The controversy surrounding Kemper Arena could be the biggest financial decision facing Kansas City in the coming months and our blog community has led every local media outlet in measuring up all the options.
Recently, we challenged the Show-Me Institute to share their perspective since we noted their curious absence from the debate and offered a bit of bitchy conjecture that it might have something to do with Kemper clan affiliation.
To wit . . .
TODAY THE SHOW-ME BLOG MEASURES UP THE PROS AND CONS OF THE KEMPER ARENA AMERICAN ROYAL FIASCO IN EPIC FASHION!!!
Let's not milk this bloggy discourse too much but it's clear that this is a debate that's raging online whereas mainstream media coverage has barely satisfied the public's thirst for info.
While we feel that a denizen of our blog community filed the definite post on this topic. Today's examination from the Show-me Institute is without question a weighty post that considers the controversy from a reasoned public policy perspective. Check it:
Show-Me Blog: The Beef With Kemper Arena
Here's the money quote:
"The most basic reaction we would offer here is that Kansas City shouldn’t have been in the arena business anyway. Moreover, the overly generous terms of the lease goes to show that trusting government to act as a fiduciary for taxpayers in financial matters is hardly ever prudent. We rejected historic preservation tax credits to save Kemper and also reject border war incentives that would subsidize the Royal so that it could possibly move out of Kansas City.
"However, we support contract rights, and to the extent that an agreement was made between the Royal and the city, the terms of that agreement have to be substantively performed. Taxpayers deserved a better deal than the one the city made, but they got a lot of bull instead. And like the city’s predicament with the money-hemorrhaging Power & Light District, what taxpayers deserve does not change what taxpayers are on the hook for. Yes, the Royal may eventually “win” the question of what happens to the Kemper Arena property, but that win will have come at a price – for the organization, and for the city."
#########
Developing . . .
This is great thinking about these issues, it's too bad that Sly & Co are simply going to figure out how the issue can best serve their own careers and political donations.
ReplyDeleteThe City including its legal department is so inept and morally bankrupt, its like expecting a retarded child to run the city in a professional manner.
ReplyDeleteWe are all sitting back watching this complete failure and the total disintegration of the city happen before our very eyes and at the end of the day, it wont be the likes of big business stripping this town of every dime it can steal from the taxpayers, open front room deals by city counselors with B&M, KCP&L, Rosie P with her SBE, MBE, DBE electrical small business enterprise or even a mayor who wouldnt go to his sons wake because he was gay? but let a drag queen shimmy up to him for votes on a photo op?
I'll tell you just how fucked up this city is, I watched a case be dismissed that took place today with Steve Flick, it almost immediately came after another trial in Jeff City for inappropriate conduct on a board he was sitting on, he was told by the judge his word was questionable BUT they wrongfully removed him from the board, now they cant get rid of him that happened after he bailed on his child support and had that warrant removed, know what he was suing the city for??
He wanted the City to give him minority status, its true, he claims he is indian, has no tribal card, no tribal affiliation, not even on his birth certificate, he has absolutely nothing that says he is American Indian BUT his word and a few groups he donates to and of course he is on the board of the nnacc.org that he and a few others hijacked from some poor smuck who didn't know who he was dealing with. now he wants the city to allow him to bid on contracts claiming Indian status.
The city has "compromised" but I don't know if we'll ever know what happened unless he quietly drops from the MBE rolls with his cohort Larry Reynolds
sly has sold kc to the highest bidder.
ReplyDeleteI support the show me institute because they are the last organization to tell the truth about kc going bankrupt.
ReplyDeleteAncestry.com will do a DNA test showing a person's ethnic background for less than $100.
ReplyDeleteWe got rats parading around the city so why do we need the royal?
ReplyDeleteethics? not for sly & co?
ReplyDeleteThese punk ass politico's and the bosses who slop them like hogs on a feedlot and built a fine Legacy for the inbred Mariner Kemper and the other half dozen of his cousins.
ReplyDeleteMr. Tony,
ReplyDeleteExcuse me for interfering in this little tea party but the current lease (which just reams us!) is for THE CURRENT ARENA!
The American Royal is just as stuck with us as we are with them according to the lease. Didn't nobody put in that paper that we have to help them pursue happiness in a new arena.
They can say all kinds of crap about the building being unsuitable for their narrow needs. Should have thought about that before they put their John Hancock on the legal paper.
If they want to break the lease we should take them to court.