My name is Leah Maki. I hold real estate licenses in Missouri, Kansas, and Florida, and I have worked in this industry since 2011. I am also married to Jason Maki, candidate for Platte County Presiding Commissioner. The Kansas City Regional Association of REALTORS® has supported my husband’s candidacy, and I want to tell you why I believe they got it right.
I am not writing as a spouse who thinks her husband can do no wrong. I’ve spent the bulk of my career in this business. I know what it looks like when a local official understands the market, and I know what it costs all of us when one doesn’t.
Where I’m coming from
Most of my career has been on the brokerage management side. With Sotheby’s International Realty, I worked with agents: supporting the people who represent buyers and sellers, and seeing every type of transaction from first homes to luxury properties. With the Cordish Companies, I was involved with the development of One Light, Two Light, and Three Light Luxury Apartments, some of the best multifamily addresses Kansas City has to offer. Along the way I built lasting relationships with developers, lenders, and the agents who make deals close.
From the management side, you see the whole market at once. You see what one agent sees on one deal, but you also see the patterns across hundreds of them: where deals stall, which rules create problems, and how local policy affects whether a project gets built. That taught me two things. Real estate drives this region’s economy, and local government can either help that growth or become its biggest obstacle. The difference usually comes down to whether the people making decisions understand how a project actually gets from a drawing to a ribbon cutting.
What Jason has heard at our dinner table
For years, Jason has heard about this business every night. He has heard about buyers priced out of Platte County by assessments they couldn’t fight. He has heard about developers walking away from good projects because approvals dragged on for months. He has heard about closings that fell apart over rules nobody could explain. He didn’t just hear it; he asked questions, and he remembered.
What has always impressed me about Jason is that he takes the time to understand every perspective before he forms an opinion: the developer’s, the neighbor’s, the agent’s, and the taxpayer’s. He understands the role developers play in building the places people want to live, the role REALTORS® play in helping families get there, and the role the community plays in deciding what it wants to become. He doesn’t pretend those interests always line up. He does the work of finding where they do. In my experience, that is rare in a candidate, and it is exactly what a Presiding Commissioner needs.
What that means for Platte County
KCRAR’s advocacy agenda is built on protecting property rights, preserving the American dream of homeownership, keeping property taxes stable and predictable, and removing the barriers that keep housing out of reach. Jason has run on those same principles from day one. That isn’t because an association asked him to. It’s because he has watched them play out in our own household.
He will fight unfair property tax increases and demand assessments that are accurate and transparent, so homeowners aren’t taxed out of the homes they already own. He will push for sensible zoning and land-use rules that let the market add housing supply, instead of red tape that delays projects and drives up costs. He will defend the right of property owners to use what they own. And he will keep county tax dollars focused on the county’s actual mission: public infrastructure and public safety. That’s what makes Platte County a place people want to buy into in the first place.
Just as important, his door will be open. Jason has committed to consulting REALTORS® and the development community before the county acts on policy that affects them, not after. I can promise you he means it, because he has been doing it with me for many years.
Why it matters
KCRAR supports Jason Maki because he understands the market, and he understands it because he has lived next to it every day. If you want a Presiding Commissioner who already gets what our industry does for this community and this economy, and who will treat you as a partner rather than a problem, I hope you’ll join me in supporting my husband on November 3.
Leah Maki
Licensed real estate professional in Missouri, Kansas, and Florida
Dagmar Williams • October 24, 2026 at 1:21 pm
Great points, Leah. I’ve been impressed with Jason’s propensity to ask questions to get the lay of the land with different issues. He’s not a reactionary, but thoughtful and strategic in his decision making. Glad he decided to throw his hat in the race!