Cutesy video low-tax advocacy from one of our favorite creators has been turning a few heads this morning.
Here's the narrative . . .
Vote NO - Shawnee Property Tax Increase
Clip description:
Voters in Shawnee, Kansas should vote NO on the proposed property tax increase to pay for a new community center. There are several reasons why:
1. Property taxes should be used for NEEDS. A new community center would be nice, but it's not a need. Real needs include police, fire, roads, sidewalks, infrastructure, and public schools.
2. As proposed, the property tax would be increased for a minimum of 20 years AND YET residents would still have to pay fees to use to the new center. This is a backwards business model - the center should pay for itself within a few years.
3. All the services that the new community center would provide are already being sufficiently met by private businesses in and around Shawnee (pools, gyms, meeting spaces, etc), without any taxpayer subsidy. There is genuinely no real need for a new community center in Shawnee.
Take a look:
You decide . . .
Shawnee does not need a Center like this. There are plenty of other convenient locations meeting your needs at much lower costs.
ReplyDeleteThis will make it harder to sell your home or buy a home in Shawnee because of the tax costs.
City Hall is out of control.
I don't live in Kansas but I'm glad to see Shawnee is standing up against this. Problem is, JOCO has recently started voting liberal out of white guilt so expect a flood of more bullshit taxes like this and you won't be able to stop them all
ReplyDeleteThe sexy. sensuous and always mysteriously alluring Tracy with her input in 3-2-1.....
ReplyDeleteWestern Shawnee mini- van mamas are voting yes so they can have a place to drop off their bratty kids whilst they go get their manicure and Starbucks.
ReplyDeleteNo thanks.
What about the poor people?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis video is totally on point.
ReplyDeleteBeing posted on the website hosted by 25 grassroots activists, BetterWayShawnee.com
Many of the members of this group have never even worked on a campaign before.
They are also walking door to door with brochures, and 500 NO signs flew out the door in just 3 days.
Since Shawnee lost its newspaper last December, the biggest way residents are communicating is on Nextdoor.com. (the finder of lost dogs, etc.) You might be shocked to see how many regular Joes are voting no.
For all the reasons stated in this video. Again, enterprised by a volunteer.
The City has zero staff that have ever run a lemonade stand let alone a competitive business (there are at least 13 tax-paying fitness businesses already providing the services that this $54 million Taj Mahal would try to duplicate. The City Council also does not have even one member, out of nine, that owns or operates a business.
This is all about keeping up with the Joneses--in Lenexa. And if you think it is hard to repurpose a failed mall or strip center--wait till this would fail. Imagine a 67,000 square foot white elephant glass structure on land that is 40% flood plain, 19 minutes from 64% of the population--next to the railroad tracks, across from angry homeowners and with no public transportation. It's a collector street, not an arterial. Halfway between 435 and K-7.
Billed as a ladidah "community center", but how can that be?. Only has four concrete chairs in the front lobby--that don't move! Four more foam kidney seats by the 2 pathetic party rooms. There's no "there" there!
Shawnee doesn't have the tax base that Lenexa has--their warehouse district built their actual "rec center", without a tax hike. Shawnee has not paid anything from their cash reserves. This is 100% financed.
Merriam is building THEIR new half pool, half library and crazy 6 story parking lot--with sales tax--because that council seized citizens' land by eminent domain and gave it to car dealers and Ikea and Merriam Town Center.
But Shawnee doesn't have either funding source. Just running a deceptive campaign to jack up property taxes by $54 million--for a WANT, not a NEED.
AND if it would pass, would be challenged immediately as bond fraud.
(wahh, wahh, JE Dunn's no bid contract might get cancelled.) Because the deliberately deceptive 7 line ballot promises the "not to exceed $38 million" includes financing! But it does not. There is $16 million in interest over 20 years. One ditsy councilwoman, Lisa Larson Bunnell (the HR lawyer for North Kansas City hospital), said "interest is not the same as financing!" One hopes her husband manages the family Visa bill.
So it might never be built. But the council is beset by what I have coined "B.O.Y.S. Virus"...Boss of Your Snot. Doing what staff wants. Stockholm Syndrome. Competing with developers. Just like OP tearing down the downtown bandstand--for a paper airplane. Refused to allow 50 citizens to even SPEAK at the meeting earlier this month! B.O.Y.S. Virus!!!
This is the most deceptive ballot issue in Kansas history.