Kansas lawmakers approve a plan to lure the Chiefs from Missouri by helping to finance a new stadium

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators approved a bipartisan plan Tuesday aimed at luring the Kansas City Chiefs away from Missouri by helping to finance a new stadium for the Super Bowl champions.

The bill passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and sent to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly would allow Kansas to issue bonds to cover up to 70% of the costs of a new stadium in the state for the Chiefs and another for Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals. The plan also encourages the teams to move their practice facilities to the Kansas side of the metropolitan area, which is split by the two states' border.

Kansas would pay off its bonds over 30 years with revenues from sports betting, Kansas Lottery ticket sales and new sales and alcohol taxes collected from shopping and entertainment districts around the sites for the new stadiums.

Korb Maxell, an attorney for the Chiefs who lives on the Kansas side of the border, said the state's lawmakers were “embracing the possibility of the Chiefs and the Royals” and can now make a “very compelling offer” to the NFL team.

“We’re excited about what happened here today,” he said after the bill cleared the Legislature. “This is incredibly real.”

The votes were 84-38 in the House and 27-8 in the Senate. Kelly stopped short of saying she'll sign the stadium-financing bill, but in a statement, she praised the effort behind it.

“Kansas now has the opportunity to become a professional sports powerhouse," she said.

Kansas legislators see the two teams as in play because in April, voters on the Missouri side of the Kansas City metropolitan area refused to extend a sales tax used to keep up the teams’ existing stadiums, which sit side by side.

A spokeswoman for Missouri Gov. Mike Parson did not immediately return an email message seeking comment. But in Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas promised to “lay out a good offer” to keep both teams from moving to Kansas.

In Kansas, top Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature had promised that the stadium proposal wouldn't be debated until the Legislature approved a plan that would cut income and property taxes by a total of $1.23 billion over the next three years. Many lawmakers argued that voters would be angry if the state helped finance new stadiums without cutting taxes.

“We definitely need to demonstrate that we’re getting relief to our citizens,” said Senate President Ty Masterson, a Wichita-area Republican who backed the stadium-financing plan.

Kelly called a special session to have lawmakers consider reducing taxes after she vetoed three tax-cutting plans before legislators adjourned their regular annual session May 1. Once legislators convened the special session, Kelly couldn't control what they considered, and that created an opening to consider the stadium-financing plan.

The first version of the plan emerged in late April, but lawmakers didn't vote on it before adjourning. It would have allowed state bonds to finance all stadium construction costs, but supporters later opted for the 70% cap to pick up votes, and the plan also would require legislative leaders and the governor to sign off on any bonding.

House Commerce Committee Chair Sean Tarwater, a Kansas City-area Republican, said the Chiefs are likely to spend between $500 million and $700 million in private funds on a new stadium.

“There are no blank checks,” Tarwater told GOP colleagues during a briefing on the plan before the House began debating it.

A new nonprofit group, Scoop and Score, formed last month to push for bringing the Chiefs to Kansas, and that group and the Royals together hired more than 30 lobbyists for the special session. But the national free-market, small-government group Americans for Prosperity and the Kansas Policy Institute, a free-market think tank, oppose the measure, and both have been influential with conservative Republicans.

Free-market conservatives have long opposed state and local subsidies for specific businesses or projects. And economists who’ve studied pro sports teams have concluded in dozens of studies over decades that subsidizing their stadiums isn’t worth the cost.

“Most of the money that gets spent on the Chiefs is money that would otherwise be spent on other entertainment projects,” said Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College in central Massachusetts who has written multiple books about sports.

Missouri officials have said they'll do whatever it takes to keep the teams but haven't outlined any proposals.

“The story now is that today was largely in my opinion about leverage,” Lucas said. “And the teams are in an exceptional leverage position.”

The two teams' lease on their stadium complex runs through January 2031, but Maxwell said renovations on the team's Arrowhead Stadium should be planned seven or eight years in advance.

“There is an urgency to this,” added David Frantz, the Royals’ general counsel.

Supporters of the stadium plan argued that economists' past research doesn't apply to the Chiefs and Royals. They said the bonds will be paid off with tax revenues that aren't being generated now and would never be without the stadiums or the development around them. Masterson said it's wrong to call the bonds a subsidy.

And Maxwell said: “For a town to be major league, they need major league teams.”

But economists who've studied pro sports said similar arguments have been a staple of past debates over paying for new stadiums. Development around a new stadium lessens development elsewhere, where the tax dollars generated would go to fund services or schools, they said.

“It could still help Kansas and maybe hurt Missouri by the same amount,” Zimbalist said. "It’s a zero-sum game.”

Kansas state Sen. Molly Baumgardner, R-Louisburg, asks questions during the Senate debate about the details of a proposal aimed at luring the Kansas City Chiefs from Missouri, Tuesday, June 18, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kansas. The proposal would authorize state bonds to help the Super Bowl champion Chiefs and Major League Baseball's Kansas City Royals finance new stadiums in Kansas. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas state Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, right, D-Wichita, confers with Sen. Ethan Corson, left, D-Prairie Village, during a Senate debate on a proposal aimed at luring the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs from Missouri, Tuesday, June 18, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kansas. The measure would allow Kansas to issue bonds to help the Chiefs and professional baseball's Kansas City Royals new stadiums in Kansas. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas state Sen. J.R. Claeys, R-Salina, tries to persuade fellow GOP senators in a meeting to support a proposal aimed at luring the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs from Missouri, Tuesday, June 18, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kansas. The proposal would authorize state bonds to help finance new stadiums in Kansas for the Chiefs and Major League Baseball's Kansas City Royals. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins, left, R-Wichita, confers with House Commerce Committee Chair Sean Tarwater, R-Stillwell, ahead of a meeting of GOP lawmakers on a proposal to help the Kansas City Chiefs build a new stadium in Kansas, Tuesday, June 18, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. The plan would allow the state to issue bonds to help pay for a new stadium for the Chiefs and professional baseball's Kansas City Royals. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas state Rep. Chuck Smith, R-Pittsburg, listens to comments about a proposal to help finance a new stadium in Kansas for the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs during a meeting of GOP lawmakers, Tuesday, June 18, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kansas. The plan also would allow the state to help finance a new stadium for professional baseball's Kansas City Royals. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas state Sen. Mike Thompson, R-Shawnee, follows a Senate vote approving a bill that would cut state income and property taxes by a total of $1.2 billion over the next three years, Tuesday, June 18, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kansas. Legislative leaders said the tax cuts must pass first before lawmakers consider a plan to help the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs build a new stadium in Kansas. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

FILE - A woman and her dog walk past Kauffman Stadium, home of the Kansas City Royals baseball team, March 24, 2020, in Kansas City, Mo. The Kansas Legislature's top leaders endorsed helping the Kansas City Chiefs and the Kansas City Royals finance new stadiums in Kansas ahead of a special session set to convene Tuesday, June 18. The plan would authorize state bonds for stadium construction and pay them off with revenues from sports betting, the Kansas Lottery and new tax dollars generated in and around the new venues. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

Michael Austin, a Kansas economist and a lobbyist for the free-market, small-government group Americans for Prosperity, awaits the start of a legislative hearing on a proposal that the group opposes to allow the state to issue bonds to help professional football's Kansas City Chiefs build a new stadium in Kansas, Monday, June 17, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. For decades, economists who've studied professional sports have argued that government subsidies for new stadiums are not worth the cost. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas House Commerce Committee Chair Sean Tarwater, R-Stilwell, tries to persuade other House Republicans to support a proposal to help the Kansas City Chiefs finance a new stadium in Kansas, Tuesday, June 18, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kansas. Tarwater and top GOP legislators hope to lure the Chiefs and Major League Baseball's Kansas City Royals to Kansas from Missouri. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas lawmakers approve a plan to lure the Chiefs from Missouri by helping to finance a new stadium

FILE - Fans cheer at Arrowhead Stadium during the first half of an NFL football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Detroit Lions, Sept. 7, 202, in Kansas City, Mo. The Kansas Legislature's top leaders endorsed helping the Chiefs and professional baseball's Kansas City Royals finance new stadiums in Kansas ahead of a special session set to convene Tuesday. The plan would authorize state bonds for stadium construction and pay them off with revenues from sports betting, the Kansas Lottery and new tax dollars generated in and around the new venues. (AP Photo/Reed Hoffmann. File)

Kansas lawmakers approve a plan to lure the Chiefs from Missouri by helping to finance a new stadium

NEW YORK (AP) — Bill Cobbs, the veteran character actor who became a ubiquitous and sage screen presence as an older man, has died. He was 90.

Cobbs died Tuesday at his home in the Inland Empire, California, surrounded by family and friends, his publicist Chuck I. Jones said. Natural causes is the likely cause of death, Jones said.

A Cleveland native, Cobbs acted in such films as “The Hudsucker Proxy,” “The Bodyguard” and “Night at the Museum.” He made his first big-screen appearance in a fleeting role in 1974's “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three." He became a lifelong actor with some 200 film and TV credits. The lion share of those came in his 50s, 60s, and 70s, as filmmakers and TV producers turned to him again and again to imbue small but pivotal parts with a wizened and worn soulfulness.

Cobbs appeared on television shows including “The Sopranos," “The West Wing,” “Sesame Street” and “Good Times.” He was Whitney Houston's manager in “The Bodyguard” (1992), the mystical clock man of the Coen brothers' “The Hudsucker Proxy” (1994) and the doctor of John Sayles' “Sunshine State” (2002). He played the coach in “Air Bud” (1997), the security guard in “Night at the Museum” (2006) and the father on “The Gregory Hines Show."

Cobbs rarely got the kinds of major parts that stand out and win awards. Instead, Cobbs was a familiar and memorable everyman who left an impression on audiences, regardless of screen time. He won a Daytime Emmy Award for outstanding limited performance in a daytime program for the series “Dino Dana” in 2020.

Wendell Pierce, who acted alongside Cobbs in “I'll Fly Away” and “The Gregory Hines Show,” remembered Cobbs as “a father figure, a griot, an iconic artist that mentored me by the way he led his life as an actor," he wrote on the social media platform X.

Wilbert Francisco Cobbs, born June 16, 1934, served eight years in the U.S. Air Force after graduating high school in Cleveland. In the years after his service, Cobbs sold cars. One day, a customer asked him if he wanted to act in a play. Cobbs first appeared on stage in 1969. He began to act in Cleveland theater and later moved to New York where he joined the Negro Ensemble Company, acting alongside Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.

Cobbs later said acting resonated with him as a way to express the human condition, in particular during the Civil Rights Movement in the late '60s.

“To be an artist, you have to have a sense of giving,” Cobbs said in a 2004 interview. “Art is somewhat of a prayer, isn't it? We respond to what we see around us and what we feel and how things affect us mentally and spiritually.”

FILE - Bill Cobbs arrives at the premiere of "The Muppets" at El Capitan Theater, Nov. 12, 2011, in Los Angeles. Cobbs, the veteran character actor who became a ubiquitous and sage screen presence as an older man, died Tuesday, June 25, 2024, at his home in Inland Empire, Calif. He was 90. (AP Photo/Katy Winn, File)

FILE - Bill Cobbs attends TV Guide Magazine's 2012 Hot List Party at Skybar at the Mondrian Hotel, Nov. 12, 2012, in West Hollywood, Calif. Cobbs, the veteran character actor who became a ubiquitous and sage screen presence as an older man, died Tuesday, June 25, 2024, at his home in Inland Empire, Calif. He was 90. (Photo by Todd Williamson/Invision/AP Images, File)

FIL - Actor Bill Cobbs, a cast member in "Get Low," arrives at the premiere of the film in Beverly Hills, Calif., July 27, 2010. Cobbs, the veteran character actor who became a ubiquitous and sage screen presence as an older man, died Tuesday, June 25, 2024, at his home in Inland Empire, Calif. He was 90. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)