The moment a tow truck finally shows up to remove something that ought to have left long ago has a certain quality. It was filmed by Kim Muratori. For the first time in twenty-five months, she watched as her 2018 Mercedes-Benz E-400 was loaded and driven away in Fort Lauderdale. She recorded the entire event. Not out of sentimentality. Out of something more akin to grim satisfaction following an encounter that would have rendered most people incapable of continuing to fight. The issues were not subtle and began early. An independent Mercedes-Benz technician found that the mileage displayed on the…
Author: Sierra Foster
Sierra Foster
Born in Kansas City, Sierra Foster writes about politics and serves as Senior Editor at kbsd6.com. She was raised paying attention to this city, not just living in it. Sierra has a strong, deep connection to Kansas City, from the neighborhoods east of Troost to the discussions that take place in the city hall halls. Sierra, who is presently enrolled at the University of Kansas to pursue a degree in Political Science, applies the rigor of academic study to her journalism. She writes about politics in Missouri and Kansas as someone who genuinely cares about what happens to the people in these communities—the policies that impact them, the leaders who represent them, and the civic forces influencing their futures—rather than as an outsider watching from a distance. Her editorial coverage encompasses state-level policy, local government, and the national political currents that permeate bi-state regional life. Whether it's a city council vote or a Senate race, she has a special gift for turning complex policy language into writing that feels urgent, relatable, and worthwhile. Sierra seldom sits still off the page. She claims that playing soccer on a regular basis has sharpened her instincts for political reporting because of the sport's teamwork, strategy, and requirement to read a changing game in real time. She's probably somewhere in Kansas City with her friends when she's not writing or on the pitch, discovering new reasons to adore a city she already knows so well.
Every other lawn in a Wichita neighborhood used to be overgrown; this is the kind of gradual, obvious neglect that cities eventually recognize and penalize. Spencer was the first to notice it. Since sixth grade, he had been driving back from Kansas State on the weekends to maintain his sixty weekly accounts, studying computer science during the week, and contemplating grass cutting on the weekends. By the time he graduated and got a job in programming, the lawn care company was only something he handled from the back end, including phone calls, invoices, and scheduling. Then, one afternoon, he noticed…
On a typical Chiefs game day, there’s a certain vibe to Arrowhead Stadium: the smell of tailgate smoke in the parking lot, the low rumble of 70,000 people finding their seats, and the feeling that you’re going to witness something significant for everyone nearby. With a worldwide audience and the kind of international color that the NFL playoffs don’t quite produce, the 2026 World Cup was meant to bring that same feeling to Kansas City. The realization that the seats they believed they purchased are not, in any meaningful sense, the seats FIFA delivered has greatly complicated the anticipation of…
The gaps are the first thing you notice when you stroll through the Country Club Plaza on a weekday afternoon. Paper in the windows and empty storefronts. A coffee shop operating steadily between a recently closed store on one side and an empty space on the other. Even in the Missouri winter, the buildings themselves are still striking, with their terra-cotta ornamentation, Spanish-inspired facades, and fountains that give the entire district a subtle Mediterranean feel. However, about one-third of the plaza’s 732,000 square feet of retail and office space is vacant, and hundreds of millions of dollars are needed to…
When you are in charge of a city but not the most visible institution that operates within it, a certain kind of frustration builds up. The mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, Quinton Lucas, has been dealing with that annoyance for years, and he recently stopped using tactful language. He referred to the police force in Kansas City as a “colonial system.” According to him, it is fundamentally at odds with the ideals of the diverse city it serves and is anti-Black and anti-immigrant. Mayors typically don’t publicly say things like that about their departments. You can tell how far the…
On a weekday morning, you can already see the activity when you stand on Hospital Hill. Construction workers move around the perimeter of what is already one of Kansas City’s most recognizable medical campuses, ambulances pull into bays along Holmes Street, and parents carry kids through glass-door entrances. Now, if the plans submitted to the city earlier this year are approved, that opinion will likely shift significantly over the course of the next ten years. One of the most ambitious construction projects in recent Kansas City history is about to be formally announced by Children’s Mercy Hospital. The master plan,…
A specific type of cold case—one in which no body was ever discovered, no obvious suspect ever surfaced, and the file simply sat in a drawer accumulating the weight of unresolved questions—stays with investigators for decades. That was precisely the case of Christina “Tina” Marie Plante. On a May afternoon in 1994, a thirteen-year-old girl from Star Valley, Arizona, leaves her home, claims to be going to a nearby horse stable, and just never returns. The hunt starts. The years go by. The case becomes icy. The answer to their 32-year question was living quietly in Springfield, Missouri, raising three…
When discussing technological innovation, Rolla, Missouri is rarely mentioned. It is located along I-44 in the Ozarks, a small city with about 20,000 residents that was primarily developed around Missouri University of Science and Technology and the constant flow of trucks and tourists traveling between Springfield and St. Louis. It’s the kind of place where a road project or hospital expansion is typically the big news. When a drone startup moves in, signs a lease with the university, and begins to discuss revolutionizing rural healthcare within a 100-mile radius, it’s important to pay attention. One of the more significant advancements…
The landscape gradually flattens as you drive west out of St. Louis on I-70, with the sky opening up in a way that seems almost intentional and the urban density thinning into suburbs and then farmland. You arrive in Kansas City about four hours later. The same state, the same highway, but very different perceptions of what barbecue should smell, taste, and be like. Nobody seems at all interested in resolving this argument, which is the oldest and most entertaining in Missouri. In this argument, the Kansas City side has the reputation—or at least the history—on its side. One of…
The narrative has a certain flawless quality. A scorching July afternoon in St. Louis in 1904. At the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Ernest Hamwi, a Syrian immigrant, is operating a cart selling zalabias, which are thin, crispy Middle Eastern pastries. In the heat, an ice cream vendor next door runs out of dishes. In an instant, history is created when Hamwi, in a desperate and resourceful move, takes one of his warm waffles, rolls it into a cone, and hands it over. The crowd cheers. The ice cream cone is created. It’s a fantastic tale. Simple, impromptu, and cinematic. The kind…