TKC BREAKING AND EXCLUSIVE NEWS!!! CLAY CHASTAIN PETITIONS MISSOURI SECRETARY OF STATE KANDER TO CLARIFY KANSAS CITY LIGHT RAIL BALLOT!!!
Take a look at this missive from Kansas City transit activist Clay Chastain that hopes Missouri Secretary Of State Jason Kander will intervene this local election debate regarding vague language.
To wit . . .
LIKE IT OR NOT, THIS IS A SMART MOVE FROM CHASTAIN THAT CALLS INTO QUESTION CITY HALL GAMES WITH LOCAL DEMOCRACY AND VOTING IN ORDER TO STIFLE A PLAN THEY DON'T LIKE!!!
What's worse is that some KC Transit aficionados are starting to suspect that if Clay's vote wins . . . The wording would allow Mayor Sly & Co. to take the cash and use it for their own plans . . . And so the reality is that a large percentage of voters regard our elected leadership with distrust and outright disdain.
Check the presser:
Letter sent to Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander asking him to order city to clarify vague and unfair light rail ballot language
Dear Mr. Secretary,
My name is Clay Chastain and I am the leader and representative of the Light Rail Initiative Committee of Petitioners in Kansas City.
We are writing to you because the City has placed before the Kansas City voters (for the November 4 election) two vaguely worded ballot initiative questions which we believe are unfair, unconstitutional, and unacceptable. Neither question tells the voters what project the City would use the tax revenues for if approved by voters. Thus, the questions (barring a separate resolution adopted by the City clarifying what the City would use the taxes for) are manipulative in a way that encourages a no vote, leaves supporters without anything to campaign for, and would provide the City a blank (fill in the project) check.
We are calling this rigged election to your attention beings one of your primary duties is to insure fair elections, and indeed, the "Secretary of State is the chief elections official in Missouri."
The City has placed on the November 4, 2014 KC ballot two tax initiative questions (#1 & #2) that mention the initiative's taxes, but do not mention what project the taxes are intended to fund. These two vaguely worded and unfair tax questions ( that may also violate the Missouri State Constitution's John Hancock Amendment) were approved by Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Sandra Midkiff.
In order to bring fairness to this election and respect to the KC electorate, we ask you , Mr. Secretary, to order Mayor James and the City Council to adopt a separate resolution (City Resolution #140) that would commit the City to use the two tax initiatives, if approved by voters, to fund construction of the light rail initiative project outlined in the light rail initiative petition supported by 4,000 voters of Kansas City.
Such a resolution would bring clarity and truth to the election by informing voters (through a separate resolution) exactly what project they are being asked to raise their taxes for over the course of the next 25 years!
Mr. Secretary, we ask you please consider this request an emergency.
Clay Chastain
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TKC, clay's petition days are just about over, he's going to face a residency requirement too. You heard it here first.
ReplyDeleteEspecially if he identifies himself as the "leader" of the petition effort.
ReplyDeleteLook, he can cry "unconstitutional" all he wants, but this ballot language is exactly the bone the Missouri Supreme Court threw to him.
And it is not the job of the Secretary of State to judge whether it is "constitutional" or not.
Vote NO.
ReplyDeleteSly and crew are cooking their own collective goose. The signal they send is that they don't want a fair vote and will do anything to deny voters the right to decide. It is so far beyond being about Chastain at this point. This comes down to whether a group of tax payers can petition the government for a fair vote. This case needs to be in Federal Court.
ReplyDeleteI'm voting YES with the hope they will use the money for streetcar expansion in midtown and BRT expansion North of the River and on the East side..
ReplyDeleteYou're voting yes, but you have no clue as to what the money will be used for.
ReplyDeleteDoofus.
I really don't understand why the City is going through all this effort to defeat this initiative. After their plan was voted down, do they really think this plan would pass. All they are doing is creating hostility and isolating voters. I like Clay's idea, but it is not a viable plan, it is woefully underfunded.
ReplyDeleteHowever, given the City's actions, I feel like my government won't allow me to petition for redress of grievances. They have unnecessarily isolated me, and made me a hostile citizen to any future proposals by City Hall. Really stupid waste of political capital by those on 11th.
wait till the e-tax vote in 2016. by by e- tax
ReplyDeleteDid he cite the "John Hancock" Amendment again?
ReplyDeleteThe tax increases have a better chance of passing WITHOUT identifying Clay's light rail proposal. Indicates to me that if either or both issues pass, the city will take the money for sly's streetcar. If that happens, the city won't need the transportation districts, or any more votes. Clever, but extremely deceitful. In fact, this administration is chock full of lies and deceit.
ReplyDeletecan't say i disagree with you 957 but thats a move usually reserved for after you've been elected to your second term and have nothing to lose.
ReplyDelete9:27, The e tax passed by a HISTORIC margin just 3 years ago, dipshit. Because its a fucking excellent way to fund necessary city services.
ReplyDelete9:21 is the first sensibble comment on Tony's Johnson County/Stormfront-lite in the last 4 years.
And anyone who thinks this city has anything like adequate transit or who thinks "that doesn't matter people only want cars" has their head up their ass. It why this town is now a peer city to Omaha, Nashville and Oklahoma City, instead of former peers like Minneapolis, Denver and Portland.
Ah yes, the familiar refrain from the Sim City genius. The sky is falling! We got trouble right here in River City! If we don't invest further in this boondoggle we magically become a less desirable city overnight! If it weren't for that damn democracy thing....
DeleteYou can tell he's not a Kansas, because he dresses like a grown up, talks like he graduated high school, has been seen walking, and was smart enough to move the fuck out.
ReplyDeleteInteresting how the local media has all but buried their heads on this issue.
ReplyDeleteWhere are the comments from those wanting to fuck Kander's wife??
ReplyDeleteHow precious...you howling about Democracy, after you tried in vain to block that very vote in court, insisting that poor old Sambo on the east side couldn't possible be SMART enough to figure out for hisself what he needed, and that good old Brookside white folk should get to decide about taxes they didnt even have to pay.
ReplyDeleteInternet lawyer boy and the echo chamber.
Still didn't pick up a single vote in midtown (or in Brookside either, as you are about to find out).
The 'strawman argument', where one antagonist in a debate attempts to first define and then defeat a nonexistent position, is the first resort of a poor general case.
DeleteYou lost. Gosh, politics is hard. But nicknames , fearmongering, and misdirection seem to make you feel better.
:)
Strawmen arguments, fearmongering and name calling...
DeleteFrom the people who brought you:
"Black people will ride the streetcar and rob white neighborhoods"
"Streetcars kill children and bicyclists"
"Everyone who disagree is Mensa boy/hipster/renter/coffee shop employee/transplant/consultant"
"Streetcar closed fire stations/stole sewer money/kept cops off the street"
Pretty rich, coming from you.
And speaking of poor cases, remember when you argued that:
Delete"Businesses should get to vote on taxes"
And:
"Letting resident vote on their own taxes in unfair/unjust"
Sorry you lost the first election ad that you are certainly going to lose the next.
Midtown has spoken loud and clear. We want a streetcar and we are the ones who pay for it.
The east side can have their buses and continue down the path they have been on develoent wise. There won't be 2,000 votes left in the freedom wards in 2 decades.
Brookside and waldo will be given the vote you cheated them out of, and yes, you will probably have to tear down the section of ATA right of way you fenced in illegally, Sherry.
Sorry. Being behind the times has coamequences.
Strawman, to be clear, something you're using to capture all sorts of arguments you wish to assign to me, none of which I have made.
DeleteHere's mine: you utterly failed to make your case, pure and simple.
When will the city and the state sue him for all the money he costs the taxpayers
ReplyDelete4:31-5:57: Good grief, Mensa boy. You lost. Get the fuck over it.
ReplyDeleteNo shit, 6:20 - he is hurf durfing it big time, becoming more incoherent as his drunken night rages on.
ReplyDeleteMensa boy - you LOST!! Hahahaha ha!
Made the case just fine for the majority of midtowners, downtowners and the actual people of Brookside, not the angsty transplanted Tea-partiers like you, Sam.
ReplyDeleteAnd, while I'm not Russ Johnson, I'm pretty sure he's batting .500. I was just downtown today and it sure looked like they were laying streetcar tracks...just like they will be in midtown and brookside in the next 5 years.