The Platte County political season is two weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon.
Slowly the facts are starting to come out about how dangerously close this whole World Cup alleged economic boom is to becoming a major dud and disappointment.
Hotels in the Kansas City metro, including those in Platte County, are saying the number of room reservations in place are even less than what they normally see during a typical summer. That seems not good. In fact that seems the opposite of good. Yikes.
So much for 650,000 people coming to Kansas City and $653 million of direct economic impact in KC that the booster groups were telling us would happen. If you’re still believing those numbers you might be an overly-enthusiastic tourism evangelist.
The Platte County Republican Central Committee has censured the four GOP candidates who withdrew from the primary ballot and now say they will seek candidacy as an independent. It’s an important action for the central committee to take, I suppose. While it’s important to central committee leadership I just don’t know how big of an impact something like that will make to an average voter. My guess is very little.
It’s my opinion voters in local elections don’t spend a lot of time wondering how their preferred candidate stands in the eyes of their party’s central committee. Doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a deciding factor, but carry on.
Up until this week, the only time I can recall the Parkville Area Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development being on my mind was several years ago when Jason Maki was on his Sunshine Law crusade vs. the City of Parkville and wine club friends of Nan Johnston in Parkville’s Unethical Era, and the Parkville EDC fought like hell against the idea of handing over any documents.
So some of us are not really shedding a tear for the bad press PACE, led by executive director Ed Linnebur, is finding themselves in now over the apparent shady handling of organization funds by someone inside the group.
Clown show under Ed and friends at the Parkville PACE exposed. Some might say karma.
If there’s one area where prosecutions have been lacking in Platte County in recent years it is in government corruption. Let’s watch closely to see if any charges end up getting filed in this latest episode. Will this conveniently get brushed aside?
Rod Stewart, age 81, is coming to perform this summer at the new Morton Amphitheater in Riverside. Not to sound morbid but Speck and I have been placing side wagers on whether Rod will still be alive by then. His concert is set for Aug. 15, if you’re keeping score at home.
I noticed that for his concert in Riverside Rod Stewart is bringing Richard Marx with him. About a year or so ago (time runs together in this biz, not gonna kid you) we saw Richard Marx in concert with Rick Springfield at Ameristar. Marx was great. Springfield wasn’t bad.
Something confuses me about Springfield. When he sings, his voice sounds pure with no hint of an accent. The voice sounds like the average guy on your typical American street, providing that average guy has a voice that could make millions in a lifetime. But when Springfield talks, he has a very Australian accent. Like a thick, heavy Australian accent. So heavy it takes me a few seconds or longer to decipher what it is that he has just said.
You’ll hear him on the Sirius XM 80s on 8 channel quite often hosting a show and his Australian voice while he’s attempting to play DJ sounds nothing like his crisp and clear singing voice on his records, which can be described as “American accent.” How is this possible?
Back to the hotel occupancy talk. Platte County hotels in the summer of 2025 were four to five percent slower than they were in the summer of 2024. So if the hotels are saying their 2026 summer reservations are not as high as their typical summer, things are really below World Cup expectations. But there is a little bit of good news for Platte County hotels. Occupancy rates for county hotels in March of this year were more than five percent higher (67.5% to 62%) than in March of 2025.
Hotel room pricing probably isn’t doing the hoteliers any favors as they look to pile up reservations for June and July. The average hotel room in Platte County in the month of March was $104.14 per night. That’s up by $10 from last March. Kansas City hotel rooms were also up $10 per night in March of this year compared to March of last year, at $131.67 per night compared to last March at $121.92.
Here’s a small hint for anybody out there who is a fellow DirecTV customer.
I called the other day looking for ways to lower my monthly charges, and the rep on the line said I was already receiving all available discounts, blah blah blah. I said thanks for checking, I’ll get to work exploring lower cost options. He then offered me all kinds of things–not a lower price, mind you–but other services, such as three months of Cinemax for free and two months of HBO for free. I will rarely watch those channels but accepted the offer anyway. “You may as well, with gas prices this high most of us won’t be driving many places this summer. You may want to watch more TV,” the rep said. He isn’t wrong.
Then I asked what else do you have to offer me, as in something I might actually watch? I mentioned the MLB package, which usually costs an arm and a leg. Boom. Suddenly I was offered the rest of this year’s MLB package at no cost.
Again, I probably won’t spend a lot of time watching baseball games that don’t involve the Royals, but accepted anyway. Just mentioning it here in case there are some baseball fans who are DirecTV customers. Call them up and give them a hard time about their pricing. You may end up getting offered the MLB package for free.
(Go ahead and enjoy the World Cup. But don’t tell us 650,000 people are coming to KC for it. Email ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)
