPU’s Board of Directors waged a behind-the-scenes campaign to discredit the pair.
Finally, in November, the BPU was notified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that a number of projects it undertook at the Quindaro and Nearman power stations violated provisions in the Clean Air Act. The violations could mean millions in fines against the utility, and millions more to bring any violating project up to current environmental standards.
The two sides will meet in early 2009 to hash out an agreement.

3. The Woodlands closes
For nearly 20 years, The Woodlands racetrack in western Wyandotte County had served as the Kansas City metropolitan area’s most successful greyhound and horse racing track.
But in the mid 1990s, after a slew of riverboat casinos opened in Missouri, The Woodlands started to struggle, as betting volume and visitor counts decreased dramatically.
Woodlands executives and local officials, however, were determined to revive the track by passing state legislation that would allow slot machines at the track.
Though that legislation passed in 2006, officials from The Woodlands and the other two dog tracks in Kansas said they couldn’t justify making the investment to host slot machines if they wouldn’t be able to keep a larger portion of slot machine revenue.
With an unworkable slot machine plan, and the continued sluggishness of visitors, Woodlands officials announced in July that they would close the facility for good in late August.

4. Prescott Plaza grocery store opens
Less than a decade ago, the northeast corner of the Interstate 70 and 18th Street Expressway interchange was home to a dilapidated truck stop, a greasy restaurant and a seedy hotel.
By the end of 2008, the same intersection had been transformed into a shining new Sun Fresh grocery store, with retail and restaurant sites adjoining the anchor tenant.
The opening marked a new chapter in the urban redevelopment of KCK, and could signal the way for future development east of Interstate 635.
Even despite a weakening economy, the team of developers, real estate agents and contracts were able to build the $20 million-plus complex in record time – breaking ground in March and opening the doors to the grocery store in early November.

5. Victory Junction Gang Camp coming to KCK
One of motorsports’ most famous families – the Petty family – announced in September they will build the Victory Junction Gang Camp on a 71-acre site off of Riverview Avenue in western Wyandotte County.
The camp, which has an initial fundraising goal of at least $35 million, looks to break ground in late 2009 or early 2010.
The camp will be the second such camp in the nation. The other one, in North Carolina, has served more than 9,800 children who suffer from chronic illness and disease.

6. Election 2008
The 2008 elections, both national and statewide, stirred the passions of many Wyandotte County residents, from hours-long lines at Kansas City Kansas Community College during the February Democratic Presidential Primary, to a nasty scrum between two Democrats for a Kansas Senate seat.
The scrum, between then-incumbent Mark Gilstrap and challenger Kelly Kultala, featured Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Kansas Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley taking Kultala’s side, while Gilstrap was left campaigning on his name and his record.
Kultala defeated Gilstrap in the primary, but faced another rough campaign against Leavenworth Republican Steve Fitzgerald, including accusations from Fitzgerald’s camp that tactics employed by Kultala against two area business owners amounted to voter intimidation. Kultala’s campaign countered that Fitzgerald’s supporters were engaged in an organized effort to take down and destroy Kultala campaign signs.
Fitzgerald’s aggressive campaign fell short, however, and he failed to win his home county by a large enough margin to hold off Kultala.
Wyandotte County residents also rejoiced after the November election of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama to the presidency. Nearly 40,000 of the county’s residents voted for Obama, while fewer than 17,000 voted for Republican nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

7. Smoking ordinance approved
After two years of lobbying by public health advocacy groups and local business owners, the Unified Government’s Board of Commissioners approved a smoking ordinance for Kansas City, Kan, in December.
The ordinance contains a number of exemptions, most notably for private residences, cars, private clubs and casino gaming floors.
It also provides for businesses not exempted in the ordinance to apply for an annual smoking license for the next three years. But after the three-year window, any business not specifically exempted by the ordinance will be required to ban smoking.

8. Block 500 project announced
The Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools District and the Unified Government announced its intentions to be a part of a downtown development site.
Located in the 500 block of Minnesota Avenue, the school district’s portion of the project would include a preschool serving hundreds of students and the relocation of its administrative offices from the Indian Springs shopping center.
Because of the current economic situation nationwide, the UG portion of the plan was scaled down.

9. Edwardsville on the upswing
For a city that became used to dominating the headlines in 2007, the 4,500 residents of Edwardsville found themselves in relatively tranquil waters in 2008. The city petitioned Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to reclassify the town as a city of the second class from a city of the third class. The move recognized the city’s increasing population, and will eventually necessitate a detailed analysis of many of the city’s current activities and how those will be maintained going forward.

10. Curbside recycling initiative launched

In June, Kansas City, Kan., residents joined a handful of other metropolitan-area cities in being able to participate in a curbside recycling program.
The program, initiated by the Unified Government’s Solid Waste Division and operated by Deffenbaugh Industries, aimed to distribute more than 50,000 recycle bins to homes across the city by the end of the year.