The stories that defined Johnson County news in 2025

The Chiefs' move across the state line, debates over the second Trump administration's policies and consequential local elections helped drive Johnson County news in 2025.

stories_defined_2025_collage — Clockwise from top left, Kansas City Royals mascot Sluggerrr at Aspiria, protesters along Metcalf Avenue, a "Stop the Drama" sign in Prairie Village and officials cut the ribbon on the new Panasonic EV plant in De Soto. File photos.

The year 2025 began with a historic snowstorm and ended with a flurry of news about the Chiefs’ announced move across the state line.

In between, there was a seemingly relentless drumbeat of other big stories, from the opening of the $4 billion Panasonic EV battery plant to a full election slate of municipal and school board races to local reactions to the policies and pronouncements of the second Trump administration.

It was a busy year, one that again saw more change internally at the Johnson County Post: we added Olathe as a full-time coverage area.

Here are the major stories that caught our eye and defined the news in Johnson County in 2025:

Home of the Chiefs (and maybe … Royals?)

World Cup kickoff Sluggerrr Royals — Royals mascot Sluggerrr made an appearance at a World Cup pep rally earlier this summer at (ironically) the Aspiria campus in Overland Park. Photo credit Leah Wankum.

Will the Kansas City Royals move to Johnson County or not?

At the end of 2025, we still don’t know, but another local professional sports team — the NFL’s Chiefs — stole the spotlight in late December when the franchise agreed to move to Kansas and build a new $3 billion domed stadium in Wyandotte County while also relocating its headquarters and training facilities to Olathe.

Many state and local officials trumpeted the deal as a “game changer” for Kansas, as well as for KCK and Olathe, but the billions of dollars in public taxpayer incentives backing the project raised eyebrows and caused not a little year-end handwringing.

As for the Royals, who have been eyeing the Aspiria campus in Overland Park, 2025 ended with mounting opposition to the idea of an MLB stadium in the middle of suburbia. T-Mobile also confirmed that if the Royals were to move there, the company would have to find a new home for its 3,500 employees.

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Elections focused on local contests

Overland Park City Council Mayor election 2025 — Mayor Curt Skoog (right) celebrates his reelection with his wife, Amy, at a campaign party. Photo credit Kylie Graham.

Elections in Johnson County in 2025 featured dozens of races for mayors, city council seats, school board positions and more. And some clear trends emerged among the victors.

Though ostensibly nonpartisan, most winning candidates on Election Day were either backed by the Democratic Party or espoused campaign messages more in line with that party’s priorities and talking points, most notably on housing affordability and an openness to development.

In what was maybe the most-watched local election this year, Prairie Village voters sent a decisive message, sweeping into office six candidates who backed a new city hall project. In another notable result, Overland Park Mayor Curt Skoog coasted to reelection over former city councilmember Faris Farassati.

In a special April vote, Westwood voters rejected a plan to build offices and retail shops on the city’s biggest public green space. Curiously, seven months later in November, three candidates who vocally supported that project won seats to the city council.

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County falling behind its housing goals

A regular volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, Ralph Graham, helps place supports for the ceiling of one of 14 single-family homes a part of Habitat for Humanity and Pathway Community Christian Church’s affordable housing project in Olathe. — A regular volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, Ralph Graham, helps place supports for the ceiling of one of 14 single-family homes as part of Habitat for Humanity and Pathway Community Christian Church’s affordable housing project in Olathe. Photo credit Margaret Mellott.

As in past years, the cost of housing remained a story on the top of many Johnson County residents’ and policymakers’ minds in 2025.

After months of reporting, the Post’s Kaylie McLaughlin published a four-part series examining the state of Johnson County’s tight housing market. Her analysis of cities’ building permit data showed that the county, as a whole, has fallen thousands of units behind the goals set out in a landmark 2021 countywide housing study, exacerbating residents’ struggles to find an affordable place to live.

Many complex factors are contributing to the issue — the rising price of construction materials, the lack of available land in some aging and built-out communities, as well as politically potent opposition from existing homeowners to new housing projects.

There are some modest steps being taken to address the housing shortage, including an Overland Park pilot offering home blueprints to smooth the way for developers. Meanwhile, activists this year also continued to press the county to establish a housing trust fund to help low-income homeowners.

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Preparing for the global World Cup stage

World Cup kickoff — Post reporters captured defining moments and fun time Johnson County had in 2025. Above, a young soccer player practices his moves at the kickoff. Photo credit Leah Wankum.

One of the biggest stories in Johnson County in 2025 was about something that will happen in 2026: the World Cup.

Though we’ve known since 2022 that Kansas City is one of 16 North American host cities for next year’s global soccer tournament, things started to get real this year as local cities and residents began grappling with how exactly the area would welcome an expected influx of hundreds of thousands of visitors next summer.

In June, thousands of people flocked to Overland Park for a sun-baked kickoff event. Cities, including Leawood, Overland Park and Shawnee, rolled out plans for watch parties and festival-style events. The county also unveiled a shuttle that will connect multiple points in Johnson County to KCI Airport for most of next year, with officials suggesting the amenity could become permanent after soccer fans leave.

Then, in December, we found which teams will actually play at Arrowhead Stadium next summer. Up first: defending champs Argentina, still led (many hope) by global soccer star Lionel Messi.

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Tragedy punctuates debate over scooter safety

A number of Johnson County cities this year have either passed or are considering approving new rules for children riding electric scooters. Photo credit Shutterstock.

For most of 2025, parents and local officials were sounding the alarm about the growing trend of children and pre-teens riding around Johnson County streets on electric scooters, oftentimes at high speeds.

The Fairway police chief’s warning to that suburb’s city council in September that “something tragic is going to happen” proved sadly prescient, when only about a month later a Leawood boy named Duke Ommert, 10, was struck and killed while riding one of the devices.

Ommert’s death came after some Johnson County cities and school districts, as well as retail centers like Prairie Village’s Corinth Square, began putting new limits on e-scooter use, particularly for young riders, in an attempt to make riding them safer.

Now, as we enter 2026, there seems to be more urgency around the issue, particularly in Leawood, where parents, including Ommert’s mother, urged the city council late this year to do more to make local roadways safer for pedestrians and kids on scooters and bikes.

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Panasonic makes mark in De Soto

Ribbon cutting — International, state, city and Panasonic leaders take part in a ribbon cutting in front of the Panasonic Energy plant in De Soto. Photo credit Andrew Gaug.

Before the Chiefs’ late-year announcement shifted expectations for what was possible, there was Panasonic, which unveiled its new $4 billion EV battery plant in De Soto this past summer.

Though still not fully staffed and 100% operational, the state-of-the-art factory on the site of the old Sunflower Army Ammunition plant has already changed the face of De Soto.

The town of roughly 6,000 people in western Johnson County is being transformed, with thousands more people expected to move there in coming years. City officials are going all in on new housing and commercial projects, to say nothing of long-needed infrastructure improvements, to meet that expected influx.

Meanwhile, tragedy struck the new plant late in the year when Johnson County sheriff’s deputies, called to the site for a reported stabbing, shot and killed a suspect in a part of the facility still under construction. That incident was still being investigated as 2025 ended.

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National issues filter down

Protestors — Protesters along Metcalf Avenue in Overland Park on Aug. 10, 2025. Photo credit Andrew Gaug.

The Post’s bread and butter is local news, even hyperlocal, we like to say, down to the street and neighborhood level. But that doesn’t mean national issues don’t sometimes have an impact.

That seemed unusually apparent in 2025, especially after a second Trump term got going in earnest, and executive orders and federal policies began to filter down to the local level.

Early in the year, Johnson County school districts and municipalities alike dealt with uncertainty around possible federal funding cuts. Then, in the summer, federal immigration agents raided a Lenexa Mexican restaurant, arresting several people and giving grist to protesters who lined Metcalf Avenue about a week later.

The salience of federal politics also showed up in disputes over local reactions to the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. And in the latter half of the year, Republicans’ push to call a special session to discuss redistricting in Kansas prompted multiple gatherings where Johnson Countians let it be known they didn’t like the idea.

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Other big news we covered

Jason Spilker cleared snow from his driveway and the road in front of his home in Overland Park on Jan. 5, 2025. He said he’d already cleared the area three times and helped a car get unstuck from the intersection near his house at 115th and Nieman. Photo credit Kylie Graham.

The year began with a historic blizzard that dropped nearly a foot of snow on parts of Johnson County, shutting down roadways for multiple days and creating a second mini-winter break for local school children.

Also, a tragedy in the nation’s capital, the shooting of two young people outside a Jewish event in Washington, D.C., hit close to home when it came to light that one of the victims was a woman named Sarah Milgrim, who grew up in Johnson County and graduated from Shawnee Mission East High School.

Other stories of note included a neighborhood spat over a sideyard pickleball court, Blue Valley parents’ opposition to the firing of a longtime kindergarten teacher and, lest we forget, the most covered wedding proposal in the world in 2025, which happened right here in Johnson County.

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