TKC MUST READ!!! QUESTION: WILL EVEN MORE TAXPAYER CASH SAVE THE EAST SIDE OR CREATE YET ANOTHER CORRUPT KANSAS CITY SLUSH FUND DISASTER?!?!



The sordid topic of taxpayer subsidy and the turbulent racial history of Kansas City is up for discussion once again thanks to a brilliant article that deserves consideration by any adult who seeks to understand some of the politics of development and this town.

Checkit:

Citylab - Can Kansas City Come Together? Voters from around the city just approved a citizen-led tax initiative that will funnel funds only to the long-neglected east side. But Kansas City’s racial fractures may be hard to heal.

The only minor quibble with the article is that it didn't name the Central City Economic Development Initiative which voters approved.



Here's more description:

The proposal would (will) impose an 1/8 cent sales tax on city residents for 10 years, collecting more than $8 million a year to be spent within the district boundaries on projects and initiatives large and small. Most neighborhoods in the city voted in favor of the tax, regardless of geography, demographics, or whether the improvements would directly affect them. Leaders here hope the broad approval of the east side improvements is a sign—a critical acknowledgement that the urban core has been ignored for too long, and a rudimentary step towards healing one of the most racially fractured cities in America.

And here's where the premise of the screed is promising but flimsy . . . Have Kansas City voters had a racial awakening that now holds hope for unity and focus on the problems of the East Side in order to overcome historic oppression??? Or did a bunch of special interests cram into polling places in a low turnout election that earned curious results given that it was raining and just about every polling place in the city was a virtual ghost town that didn't seem to match up with results??? Real talk . . . Let's not forget that this town has a history with stuffing ballot boxes that isn't as distant as people would like to imagine. TKC won't go the Alex Jones route and we can live with the results of this vote . . . But it's also important to know that RIGGING ELECTIONS IS PART OF KANSAS CITY'S CULTURE.

But I digress . . .

Here's the point and a moment of doubt . . .

$8 million a year will be no match for the deep systemic problems on the city’s east side; development there “confronts too much poverty, too much unemployment, and too much need to have any measurable impact.” Kansas City has many neighborhoods that offer affordable housing, development opportunities, and far less crime and entrenched poverty than the Prospect corridor.

The question of where to spend the revenue will be addressed in the coming weeks, as the city convenes a five-person commission made up of city, county, and school board appointees.

And that's where this thing falls apart like so many other best-laid plans of mice and men.

Let's not forget that $100 MILLION since 1990 hasn't saved 18th & Vine which still can't draw a crowd this size of the recent Westside/Crossroads Cinco De Mayo festivities that mostly included corny urban mariachis and unlicensed burrito trucks as entertainment.

On a more serious note, the article does mention the Citadel Plaza toxic waste dump whilst attempting to uphold the company line about an East Side police station qualifying as development.

Fact is, for the good of all Kansas City let's hope this isn't just another effort to throw money down a bottomless pit . . .



In the final analysis, any consideration of social justice, economic or development on Kansas City's east side is incomplete without discussion of violence and crime.

LIKE IT OR NOT, EVERY EAST SIDE DEVELOPMENT WILL FALTER UNLESS SECURITY AND SAFETY FOR PATRONS IS ADDRESSED FIRST AND FOREMOST!!!

TRANSLATION: AS LONG AS PROSPECT AND SO MUCH OF THE EAST SIDE REMAIN KILLING FIELDS . . . TAXPAYER INVESTMENT IS ALL BUT WASTED!!!

There's always an attempt to turn this truism into a chicken and the egg argument. A flimsy thesis suggests that people need jobs, healthcare, a pizza party or a hug before they stop shooting one another. Nothing could be further from the truth given that the overwhelming majority of East Side residents get no such special consideration but still remain in danger from the same kind of violence that social justice warriors would attempt to justify as an expression of civic unrest.

And so we offer this note and open question not because we want to see yet more Kansas City money wasted but as a warning that any plan that doesn't put public safety FIRST is most likely doomed to FAIL.

You decide . . .

Comments

  1. If the school board is involved.

    Run for cover.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you have to ask…

    ReplyDelete
  3. ^^^ Excellent point.

    To be fair. P&L gets 15 million a year right out of the general fund and it's mostly useless except for a few good crowd shots three times a year.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I can't believe you dumb fucks voted for this. Blacks have proven over and over again money won't save themselves from themselves.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well said. For decades, we've given away large sections of once prosperous portions of this town and thrown money at them out of white guilt, how's that working out for us?

      Delete
  5. "Poverty and unemployment" are NOT the problem. It is the dysfunctioning, sub culture of the black ghetto scum that kills any possibility of improvement. That culture is encouraged to flourish under the aegis of the Democrat/Progressive party. The racial divide is essential in order to get the BLACK BLOCK VOTE.

    That vote is all important in retaining idiot fucks from the left in power.

    So, the "Narrative" will continue and blacks, with an average IQ of around 80 will continue to vote Democrat and kill each other and anyone else in close proximity while screaming RACISM!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. When you regularly have "projects" like the two houses on Tracy Ave that "cost" $1 million to renovate and were appraised at $120,000 for BOTH, the Green Impact Zone that managed to make many millions of tax dollars disappear pretty much without a trace, and Citadel Plaza, for which the city spent $24 million to convert a neighborhood of houses into a weed-infested asbestos-contaminated lot, the chances of east side residents having any improvement in their community seem very very low.
    Of course, some folks will make out just fine financially.
    And this CITY-WIDE sales tax goes on and on, so the trough will be regularly refilled.
    Just another opportunity for insiders to convert taxpayers' money into a gravy train of personal benefit.
    Otherwise known as what passes for city government in KCMO.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Keep on smiling, Kansas City

    Put on that old friendly smile

    Whats behind that?

    good old smiling

    whats lurking in your head?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The ugly truth, and the knowledge that there's nothing that can be done about it? That's what lurks behind my public civility.

      Delete
  8. $8 million a year will be no match for the deep systemic problems on the city’s east side (blacks); development there “(is crippled by blacks).” Kansas City has many neighborhoods that offer affordable housing, development opportunities, and far less (blacks) than the Prospect corridor."

    ReplyDelete
  9. At least Baltimore's Millennial's have common sense and are frantically buying real estate 2 miles from one of the highest homicide areas in the country instead of right in it or right next to it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. NICE POSTING! The type of thing only seen at TKC, as the rest of KCMO media are corporate slaves reading the Big Brother teleprompter while doing their best Ken and Barbie impersonations.

    Oh! And by all means, please release your inner conspiracy theorist!

    You want proof that the recent G.O. bond issue was rigged? This East-side specific tax giveaway was approved! Look no further.

    Specifically, go to the election board website, download the final election results document, and begin analyzing the results. Please note things such as the number of absentee ballots cast, and the ratio of "yes" vs. "no" votes cast with these ballots. What are the odds?

    KCMO IS SO CORRUPT!

    Save yourself and your family! Move out of KCMO, or at least move into the Northland. Just look at the people leading KCMO, it's incompetence and corruption on a grand scale.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Our sister city should be Johannesburg.

      Delete
  11. This is the one instance where I agree with Sly. There is not enough detail into how this tax will be distributed. Therefore, it is doomed to fail.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Takers thinking program.
    Makers thinking pogrom.
    Discuss.

    ReplyDelete
  13. When black leaders quit blaming racism for all the community problems.
    When white leaders quit looting the city while ignoring crime.
    When young women quit having babies with less thought than a normal person would give to taking in a pet.
    When the schools start educating children.
    When the KCPD starts doing its job in a professional manner.
    Then spending money on the east side might make sense but until then any money spent there is a complete waste.

    ReplyDelete
  14. What a load of B.S. that article is, the tax is just another indictment waiting to happen. If you can get a check it might be worth it but I wouldn't trust this whole thing not end up in a prison sentence.

    ReplyDelete
  15. The really sad part of this is that nothing changes for people who live on the east side if they don't have their hand in the cookie jar. If you aren't playing politics, then you're just scenery in KC.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Why do you think the police dept moved further west? Because the crime where they were was too high! Hell they had the city tear down a bunch of houses in a twenty block radius of their new building!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hey have you ever heard of urban renewal They will develop all they can rent will go up and crime will go to the burbs its happen now look at the crime in the suburbs and it will go through the roof

    ReplyDelete
  18. The public $ is needed but it's not enough, and more importantly, it's going to require private investment. We can't expect the Government​ to fix this problem alone. The East side needs dedicated advocates and demonstrated successes. There is so much history and opportunity in KCs east side that has practically been forgotten and I hope that the city can successfully create an environment where folks feel secure investing in and potentially raising a family, because Tony is right, that's where it starts. Few are going to intentionally invest there if they think they're going to be repeatedly robbed and potentially murdered.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

TKC COMMENT POLICY:

Be percipient, be nice. Don't be a spammer. BE WELL!!!

- The Management