Lee's Summit Town Hall

The Lee’s Summit Chamber’s Stacy Needles and Stephanie Kusek join the show to preview this weekend’s annual Oktoberfest in downtown Lee’s Summit. Hosts and Jason and Nick also take a little time to review Mayor Bill Baird’s first State of the City address and start to open a conversation on the Lee’s Summit R-7 School District and it’s current facilities master plan and school boundary processes.

Before moving to the world of Chambers of Commerce, he spent 20 years in higher education. The marketing and economic development work on behalf of a university helped prepare him for his second career as an advocate and resource-builder for the business community. And as of August of this year, he is the new President of the Lee’s Summit Chamber. This is Dr. Blake Fry.

You read that right. This week is your opportunity to eat some wings and do some good. Lee’s Summit attorney Chris Turney joins the show to talk about his Wings 4 Water charity event taking place Thursday night in the parking lot at Bridge Space in downtown Lee’s Summit. Before Jason and Nick get to the wings, though, they talk a little about a proposed office development in downtown Lee’s Summit and how the developer has made changes to the plan based on feedback from area residents, property owners and other stakeholders.

It’s Arts in Education week. Nick and Jason sit down with Jeannine Akins and Aimee Fresia, of the Lee’s Summit R-7 School District, to talk about the role the arts play in our schools, as well as some of the programming going on in the district. But before they get there, the guys point out some upcoming opportunities for residents to make their voices heard on the future of our City.

We're a day late with this week's episode. But we have a good reason. We wanted to record live from a cool new development in town. Wednesday night, Jason and Nick attended the launch party for the new Bridge Space Lee's Summit. The downtown-based entrepreneurial hub and coworking space has been the dream of local business owner Ben Rao for several years. This week, the dream became reality. During the party, the duo grabbed Ben, and some of the guests (including Mayor Bill Baird), to talk about the space and what it could mean for the continued growth of the city.

He's a painter, singer, producer and songwriter. He's president of a Kansas City-based indie record label — Russian Winter Records. And he's probably a familiar face for those frequenting downtown Lee's Summit's Farmers Market and Fourth Friday Art Walk events. This is Ric Gordon.