As Kansas City and Jackson County begin to grapple with the fallout of the Chiefs’ impending exit, city and county officials have partially attributed the abandonment of Arrowhead to a previous leader’s anti-stadium stance.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and Interim Jackson County Executive Phil LeVota both held separate news conferences Monday afternoon after the final Chiefs deal was announced. Each reflected on the city and county governments’ attempts to emerge as an impactful financial force in the multi-state tussle over the team, which resulted in a pair of failed financial plans announced in the final days before the deal.

Both also brought up another previous player in Jackson County’s stadium saga - former County Executive Frank White Jr., whose recent term was marked by an opposition to funding the Chiefs.

Both sets of remarks portrayed the embattled former county executive as a long-term obstacle to Jackson County’s participation in stadium negotiations with the Chiefs – as well as the Royals, to some extent.

“I think Frank White is going to have a legacy as a great baseball player,” Lucas said Monday. “I think there will be a lot of discussions, and probably after-actions, about what happened with these teams...I certainly wish we could replay a lot of those steps.”

White was recalled from office in a landslide vote in September after opponents rallied to gather 43,000 signatures over two years, putting White’s removal on the ballot and ultimately forcing a $2 million special election. The recall petition campaign was based in eastern Jackson County with significant help from Democracy in Action, a “dark money” political action group.

So what is White’s connection to the stadium deal? And why is White’s name back in county politics as Kansas City and Jackson County seek to explain the Chiefs’ exit to residents?

Stadium tax opposition

The Kansas City Chiefs and Royals currently benefit from a countywide ⅜-cent sales tax, which helps pay for both teams’ facilities. The tax was last approved in 2000 and will expire in 2030, which will also mark the end of both teams’ leases at Truman Sports Complex.

In April 2024, Jackson County voters were presented with the option to renew the tax for another 30 years, starting in 2031. The renewal would have generated more than $2 billion in revenue, paying for a new ballpark for the Royals and significant renovations at Arrowhead.

At the time, White strongly opposed the tax, even delaying it through an ultimately unsuccessful January 2024 veto.

Voters agreed, shooting down the tax by a margin of 58% to 41%.

Later that summer, White sent a letter to the teams indicating that he would support putting another version of a county sales tax on the ballot, but only if a portion of the revenue it generated was reserved for projects outside of the stadiums.

However, once the renewed tax was shut down, the Chiefs began engaging publicly in discussions about moving across the border - and soliciting financial incentive proposals from multiple bodies in Kansas and Missouri.

Monday’s decision was the result of more than a year and a half of offers and counteroffers from state and local officials on both sides of the state line, a process that would outlast White’s truncated second term as county executive.

Campaign fallout

In the weeks leading up to his recall from office, White said publicly multiple times that he felt his opposition to the stadium tax was a significant motivating factor in his recall.

At the time, White told the Star that the recall effort - which started in 2023 - didn’t seriously concern him.

“[The recall] was pretty much dead in the water until the Chiefs election and Royals election, the tax going on the ballot,” White told The Star in September. “After that tax failed, then everyone said it was Frank White’s fault.”

White’s opponents, including both the residents who removed him from office and the handful of county officials who vocally supported the recall, said their loss of trust in White was driven by multiple issues. These included White’s involvement as county executive in the 2023 and 2025 property tax valuation cycles and his role in the delay of both the adoption of the 2025 county budget and the release of federal ARPA funds.

White, however, told The Star that he feels the recall was largely financially motivated by members of Democracy in Action — the “dark money” PAC members, who he says hail from both sides of the state line — to bring another elected official into power who might be more willing to allocate additional funds to keep the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals stadiums in Jackson County.

He also told The Star that if he was recalled, he expected voters would see a revamped sales tax proposal on county ballots in April 2026.

Last week, LeVota proposed exactly that, announcing a county-driven financial incentive plan centered on a theoretical new sales tax, this time funding only the Chiefs.

LeVota’s plan, dubbed “Operation Save Arrowhead,” included a 25-year, quarter-cent proposed sales tax, which would have started in 2031 and which would have been accompanied by financial commitments from the Chiefs, the state of Missouri and the city of Kansas City. These funds would have supported a significant renovation of Arrowhead Stadium and given the Chiefs full use of Truman Sports Complex.

Operation Save Arrowhead was announced on Dec. 19, three days before Monday’s announcement from Kansas and the Chiefs. At the time, LeVota said he was confident that Jackson County voters would support the proposed new tax despite their resistance in April.

“I believe they want the Chiefs to stay,” LeVota said at the time. “And I believe they will overwhelmingly pass a ballot initiative extending the tax and even lowering it.”

Stalling progress?

LeVota and Lucas, however, said this week that White’s historic opposition to additional stadium funding significantly handicapped the city and county’s recent efforts to convince the team to stay.

LeVota said Monday that he feels that Missouri might have had a better shot at convincing the team to stay - with financial incentives more immediately available from Jackson County - if White’s recall, and his own appointment as county executive, had happened earlier this year.

Both Lucas and LeVota emphasized Monday that their governments have been working more closely together since White’s recall, and that both have been recently engaged in increased - and consistent - conversations with both Gov. Mike Kehoe and the Chiefs’ ownership team.

“I sure wish I would have been here sooner,” LeVota said Monday. “...I’ve heard a lot in the media, questions about my specific position related to all of this, and I think it was a detriment to the administration here before. I think it was not only a speedbump but a roadblock.”

A new stadium tax, meanwhile, would have required voter approval in the form of a countywide ballot measure. During his remarks on Monday, Lucas said that Kansas’ funding proposal - which relies largely on STAR bonds approved at the state level - had the advantage of including funding sources that don’t rely on a public vote.

“Although our conversations with the team extended to as recently as late last week, we understand our very fair, but very responsible financial offer of taxpayer support was surpassed thus far by an even more robust public financing package in Kansas,” Lucas said.

White was removed from office on Sept. 30. LeVota will finish out his term – which ends on Jan. 1, 2027 – and has publicly pledged not to seek a full term.

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