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…
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.
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…
In the hours between midnight and dawn, when a procedural vote is failing, members are being removed from the cloak rooms, calls are coming in from all directions, and no one is completely certain what the final count will be, a certain kind of chaos descends on Capitol Hill. That’s where Republican leadership found itself on the evening of April 17, attempting and failing twice to pass an 18-month extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a surveillance authority that some libertarian-minded House Republicans view as a tool for warrantless surveillance of Americans and that the Trump…
On a corner in Gowanus, Brooklyn, there used to be a tool and die shop. It was gritty, useful in a previous life, and hadn’t yet been gentrified into something else. Fifteen years ago, many industrial buildings in that neighborhood were abandoned or underutilized. Dinosaur Bar-B-Que noticed a restaurant when they looked at that structure. For fifteen years, it was successful because they filled it with noise, smoke, Southern-style ribs, and live music. People traveled from all over the borough and beyond. Around it, the neighborhood changed. The structure is currently being demolished to create room for apartments. That’s the…
A blue mobile medical unit arrives outside shelters and transitional housing facilities in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where homeless veterans reside. Inside, a small group of VA healthcare professionals set up an exam room with blood pressure cuffs, stethoscopes, and other basic medical equipment. They then start treating patients who might otherwise fall through every loophole in the system. It provides a glimpse of what the Department of Veterans Affairs is truly designed to do once the politics settle down. It’s unglamorous work, far from the press conferences and performance metrics. In the US, the VA is the biggest integrated healthcare system.…
Virginia appears small on a map, a wedge of land sandwiched between the Atlantic and the mountains, but politically it spans a wide and disputed area. Northern Virginia has been trending blue for years due to its high density of graduate degrees and federal contractors. Stretches of rural Shenandoah and coal country in the southwest lean sharply in the opposite direction. Election by election, Richmond finds itself in the middle. The entire state will vote on a single issue this Tuesday: should Virginia’s congressional map be temporarily redrawn to give Democrats a 10-1 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation and…