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[Music] i'm brett crawford i'm the backers casey program director uh you've probably already had multiple emails from me so nice to uh finally meet you over video uh we're happy to have all of you here for back to casey 2020 uh it may look and feel a little different but uh we're glad you chose to tune in thank you for coming to the first session we have a terrific panel lined up for you but i wanted to bring adam up to uh say a few words as well adam is the founder of startland and uh my one of my cohorts here at back to kc so what's up everyone this is our third year obviously it looks a little different like uh like brett said but um i think it's it's a pretty cool opportunity to reach people across the country and and make it more accessible um yeah it's it's super cool to see the lineup we've got the next couple days hope you join us and and um you know hopefully you know i think everyone that's that's joining this has some affinity for kansas city but you know our hope is it's just fire you up a little bit whether you think about moving back or or just want to be an ambassador for kansas city wherever you're at hopefully the next couple days just kind of pull back the curtain a little bit and kind of prove to you that it's not your mom's kansas city anymore we got a lot of cool stuff going on and a lot of cool people to kind of share what uh share about that the next couple days so i think we're gonna move to um a video now actually uh we got a special guest that uh shared his thoughts about back to casey a little bit yeah this video was created by uh one of our other co-workers here uh kim at coleman uh who will be on the panel here in just a minute so uh let's take a look [Music] kansas city is the city of magic [Music] a city full of life beauty creativity reality the future [Music] and hopefully you [Music] the city that a young walt disney called home [Music] the city that inspired his greatest invention the city known for its barbecue and jazz and now patrick's my homes but that's just what the tourists know about us you see we grew up calling in a cow town a flyover but it's always been much more than that they just didn't teach us that we didn't know that but this is a city where friends become family and the quality of your life [Music] is only determined by the opportunity you seize [Music] i'd like to welcome you back to life wow all right that was amazing kevin uh i would like to bring kevin up to the uh up to the stage as well can it go ahead and introduce yourself to everyone how's it going everyone my name is kenneth coleman uh artist musician and uh director of marketing and experiences here at startland um and really excited for you guys to be considering kansas city home again um you know it's just a beautiful feeling to be able to talk to people who uh who may not know about all the exciting things that have happened uh since they left home and and all the things that we're a part of at start land so thanks for being here absolutely absolutely all right well with that uh kim will be moderating this session uh adam will be a part of it and let's go ahead and welcome donna and asia and jeff to the stage as well i'm going to remove here all right all right i'll take it take it from here so i am amongst friends here definitely happy to have this amazing panel we have here we've got adam aaron dondo who's the ceo of startland we've got jeff carson president of enterprise bank and trust uh donna mandelbaum with the kansas city streetcar and asia james with flexi and joining us shortly uh is joe black who's uh grammy nominated uh music producer um we're just kind of waiting for him to connect to us so uh the way that i want to structure this thing is uh you know as if we're in the same room just kind of chatting about kansas city this particular session is called back to life um and it speaks to why kansas city um you know is the place to be for the quality of life that you deserve um and so that's kind of the way i want to frame this um you know typically a lot of panels i have several questions pre-planned we only have a few things a few questions that we'd like to kind of touch on um and i'll kind of signpost that uh right now uh i used to be a debater at raytown high school so we call that signpost when it's like all right we're gonna talk about this shout out to the blue jays um so the the topics i like to to kind of discuss are you know the cost of living in kansas city and the other benefits outside of the financial side of you know living in kansas city um also um you know working remotely from kansas city why that's an appealing thing to do here in kansas city um you know obviously we're dealing with times that are uncertain because of covet and so how important is how how amazing is it to work from home um in a centrally located area um and then what are some of the hidden gems of kansas city really like i can't wait to ask our panelists um you know those questions and what can we get from kansas city you can't get from other major cities and then finally what are some of the misconceptions uh people think when they think of kansas city so uh after or before we get started i would love if everyone kind of took a minute uh to give their elevator pitch maybe give an introduction about who you are uh and what you do and then also describe casey in one word so we'll start with you adam so admira dando as you heard founder and ceo of startland you know really the impetus for that is just and my word is potential um i think kansas city um has always had more potential than it's realized i think we're starting to realize that we've always been overly humble and i think we're we're starting to you know you know pump out our chest a little bit and flex uh pun intended with uh flexi here so um i just i i think that's it it's uh it's potential nice what's up joe how you doing man how you doing doing all right so we're basically uh going around the horn kind of giving our introductions and describing kansas city in one word uh so uh next i would like to ask my friend jeff to kind of give his introduction and describe casey in one word hey all jeff carson here i have the pleasure of leading enterprise bank and trust um we are a a middle market commercial bank um that serves you know five different communities throughout the midwest now southwestern part of the us i've been in kc now for 20 years um i chose kansas city over opportunities in chicago san francisco and dallas um like say 20 years ago kind of the right after white uh again lead the middle market focus on the small uh to middle market within kansas city um we have you know we have about 122 last count 120 to 222 different banks based in kansas city who are doing business in kansas city which makes us one of the most overbanked markets in the us and i think you know that's that's that's a challenge from a competitive standpoint but it also speaks to stability and when there is a little bit of volatility in kansas it speaks to how just how resilient we are so obviously it's very attractive market for so many different competitive banks um we're not one of the big banks we're you know actually one of the top five banks in kansas city but uh we're focused on again entrepreneurs that's just our laser focus and i don't know that you'll find a bank that's more laser focused and finding you know creative and entrepreneurial solutions for for our clients we're started by entrepreneurs and that's very big part of our our dna the the word that i would say best describes kansas city or at least what i think speaks to one of its truest strengths is intimate i think we're a very intimate community i think the the people um you get to know you get to know really well i think there's so many different communities that surround kansas city um as we've grown we've kind of grown into each other and so there's something here for everybody and i think you get to know the town variant it's a very big small town well said jeff and um like to move next to my good friend donna mandelbaum with the kansas city streetcar donna go ahead and say your piece and uh your one word for kansas city oh thank you so much for having me and so good to see you kimit i am donna mandelbaum communications and marketing director for the kansas city streetcar i might have the coolest job um my word for kansas city is collaborative and i think kim it really embodies that as well um kimit and i met while collaborating on a video shoot for one of his songs that ultimately became a theme song for kansas city streetcar and um that's really i feel like the energy of kansas city is we're always searching out new partners and new uh people to work with um i know i do in my role as the street car um direct communications director so um and it goes back to the people i'm originally from new york so just like jeff i chose kansas city um i had a five year plan to head back and then i never left um i was able to start my own business here um have a family and then you know build a whole career um on a kansas city streetcar which when i first got here i was surprised that we didn't have a health system so i was like you need to change that i really used to yeah yeah exactly i was like where are all the trains um but now we're getting there so um yeah i'm happy to be here and i'm happy to be a part of kansas city yeah excited to dive a little bit more about what the streetcar is up to as well but would like to go to my other friend oh go ahead adam what's up what's her one word oh sorry did i cut you off adam did you miss my word collaboration yeah yeah yeah sorry i'm just absorbed by all this [Laughter] okay well uh let's move on to asia asia uh you know give us your elevator pitch and then you're one word for kansas city yeah so i am asian james i've lived in kansas city my entire life other than when i went to lawrence kansas for college and i love kansas city with all of my heart um i co-own a fitness company called flexi we kind of consider ourselves like a staffing agency for trainers and yoga instructors and things like that so we basically have a whole team of trainers instructors coaches and we send them out to apartment complexes hotels um office buildings a lot more virtual now with everything going on but we basically provide on-site fitness services and events for tons of different buildings and businesses so that's what i do full-time and then i'm also on uh i'm the co-chair of the black dog lovers club of kansas city which is super fun we basically just wanted a way to bring people together around a topic that everybody loves for the most part which is dogs so i also do that and then my one word i think would be um creative because i think not only do we have a ton of creative companies here people getting creative in what they're actually doing but we have companies that are doing normal things that you know aren't necessarily entrepreneurial they're just normal companies but they're getting creative in the ways that they're um reaching out to the community or they're getting involved in the community or um they're working with their own employees so i just think we're a very creative city and i love it excellent all right moving on to uh joe joe macklin who goes by joe black uh hopefully your connection is stable there uh you know kind of give us who you are and then your one word excuse me for my moving around i'm just i had a late night so it's just nervous forgive me um i'm joseph macklin i go by joe black i'm a multi-platinum grammy-nominated music producer from wyandotte county the kansas city metro area as i like to say um and i also am the owner of the district and what you find is district.com we're a multimedia company oh looks like we've so we're having some technical difficulties with joe but um i can just fill in the blanks here um joe is an impressive music producer uh out of well he's from kansas city kansas moved to la um and you know like he said has some hit records with some of the top uh people in the music industry decided to move back to kansas city a few uh maybe two or three years ago um to start you know start a family and kind of grow his business so oh man he's back hopefully i'm back sorry you're good i was basically filling in for you i was your hype man you did a great job i think i heard it so yeah my word is home this is uh my hometown and i love this place and i wanted to come back to give back because i could i could have been in los angeles and stayed there consistently um but what would i be giving my resources to uh la and i bring my resources home to kansas city yeah that's not right well well said um i i think i'm the only one who did not uh say my one word and i guess my one word is genius or actually my one word is magical that was kind of what i said in the video there because there is a certain magic that's in the air that if you know how to how to capture the magic you can utilize it to get whatever you want um so that's kind of what i feel like kansas city embodies so thank you all for uh again tuning in with us we hope that you are uh feeling homesick already uh the weather however you know i was i thought i had a cool idea i was like i'm gonna invite a meteorologist but i was like nah that's not the best time to do that but luckily when we talk about back to beautiful in our back to beautiful session we'll talk about some of the outdoor spaces that are um you know that make you know the weather a little bit more bearable so um anyway let's move on to you know what it's like to live in kansas city the cost of living um the quality of life um you know what are some of our favorite things about kansas city and what has become uh and what has been always probably from the beginning um that makes kansas city you know the best place to call home and joe i like that your word was home so i kind of want to start with you as someone who lived in in a larger market you know probably more expensive market had all of the amenities in the world including a beautiful beach nearby you know um you know what makes living in kansas city a good place to be i think foreign is affordable um going from paying 5000 for a three-bedroom house or 2500 for an apartment to that one-bedroom apartment to being 1000 able 1500 it's okay with me um but i think the uh the access the availability you can get from kansas city to anywhere you want to get if it's new york if it's la oh looks like we lost him again well we'll uh we'll let him jump back in once he come back uh comes back but um i kind of wanted to also talk to donna about getting around in kansas city um and you know how the streetcar kind of i don't want to say was a catalyst for free public transportation but it did allow um you know it kind of set the precedent there so donna kanye can you speak on on that oh my gosh yes i could talk streetcar all day long um yeah it is the best way to get around town and because of the community so the streetcar is the streetcar for the people and really by the people is what i like to say because it was started with a grassroots community effort people that live downtown really wanted to see a light rail system and they were willing to pay for it through a interesting financing structure through property assessments and sales tax and then also some assessment on parking lots uh service parking lots so it was approved by the voters in order to get money that way to provide a free fare so it's important to know that the streetcar is free to ride but it's not free like we are paying for it as those that live within the district and the businesses that are there but they are also in the benefit zone of this streetcar hopefully seeing more economic development more activity more shopping retail um you know restaurants that kind of stuff so it's it works collaboratively together as a great partnership so as we're expanding the streetcar it will continue to be a free service going through midtown and to umkc and now the ride kc bus system is looking for doing a free fare system that they're working with the city of kansas city on so obviously public transit is hugely important to all aspects of life access which is a great word for kansas city but people a lot of people don't have access to jobs education health c re public transit is integral in getting them that access and if you could take a barrier away by providing a free fare then more people win well i definitely think it works um i know for myself has been being a public transit user by choice primarily um for you know a few several years now i know that that was one of the big excuses i heard was like i don't know how to pay for this how do i how do i pay to get on the bus and then it's like well i'm just gonna drive because that's what we that's what we're used to doing here in kansas city um but it's it's good to know that you know like any other successfully successful major you know city kansas city's finally stepping up its public transit um game and allowing for more access so um i'd like to uh i want to point out something my son mentioned to me when we passed the bank the other day he's he said uh um can we go to the money store and i'm like um that's funny that you call it a money store so i want to i want to pivot to jeff carson who's at the heart of the money uh when it comes to uh you know the whole idea of like a financial quality of life in kansas city uh from your perspective jeff what is kansas city like um when it comes to quality of life and and how far your dollar can actually stretch yeah so that was um again part of why i chose the city over you know opportunities in chicago and san francisco and new york i think what i started out making right out of college i couldn't afford to live under a bridge in any of those other cities um and so coming to kansas city you know obviously we benefit from our our cost of living is 20 lower here that is in chicago 50 percent lower than new york 20 denver you know a third of or two-thirds of what it would cost to live in seattle um so obviously that's that that's fantastic but um you know what i like is you're not you're not confined to one kind of style of living if you want affordability if you want to live in a condo downtown or if you want to a sprawling home in one of the one of the suburbs you can really get both a very affordable rate compared to those other places so again as i mentioned earlier i think one of the great things about kansas city is we do have so much history but we've also got so many towns and so many different environments that surround our urban core and if you want to live again if you want to live in the urban core and you want to you want to contour your apartment you that's what kind of that hustle and bustle is what fuels you that's great we got that for you or you know if you like being in middle america and you want to live in the suburbs we've got a great airport or we'll soon have a great airport to get you to wherever you we very very quickly yeah yeah i know that's good stuff and adam and asia i do want you guys to touch on uh touch on the quality of life uh question and maybe maybe even get more personal and talk about kind of uh maybe not too personal but you know just like kind of your story as far as staying in kansas city when you could have easily gone anywhere else go ahead asia okay um well for me i since we were talking about transportation that got me thinking that i just i'm not the person that really loves driving a ton i don't love like spending a ton of time in my car but i will drive everywhere because i'm a little bit lazy um but i i just find it crazy to me that i live at second street and i twice a week can get out to 199th street in 30 minutes like that blows my mind you can't do that in other cities the highways are all right here like i it just blows my mind so that's just a random little bit but um one of the reasons i chose to stay in kansas city is the people um everybody's just very supportive and um i obviously starting a business that's something you need is supportive people and that kind of community that will rally around you um but i just i think that the history here um the ability to create while you're here is something that definitely kept me here it's still um a growing city and not um every spot of like in every industry has been filled you're not you don't necessarily have as much competition in all of the smaller industries that you might want to start a business in or you might want to have a hobby in or a side job or even you know your main job there's not as much that you're you're going up against say in new york you have i would have like 20 other competitors probably down the street from me doing the same thing and here there's still that space to create and make it where what you want um i think that's part of what kept me here is not only to create but also to be a part of the growth of kansas city it's just very it's just cool to be a part of that and to to be able to make make it what you want yeah yeah that's really exciting that's that's one of the primary reasons why you know my wife and i talk about you know moving and and stuff and especially right when covet hit but that was another exciting part is like if we rebuild you know kansas city let's be a part of that it's really exciting to do so um adam yeah so i really want to focus on the people side too like asia said but just a personal example um my wife and i nonprofit salary she's a campus minister could afford to buy a four bedroom two car garage house within walking distance of the streetcar in kansas city you cannot do that in other markets so very uh you know uh specifically that's an example of what's possible here and um i'm not in that house right now this is my parents house while they update the house we just bought so it's not gonna be um but um but no on the people side i mean that's what i wanted to talk about is um i mean everyone that visits kansas city and i back in the day of the startup village the first neighborhood that got google fiber we hosted a bunch of people from out of town and almost universally they would comment on how friendly people were just you know if you ask them one person said if you ask for directions in kansas city they will literally take you by the hand and walk you where you want to go where in new york she'll probably ignore you or cuss at you in san francisco they might point you in a direction but here literally they might take your arm and walk with you there and i just think that friendliness is something that is very unique to kansas city and the other thing i i get have gotten a ton of comments on is just the civic pride i mean how many people when you're just walking around just have the name of their city of kansas city on their chest on their hat on their sock it's not the sports team like i'm wearing right now but it's just kc heart or whatever and that is very unique to kansas city and that civic pride is palpable and gets people excited and again back in the startup village days when we were giving tours to thousands of people a year that was so frequently a comment they made was just the like palpable visible civic pride and i think those two things go directly into quality of life it's it's uh again a city that has a ton of potential it also has a ton of momentum which would have been my other word was momentum um and i just think you know the people know it you can feel it when you're here and it's exciting to be a part of yeah i want to invite everyone to continue to ask questions in the chat i know that brett sent the link around that kind of gives a comparison it cost a living comparison to other major markets around the country complements of the kc adc area development council it's a really cool dropbox link check that out um so yeah i would love to kind of pivot to our next topic which is working remotely from kansas city um i know it's been uh pretty easy to do that and adam you know i kind of want to start with you just i know you just spoke but you know working remotely is pretty uh you know pretty easy to do when you've got strong internet so kind of maybe even talk about a little bit about maybe dive a little bit more into that that that google fiber story and then kind of talk more broadly about uh what it's like working remotely in kansas city yeah i mean quickly and again i don't want to dominate the conversation but google fiber was not only an amazing like piece of like infrastructure for our city i mean google invested a couple billion dollars into rolling out gigabit internet for for residential service here in kansas city and that ignited an enormous ripple effect with other carriers offering much faster much cheaper um high-speed internet and um and now kansas city is one of the the fastest um internet connected towns in the country so that was big i think the other thing that that came from google fiber was not only that internet speed which makes working from home um just much more seamless but also it was a huge catalyst just for innovation and excitement around startups and technology and that happened in 2011 it launched it announced it was coming here in 2011 launched in 2012 and um just the momentum around technology innovation and the reputation of kansas city being a great emerging startup and entrepreneurial town was a direct correlation to google fiber launching here um so uh just has been a no again a key piece of that momentum building on top of all the championships we keep winning yeah and i think that's saying a lot that google fi google decided that kansas city uh should be the first place to have google fiber i think that's really cool yeah it's huge validation yeah i agree all right well i'd love to go to donna get your input here uh working remotely in kansas city um so i have to agree with the choice of internet providers there's something so my family lives on long island in new york and you may not realize that they don't have a lot of choice in like cable and internet like there's like a monopoly going on there and here there's choices um so i would say that allows for people to work remotely um when they can um and and a varying degrees of like what you can afford i mean the streetcar offers free wi-fi i mean that's pretty awesome and a lot of the ride kc buses do too and the fact that we have companies that want to partner with us to do that is amazing so you can actually work from the streetcar if you like yeah nice little plug there always yeah me oh jeff yeah i was just you know honestly i think it comes back to um a couple of a couple of things um first we benefit from a very strong we're known throughout you know throughout the us with our of our of our midwestern work ethic i think a lot of it comes back to that you know we ultimately we get stuff done we recognize you know when we need to roll our sleeves and grind um yeah we're so you know we're so well rooted with a with a healthy work-life balance so obviously when the john is done we also feed off time of our friends and family so we got the work ethic we gotta you know i think we're all so well grounded and we benefit from that from that um you know for that balance of being with friends and family and we've got a ton of amenities that are very easily accessible that allow us to do that so i tell you what i i um you know from a work we're a bank and we it's hard for us to work remote we've got 175 associates here locally you know and many of them have to be in the branches but a vast majority are working from home and i've never once had to worry about their productivity what they're doing with their time because i know at the end of the day they know that um that our clients are counting on us right now in these tough times more than ever and we've actually added during these times we've added twice as many clients this year than we would in any other great time uh normal time so um productivity ooh looks like we lost a normal looks like and how we benefited from both yeah no that's good stuff so you can actually grow working remotely in kansas city love it um asia yeah i was actually going to touch a little on the work life balance as well i feel like the word balance is overused um balance and self-care are like very overused but that's kind of like the area that i'm in so i spend a lot of time encouraging people to have a balanced uh lifestyle whether that's eating or their work-life balance and i feel like it's it's encouraged here you know you're not for the most part you're not shamed for taking a little bit of time to yourself where some other hustling and bustling cities you might be like they're like oh you're taking time out of your day to work out or to you know take care of yourself that's just not as accepted also the resources i think are great there's a lot of obviously the internet if you're an entrepreneur there's a lot of entrepreneurial resources and um i think one of the scary parts of working remotely and being away from your office or your company is that you won't meet as many people right if you're just working from home or you're you know going to a co-working space you might not meet as many people as if you're in a big office with everybody but in reality casey has a ton of networking whether it's just social groups or business networking um people are open to it and people want to meet people here and they're friendly and welcoming um and then a different side of it is it's a great place for people to come and visit you if you do live here and you live away from your like the rest of your family it's an amazing place for people to come and visit and there's um affordable places to stay that are downtown or close to wherever you live um i anytime someone comes to visit they love it and they're surprised by it so i think it's a fun place to say hey come and visit me and they're like i don't want to go to the country and then you're like okay well just come check it out and then basically where you're actually living and they probably get a little bit jealous well not actually asia i've had that same experience almost everyone is pleasantly surprised by kansas city that visits almost every single person yeah so especially anyone that's tuning in that hasn't been back in a little bit or if you come back you only fly into kci drive around 435 stay at your mom's house and leave the same way if you haven't been into the city um for a while do it the next time you're here i promise it'll surprise you yeah yeah i mean and even some of the more uh downtown areas of of the particular of the suburbs you know lee's summit downtown lee summit is really cool downtown ops doing some cool stuff even downtown lenexa is coming back um so yeah there's lots of cool stuff happening literally on every uh aspect of the metro and that actually is a great segue to our next uh topic which is the hidden gems of kansas city cannot wait to hear what you guys uh have that are the best hidden gems of kansas city um and donna you see you have your ear to the street uh literally uh significantly more than i do so what are some of your um your best hidden gems that kansas city of kansas city um besides the streetcar i will have to say marketing director right um i have to agree with a lot of what um aj was saying um with so i'm from new york and my mom's still there and she visits all the time and she has seen the growth and changes of kansas city from an outsider and it's blown her away when i first moved out here she was like and she's like loves it now she's still in new york not pushing that but um she's amazed by it i think we do have so many hidden gems here one being the negro leagues baseball museum so definitely um we just had a great collaboration with them in honoring the kansas city monarchs and the centennial anniversary of the meager leagues on buck o'neil's birthday and i got the honor of learning even more from mr bob kendrick about the museum i feel like people around the country know about the negro leagues baseball museum but more kansas citians need to know about it it is amazing and um they're open right now and it's it's it's a great place to visit um neighborhood wise i love the northeast area i love columbus park columbus park reminds me of queens um in a way and i just love that area um i mean i could go on and on i could talk food uh the west bottoms everything that's happening in the west bottoms right now is amazing um but yeah i could go on and on yeah all right well i love that uh jeff being a man of exquisite tas e uh good guy overall what's your favorite hidden gems of kansas city well this was the toughest of all the the topics this was the toughest one because i i went in a million different directions um naturally i landed where probably i'm most biased and i've long been a fan of of starlight theater i think that's one of the most incredible amenities that we have here in town it's of it's it's you know it's it always in the national rankings of of live music venues outdoor music venues it's it's always you know i'm very high on that list um i have loved starlight so long i joined the board here recently and um obviously it's a tough time to to to to join a board for starlight because of the the challenges that they and others some of the other great venues are faced with right now in this in this this pandemic but um you know again that was the toughest question i i the the negro leagues baseball museum obviously was one of them world war museum one museum was one of them um but there's so many it was hard to go on and on adam um why two and one that's not under the radar but i think it's overlooked that i couldn't help but think about is sporting kc everyone talks about chiefs and royals but the sporting kc stadium and experience is phenomenal and they are badass every year i mean their semifinals again they've made the playoffs nine of 10 years i think now so amazing stadium amazing experience if you like soccer at all but i2 is actually going 18th and vine the the negro baseball museum is phenomenal if you get a chance to talk to bob kendrick who will be on one of the panels the next couple days arguably the best storyteller i have ever heard in the history of kansas city um good bad and ugly um it's just it's deep it's rich it's it's re nationally relevant but the the black history in kansas city is phenomenal it's it's right next to the jazz museum which is equally phenomenal and there's also a few cool little music joints over there blue room uh mutual musicians foundation um i i just i think 18th and vine is my pick and actually uh donna i uh i'm moving to columbus park nice a block from happy gillis that's hilarious yeah that's yeah um yeah no i love i love the the negro leagues and actually went back there recently i went on the day i think it was the hunt literally the day was the 100th anniversary of the negro leagues and there was a bunch of press there and you had people from the major league baseball there i'm like what the heck is going on yeah so if that's not serendipity and that magic i'm talking about in kansas city i don't know what it is um but you go ahead and say i think like i mean 18th and vine i mean that was the negro league baseball league was headquartered there and satchel paige and the monarchs were one of the you know they were the yankees of the of the negro leagues and they're out of kc and then jazz has such a rich deep history here and it's centered at 18th combine and when you're there it just feels historic it's amazing yeah well we're going to be talking uh about that uh later today back to creativity um i'm sorry no no no you're good just pretty appreciate the sec or the uh the heads up for everybody else and to remind them that for back to creativity bob kendrick with the negro leagues will be on that panel we actually have kiana sinks who is the digital communication and outreach manager for the negro leagues in our attendees so feel free to reach out to her to chat directly about that as well so asia i didn't want to miss you there and then we have to um go on to the next level i'm actually glad i'm going last because you guys like whittled down my list because all of the stuff you said was on it so now i can just like go back basically i'm gonna spare you talking about the people again because i feel like the people here are a hidden gem but you've already heard me talk about how much i love the people here um so i'll go to local food like there's so many good restaurants here that not only need our support but the food is amazing like it really is and it's local people so you have that passion behind it and not to be cheesy but you can you can taste the difference you know the food is made by somebody who like really cares about it um so that but then back to what i do the health and wellness community here um it's growing and there's so many health and wellness options that you don't feel like you're you're walking into like some i mean there are those intense place oh oh no if you want an intense workout and you want to um you know go hard there's there's places for that but there's also places for people who might want to do yoga might want to do um rock climbing there's just so many options to stay healthy and to or to start your your health and wellness journey somewhere and i think that everybody's welcoming nobody wants you to walk into the gym and be like i'm scared i'm intimidated so i think that that's a great hidden gem there's a lot to do here to keep yourself healthy mentally and physically i like how you combine food and fitness it's like go eat great and then go work it out and then like if i could talk about dogs too then that's everything i love all at once okay okay barking is a great hidden gem that's right okay yeah okay so yeah that has been so for anyone that has a dog if you've not heard of barquet check it out it is a beer garden in a dog park and it is the dog lovers dream it is an amazing on the missouri river yeah yeah if you haven't gone to the riverfront do that when you come it's first when you soon get back to kc seriously free wi-fi with your dog yeah everything all right so uh we've got a cup we got a few three or four minutes here so 30 seconds each what is the what are some of the biggest or what's one misconception you think people have about kansas city let's start with you jeff so it's a blessing and a curse and we kind of touched on this earlier but when people say kansas citians are nice our community is nice our people are nice it's so true but also that's not an excuse to just to not dive deeper into what kansas city is all about so i think people stop short when they find out that we're nice they don't dig deeper to find out what else is there to offer yeah that's a good point all right donna um i think related to that that maybe we're a little bit behind the times like we're playing catch up to things that are happening on the coast and i don't think that's necessarily the case i mean with transit but um i think we are cutting edge in so many ways like with food and art and uh the startup community i've never seen in a city so entrepreneurial minded um so i i think that we're more cutting edge and people think yeah and speaking of startups we got mr startup here adam aarondondo start land um you don't have to talk about startups but what is your biggest or what do you think is the biggest misconception about kansas city i mean i agree with the other ones but i mean i think the thing is just especially people that aren't from here and even some people are it's just the perception is podunk um i mean i i've had multiple people come down it's like holy crap you have a downtown and it's it's like um for real i mean it's just we've been so humble for so long i think it's made it easy for the perception to be that nothing innovative relevant or cool happens and i think again that's changing um with things like google fiber and you know championships and you know the streetcar and these things that are making national news um that's changing but it really i mean i can't tell you how many times when people would visit and we talked to them at the village or whatever that they'd just be like wow i didn't realize it was such a vibrant and so i think it's just putting kansas city on the map is is what's happened over the last decade yeah that's that makes a lot of sense all right so now we're going to pivot to our questions uh portion of the uh of the panel so if you have any questions drop those in i will be seeing those i've got one from rob schulte who's a producer at siriusxm that's cool his question is it costs more to live in new york city but employees on average are paid more how do you see this working in a city like kc how how or does my dollar stretch further if the salary ranges or lower who wants to tackle that one well i can i can start i mean one especially right now if you're working remote you still get your your big city salary and work in kansas city so first off um i think that's it but at least based on what i've seen and i don't have the numbers in front of me um i've seen that the the pay the lower pay is less it's still a higher as compared to the cost of living than it is in in other cities as like a percentage of of um of your pay going towards housing um although you know maybe housing like in new york i think jeff you said it's like 50 cheaper or honestly i think it's more than that um but you you aren't paid 50 less so i think it is less but as a percentage of your income it's still uh you get more bang for your buck in kansas city than elsewhere even with the the lower average salary but again if you just work remotely you still get your big city salary and you're living at a fraction of the cost here yeah so if the oh no there we go if the national average equals 100 um kansas city ranks from an overall perspective of salary versus cost of living at 86.2 so we're well under what the national average of how your dollar stretches towards basic kind of the overall utilities want to ask him what are the big city hey jeff what are what's like new york and chicago and san francisco you know i i don't i don't have that i just can tell that we're way under the national average gross cost for example is that 97 versus 100 so we're slightly under the national average there um asia like maintaining your health anything pertaining to health we're at 94 compared to the national average of a hundred uh housing 63 so yeah you get paid more in new york and san francisco chicago but yes it does cost a lot more comparatively to own a home or to have a home whether you're renting or owning so 63 out of 100 for housing yes wow which is why i mean that's why we're i think that's a big part of why we're on so many lists of why we're one of the best places to live i think that's why we rank so high it doesn't matter if zinc magazine or forbes or you know whoever we're always very high on that list i think housing is a big part big part of that nice well i'm inviting all of our attendees to ask questions um i actually have a question uh for the panel and what are some things you can get in kansas city that you just can't get anywhere else good barbecue uh yeah no i mean pharrell every time i get oklahoma joe's well joe's kc now it's just like my taste buds hurt looking forward to eating it it's just like hmm yeah i mean that's that's legit but yeah no that's i promised brett we wouldn't we wouldn't talk about the barbecue the best bar yeah it's like a religion here it's amazing how polarizing the arguments get when people barbecue is i mean there's almost fist fights no seriously it's true you know when someone when someone says hey what's your favorite barbecue place i'm like ooh yeah i have a very uh a politically correct answer i was like well i like the fries from oklahoma chelsea i like burnings from they're all good which is a cop out but you know you got to do what you got to do so all right asia what can you get in kansas city you just can't get uh anywhere else except i mean you know obviously you can't get flexi anywhere else well you can in springfield and tulsa but mainly in kansas city those are the places but um flexi you can get flexi here i that's such a hard question because also i've lived here my whole life so i could say something that you actually can get somewhere else but i feel like i mean the drivability is great i feel like you even if you don't want to live downtown but you want some of that downtown experience it doesn't take you an hour to drive into downtown and you don't have to sit and plan out okay i want to go on friday night downtown but that means i have to leave work you know like you you can go on a whim and enjoy downtown you don't have to necessarily plan it out as much um but you get that drivability and all those surrounding neighborhoods um to downtown that are right here basically it's yeah yeah yeah no that's really uh that's so true you know i go to i used to live in la for a while and you know one of the biggest things i hated the most was just sitting in the car stuck it's it's it sucks um and i'm not someone who likes to to necessarily use the car if i don't have to but you know in kansas city like let's be honest this is definitely an auto centric uh community uh for the time being at least until the streetcar takes complete it literally takes over according to donna oh but it's true you can really like you could live in and and uh like pray village and get downtown in 10 years kansas you know it's it's pretty impressive and you have an amazing view driving into downtown on 35 um and the skyline is changing the other the thing i was going to say was um you know being in the middle of the country has lots and lots of perks you know i can get to new york in two and a half hours i can get to la and about the same time uh you can get to cabo and you know i don't know seven hours or so but that that flight is actually pretty inexpensive we're getting a brand new airport uh i used to know the guy who i used to work with the guy who designed the original one bob berkel and he says uh the old one uh its time has come and gone so we are we got no new movement momentum there um so yeah there's a lot a lot of cool stuff that you can get in kansas city just can't get anywhere the other thing i like to say it's it's we i mean there's very few big city amenities we don't have i would say public transit that we're actively improving is maybe the biggest one um but you don't have all the big city headaches uh you know with with cost or with uh with traffic or cross-country flights like we're talking about i mean i really think we have three major league sports we have the fourth most active um arena non-sports arena in the country with the now t-mobile center i mean it's it is i mean there's very little casey doesn't offer that the big cities do without all the headaches and costs yeah um so we actually have another question from lisa smith who's with apex partners as someone in nyc there are a lot of questions about how the city will bounce back from covet what is the sentiment in kc about the outlook during and after this pandemic jeff so i've actually seen this on several lists and i don't have them handy but i've seen this on one of and actually the casey adc i think is on the board with the adc and they've done a very good job and i think they're going to work to capitalize on this opportunity for us because we are now going to be a very you know i guess if you've got a list of i think there were 10 cities that had the most opportunity to attract given the balance that we have given all the things that we've mentioned the driveability the best of both looks like we lost it man get on a roll and all of a sudden i freeze up and um we're listed on several publications as one of the top 10 cities to bounce back the quickest and be able to attract all these people from these dense environments where you know basically been locked in for the last nine months that are now looking for the is that a city like kansas city has to offer um just because of this this this scare that we've been living for the last nine months so um specifically can't answer that but there's obviously a lot of advantages that we've talked about um they're gonna attract people from these bigger cities as they look to find a quality of life in the new normal yeah i mean i i could speak for myself you know i i i'm an artist you know working at a non-profit my wife is a hair stylist just bought a brand new house new build in the city i can afford that you know like it's just something about being able to have that that mobility and that freedom um especially if you're working remotely and you're getting a you know a salary that may be based on another larger market uh ou know that's that's that's going to look really kansas city is going to look really attractive to a lot of people and i think it's starting to um right now so um before we uh maybe have a last word from everyone um i also want to encourage people to to go to the breakout rooms um happening after this panel where we can where you can ask your questions directly to our panelists um as well as to each other um there's gonna be tables that you can just sit down at and um and you can you know it's almost like a real life you know kind of a little bit of a breakout room so um do that anymore any last words on back to life and how quality of life in kansas city is amazing i think um you know this is in general and touching on the question from lisa during our world series run weren't we known as like the comeback city like that i think everybody has that in their head and anytime sadly if you've seen a restaurant close you've also seen them say we will be back we just have to figure out how we're going to do that and the community supports those restaurants and i think that there's no doubt in anybody's mind that is like a kansas city person that we're gonna come back we're probably gonna be stronger that's just what kansas city does so i think i think we're gonna we're gonna come out on top i agree couldn't agree more yeah i love that i love that and i do want to step in we are at our time um hello again everyone uh brett here i want to thank each of you for being a part of this panel jeff donna kemmett adam and asia um it has been awesome to kick back to kc 2020 off with each of you uh lending your your voices to this conversation and uh answering some of the questions as kevin mentioned we do have breakout rooms that are available if you back out there should be a button somewhere that takes you back to the lobby um i will be there adam i know kevin i hope our panelists have a few moments to kind of stick around as well and hop in on some of those conversations um you can find information on our panelists uh by clicking their little profile images uh and then connect with us on linkedin and uh all that good stuff and you already have my email so if there's anything else that you uh wanted to ask or some you know maybe you think of something later today or have any other questions please feel free to send them uh yeah jeff you're right we can sit here we can talk about casey all day um so please a reminder our next session is at 1 pm central it is back to beautiful we're going to be talking about uh some beautiful aspects of kc our boulevard systems our architecture and our rich rich culture so please make sure you come back at 1pm we hope to see you again and i will see you in a breakout room thank you guys thanks for having us