In tiny KC-area village planning a weed district, developer’s ‘influence’ raises alarms

In River Bend, a tiny village in northern Jackson County, every member of the local governing board is connected in some way to the developer of a planned marijuana-based entertainment district.

Area stakeholders have sounded the alarm, alleging that Jack Mitchell, the developer of the project called Smokey River Entertainment District, has effectively taken over the small municipality.

Some have also raised concerns about marijuana-friendly festivals held in the village, including one in which a 21-year-old overdosed after he took “Molly,” his girlfriend told authorities, according to a police report. “Molly” is a common nickname for MDMA. The man later died.

The village east of Kansas City, which has fostered a loose, business-friendly culture over the years, is largely unknown by many in the metro. It had an estimated population of just three people, according to the most recent U.S. Census data — although the number of people living there is disputed.

Eleven people were registered to vote in the village’s most recent election. The village’s contact email doesn’t work.

For Dan Zima, it feels like something improper is going on.

“It seems like he’s exerting influence on the local government,” said Zima, the director of staff for Illicit Gardens, a large cultivator of marijuana in the Kansas City area that is trying to get a building permit to expand in River Bend. “And then you figure out who all the relationships are, you can just tell he has the ability to influence these people.”

Stakeholders who spoke with The Star largely pointed to the makeup of the village’s board of trustees, the five-member governing board which operates similar to a city council. Each member of the board is connected to Mitchell in some way — either as a member of his family, an employee of his or is married to someone who works for or is related to him. The village clerk, Amy Howse, is Mitchell’s daughter.

Complicating things further, the Jackson County Election Board’s list of village officials, which was updated in May, only includes two of the five current board members. It also still lists the former chair of the board.

Zima and others have questioned the legitimacy of the board and a series of recent ordinances the governing body has passed, including the appointment of a municipal prosecutor and a judge. They point to concerns about how they became members, potential conflicts of interest with Mitchell’s business ventures as well as questions about their residency within the tiny village (Whether they’ve lived there long enough to be on the board).

In August, a group of village stakeholders wrote a letter to the village government, raising a series of questions about the board and its relationship to Mitchell. The letter, which does not name Mitchell specifically, refers to him as the “Principal.”

“The municipality is run by people who are on the Principal’s payroll through his affiliated companies, receive no compensation for their duties as government officials (with the exception of the Village Clerk), and have no experience in local government,” the letter said.

In the face of these concerns, the village board last month called an emergency meeting to pass an ordinance to hold a special election in November to elect new board members. All of the candidates, except for one, are current board members.

Tammy Brown, the Republican director for the Jackson County Election Board, said that the village had to get a court order to hold the election because it missed several filing deadlines.

Lacing all of the concerns among property owners about the legitimacy of the board are fears about a potential village tax increment financing plan or TIF, which the village has touted as a way to bring in money and add sewers and water and repair roads. Amy Hill, chair of the village board and Mitchell’s niece, said that the plan is currently on hold.

Village stakeholders alerted The Star to the issues surrounding River Bend after seeing its “Broken Government” project, which investigates failures at all levels of government in Missouri and Kansas.

Kyle Seyller, who owns property in River Bend, said the area was attractive because it maintained itself as a village outside of the limits of bigger surrounding cities. But, recently, he said he’s been questioning what he describes as shady behavior.

“Now [Mitchell] kind of found his way to weave these people in and claim that they’re living down there,” he said. “And now he’s creating a bunch of red tape for everyone else but himself which is kind of the shady part of this whole thing.”

Jack Mitchell, according to his LinkedIn profile, is the founder of Besa Group of Companies, which includes dispensary, cultivation and manufacturing companies. He’s also the president of Mitchell Hospitality Ltd., which his profile describes as cannabis cultivation, processing and dispensaries.

Mitchell, in a phone interview with The Star, acknowledged that “this new group” was “affiliated with us, you know, in terms of people that we know and some of which do work for us and some of which don’t.”

“We as a group that want to control that area, we’d like it to be a community with standards,” he said.

River Bend, he said, was a place that historically had no rules or infrastructure. He painted some of the opposition as a small group of people who want to be able to build without any rules — rules he said that the village is working to create.

Asked about the concerns among property owners about the relationship between the board and his companies, Mitchell said, “On its face, I think people should be concerned.” But, he said, he’s overly cautious that everything is “by the book.”

“Should that concern people? Of course, but it should only concern people if it’s used improperly, and it won’t be,” he said.

After the initial interview, Mitchell did not respond to multiple calls over several days from The Star.

‘Everybody’s intertwined’

On a recent visit to River Bend, situated north of the Missouri River, reporters noticed a large structure that looks like a warehouse but is reportedly a residence that sits off North Cobbler Road.

This is where Alex Hill, her husband, David Hill, another board member, have lived since last September, she later told The Star. Tracy Dockler, her mother and another board member, also lives there, she said.

Nearby is a trailer where on a recent day, a cinder block was propped up against the door. A sign taped to the door announced an emergency meeting on Sept. 19. Inside the one-room village building a dozen or so folding chairs were set up before a table for the trustees.

Just north, several businesses line Industrial Drive including a fireworks warehouse, a gravel company and an auto body shop. Two other board members, Jessica Caswell and James Hoppe, submitted documents to the Jackson County Election Board last month showing their residence along the highway that slices through River Bend. Zima said this property houses two trailers.

Hoppe, reached by phone, said “no comment, no interest” and immediately hung up the phone.

Andrew Hansen runs Desert Fox Logistics, a FedEx ground contracting company. The local business has been in River Bend for nearly three years and chose the village because of its lower taxes and industrial nature, which fit the company’s needs.

It employs about 75 people in the Kansas City area with more further west in parts of Kansas.

Hansen said a 4/20 festival at the Smokey River Entertainment District just across the way was disruptive.

During the festival, a Sugar Creek police officer heard radio traffic about a man who had overdosed. Fighting heavy traffic, the officer made her way to the man who was in a vehicle. A woman who said she was the man’s girlfriend told police that he had taken “Molly,” a common nickname for MDMA. The police officer checked to see if he was breathing or had a pulse but “determined neither one was present,” a police report said.

Three officers rotated chest compressions until he was loaded into an ambulance and transported to the hospital in Liberty. The 21-year-old died.

The Jackson County Medical Examiner’s Office handled the case, county spokeswoman Marshanna Smith said.

The Smokey River Entertainment District, in a statement provided by a spokesperson, said it was “deeply saddened to learn of the tragic death of the 21-year-old man at the festival.”

“Local Police gave us information and while we don’t have access to the police report, authorities had given us information stating that he died after our event and after leaving our grounds,” the statement said. “Our hearts go out to their family and loved ones during this difficult time. The safety and well-being of all those who attend our events is of the utmost importance to us. Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this terrible loss.”

Boxing giant Mike Tyson and professional wrestler Ric Flair were in attendance, according to photos and news coverage of the festival. Rapper Wiz Khalifa headlined the event.

“Our business basically had to shut down because we couldn’t get in and out of our business here because they blocked the street,” Hansen said. “It cost us thousands of dollars not to be able to operate our business and there was no warning from anybody about what was going on or how it was going to impact us.”

Festival goers also urinated near the building and left trash, he said.

In the months since, he has learned more about the board’s ties to the developer.

“You can see how everybody’s intertwined,” he said. “It’s fraud because it’s a complete false front.”

Hansen also said he is worried that a village as small as River Bend will not be able to support a TIF for the entertainment district. “It doesn’t pencil out,” he said.

Conflict of interest?

River Bend began operating as its own village in the 1990s, in part, because the residents didn’t want to become annexed by nearby Liberty or Sugar Creek, according to Dave Obermeyer, who is one of the village’s founders and former chair of the board.

“The way I always looked at it, my neighbor was voting on what was being built or being done next to him instead of somebody in Sugar Creek,” he said.

That attitude has, according to several property owners, fostered a culture where property owners took pride in the lack of governmental red tape. It became a hotspot for industrial businesses and warehouses.

Obermeyer has since moved out of River Bend, retiring to the Lake of the Ozarks, after Mitchell purchased some of his property, he said. Last November, a day after Missourians voted to legalize marijuana, Mitchell did an interview with FOX4 to describe his ambitious plans to develop the Smokey River Entertainment District in River Bend.

“We have a blank slate here,” Mitchell told the station at the time, referring to River Bend.

The plans called for an amphitheater, two indoor entertainment venues, festival grounds and various food and drink spots. While those plans have yet to come to fruition, over the last year the spot has been largely used as festival grounds. The venue later this month is scheduled to host rappers such as 2 Chainz, Ty Dolla $ign, Lil Pump and Waka Flocka Flame.

Mitchell, in an interview with The Star, downplayed the future plans for the entertainment district and instead touted plans to enhance the festival grounds.

“Eventually it would be great to get an amphitheater built there, but, you know, in today’s world, it’s just not something that’s doable in the immediate future with the economy and without more development of a market down there,” he said.

Over the last year, people associated with Mitchell or his companies began taking spots on the village’s board. In March, three people, including two of Obermeyer’s family members, resigned from the board, according to village meeting minutes. Obermeyer appointed three new members — Tracy Dockler, who is Mitchell’s sister; Jessica Caswell, who works for Mitchell according to posts on her social media pages; and James Hoppe who is married to Caswell, according to the Jackson County Recorder of Deeds.

In April, the village held an election and elected two new members, Mitchell’s niece, Alex Hill, and her husband David. Ten people voted in the election.

“Everybody on the board of trustees is related to Jack one way or another whether it’s actual family relation, or they work for him,” said Jeremy Alexander, who owns a rock and mulch company in River Bend. “That just kind of seems like a conflict of interest where they’re not going to have the city’s interest at heart. It’s going to be whatever Jack’s wanting to do.”

Brandon Decker, who owns a trucking business in River Bend, said he recently began investigating what’s going on in the village.

“I started digging into some of these people on this board,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, these people are all related and/or employed by the guy that’s approached me to buy me out.’ And I’m like, ‘There’s nothing good about this.’”

Zima, with Illicit Gardens, last month filed a complaint with the Missouri Ethics Commission against Ben Hoffer, a member of the village’s planning and zoning commission whose business card also includes references to the Smokey River Entertainment District. The complaint raises questions about whether Hoffer legitimately holds his position with the commission.

Hoffer did not immediately return a call for comment.

Alex Hill, the board chair, pushed back on criticism of the makeup of the board and its intentions.

“Our main goal, as the chairman and the trustees, is we’re just trying to bring infrastructure back into the village,” she said. “So I think what the big issue is, is that people don’t like change. In the past, it was really loose and fast.”

Hill said the village is spending money on legal fees to “bring the village back up” — bringing in sewer and water, fixing the roads and developing a zoning map.

“We’re trying to codify it and we are trying to get everything in order,” she said.

Hill said she’s tried to reassure area property owners that it doesn’t matter what Mitchell does with the area. If he leaves, the board plans to stay, she said.

Missouri law requires that trustee members be inhabitants of a village for at least one year before they are elected. Hill, who told The Star she moved to River Bend last September and was elected in April, said she would have the village’s attorneys explain her residency to a reporter when asked whether she’s lived there long enough to be a board member. The attorneys did not follow up with a reporter.

“We have all lived here, according to me, long enough to be able to do these proceedings, but that’s why we do pay a lot in lawyer fees because we consult them on every decision we make,” she said.

Brown, with the Jackson County Election Board, said in a phone interview that she was aware of the concerns regarding whether village residents and board members actually live in River Bend. She said the election board was not notified when several board members resigned and others were appointed.

“We send them mailings, don’t get returned,” she said. “It doesn’t give us a lot of leeway out there to go ‘Do you actually really live here? Are these living quarters? Are these businesses? What are these?’ So, there’s only so much we can do on our end. It takes somebody that’s living out there to challenge what’s happening.”

The election board, she said, has “heard from both sides and I really don’t know what’s going on out there.”

The village’s website, which went live a few weeks ago, according to Hill, houses copies of the village board’s minutes and other government information. A page that described the rural village as a place of “tranquility and charm” included a photograph from a wedding that was held at the River’s Bend Lodge, a bed and breakfast in Montana.

When asked about the photo, Becci DeTienne, one of the owners of the lodge, blasted the Missouri village for using it in an email to The Star.

“We HAVE NOT and DO NOT authorize the use of our home on any website other than our own,” DeTienne said. “This is a misrepresentation of their website and they should not be using it.”

Hill said the village outsourced the creation of its website and that it was still a work in progress. She said the photo of the Montana lodge would be taken down immediately. After DeTienne emailed Howse, the village clerk, to remove the photo, it was replaced this week with a photograph of ducks in a body of water.

‘Won’t be repeated in the future.’

Mitchell said the tiny village of River Bend is “definitely a situation that won’t be repeated in the future.”

But, he said, “it’s something that’s legal, and, you know, it is what it is.”

Asked what he would say to property owners who are concerned about the relationship between his development and the village, Mitchell said he’d like property owners to point to any decision where they have been negatively impacted.

“There are a lot of lawyers that are trying to make sure this is an unbelievably responsible administration down there,” he said. “I’d really like for anybody to point out one example of a decision that’s negatively impacted a business down there.”

Adam Diltz, co-owner and COO of Illicit Gardens, said the company demolished a greenhouse in order to expand their facility and expected the 10,000 square foot building to be operational by April.

But recently updated codes have prevented them from making much progress. The lot sits empty.

“It seemed very aimed at us,” Diltz said. “The developer does have a competing business to ours.”

For Decker, one of the business owners in River Bend, what’s been going on in River Bend is “backwards.”

“It’s collusion,” he said. “I mean, there has to be laws against this, really, maybe there are,” he said.