Pressure on the State

While the Wizards and OnGoal are still working with the state of Kansas on getting the STAR Bonds approved for the Wizards stadium out at the Legends, the local representatives are starting to push the state to approve the STAR Bonds. State Senator Kelly Kultala of Kansas City, KS, and Representative Kevin Yoder of Overland Park along with Wichita Representative Jason Watkins have put pressure on Kansas Commerce Secretary David Kerr about this deal. Included in the pressure, was a comment by Kultala saying that she'd heard that Missouri had another propsal ready and waiting for the Wizards. Kerr has responded to the pressure by saying that he hopes to know by the end of the week if a deal can be struck with the Wizards. It sounds like the Wizards/OnGoal have already made some concessions with the dropping of the amount of the STAR Bonds being asked for from $175 million to $153 million, so hopefully the drop in money is enough for the state to approve the STAR Bond usage.

The fact that representatives from around the state seem to be showing their support for this project is an encouraging sign to the project and the hope for this development. The failure of this project in KCK would be a huge blow for Wyandotte County as the loss of the Cerner jobs would be big. It could also cause more problems for the Wizards and their fans, as they'll be running very low on chances to get a stadium built. In fact, they're running so low that it appears that the "r" word, relocation is potentially starting to raise it's head a little bit again. While the article speaks to the positives of the potential stadium out in Kansas, it also has a point from Heineman, where he said that without a new stadium, they'd need to look at other sites, including moving the team out of the city. Not a good thing for any Wizards fan.