Des Moines is "the hippest city in the USA"

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 12:33 pm

well I'd go find the research if that's what you need.....

KC0KEK · Post by **KC0KEK** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 12:48 pm

Sorry, but that legwork is up to the city and the team. They're the ones that have to make the case to taxpayers. If they're not willing to do that, then they shouldn't be surprised when voters shoot it down because they weren't given enough information to make an informed decision.

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 12:55 pm

so we'll put you down for a no......way to vote the city into the future. Maybe next you can vote down the transit tax increase because we're not sure if people really use buses.

KC0KEK · Post by **KC0KEK** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:02 pm

How does expecting government to back up their request for more money reflect a desire to put KC at a disadvantage? Remember that KCMO is the same city that mismanages money so regularly and so grossly that the Star and Dave Helling have a field day with it on an almost daily basis. No thanks. I'll continue to support the Royals through my ticket purchases, not by voting for a new stadium.

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:48 pm

fair enough...that's your right.

Post by **dangerboy** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 2:03 pm

KC0KEK wrote:How does expecting government to back up their request for more money reflect a desire to put KC at a disadvantage? Remember that KCMO is the same city that mismanages money so regularly and so grossly that the Star and Dave Helling have a field day with it on an almost daily basis. No thanks. I'll continue to support the Royals through my ticket purchases, not by voting for a new stadium.

Kansas City has made great strides in improving City Hall, reducing corruption, and making the government more efficient. What specific cases of mismangement are you talking about?

Repeating the same negative stereotypes is hurting the city, not helping it.

KC0KEK · Post by **KC0KEK** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 2:11 pm

dangerboy wrote:
KC0KEK wrote:How does expecting government to back up their request for more money reflect a desire to put KC at a disadvantage? Remember that KCMO is the same city that mismanages money so regularly and so grossly that the Star and Dave Helling have a field day with it on an almost daily basis. No thanks. I'll continue to support the Royals through my ticket purchases, not by voting for a new stadium.
Kansas City has made great strides in improving City Hall, reducing corruption, and making the government more efficient. What specific cases of mismangement are you talking about?

Repeating the same negative stereotypes is hurting the city, not helping it.

One recent one is reimbursing employees for enormous cell phone bills that they can't show are work-related. The Star and Helling had a field day with that. Sunday's cover story was about waste in the Municipal Court. Today's paper has a story about how "the city has done a shoddy job of making sure developers were entitled to up to $7 million in [TIF} checks they received from the city in fiscal year 2002."

Do you need more examples? And how do these types of reports convince taxpaers to give more money to government?

KC0KEK · Post by **KC0KEK** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 2:49 pm

KC wrote:well I'd go find the research if that's what you need.....

Here's an example of the type of research I'd like to see the city or a team use to back its argument: "A recent Deloitte & Touche study revealed that arts and culture draw nearly twice as many patrons in the region as all the professional sports combined." (Source: http://www.citistates.com/kcreport.pdf) That's the type of scientific research that shows that people value one thing over another.

I'm not saying that the arts are better than sports. But I'm saying that if someone wants to argue that people place a high priority on this or that, they'd better offer some research to back up their claims. Is that too much to ask of the city or a team?

Post by **dangerboy** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 3:15 pm

KC0KEK wrote:One recent one is reimbursing employees for enormous cell phone bills that they can't show are work-related. The Star and Helling had a field day with that. Sunday's cover story was about waste in the Municipal Court. Today's paper has a story about how "the city has done a shoddy job of making sure developers were entitled to up to $7 million in [TIF} checks they received from the city in fiscal year 2002."

Do you need more examples? And how do these types of reports convince taxpaers to give more money to government?

Maybe I am jaded or something, but I don't view those as out of the ordinary. Any organization with a budget as large as city hall's will inevitably have waste and mismanagment. As far as scandals go, these are fairly minor compared our city's past scandals and the scandals in other cities. The TIF story is old news, Funkhouser has been warning about for years, and so far the citizens don't seem overly worried about it.

Overall, the situation certainly is better than the early 1990s when we had councilmembers in handcuffs for bribery, corruption, and slush funds.

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 3:19 pm

I mean come on, people abuse company cell phones is a huge story? Dave Helling does nothing but overblow everything.....

KC0KEK · Post by **KC0KEK** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 3:27 pm

I didn't say it was a huge story, just one of the recent ones. If city employees each are unnecessarily spending a couple hundred bucks a month just on wireless, it adds up -- kind of like the little drops of water that leak out of the city's ancient water system, another recent story. In a tight budget, that means money that could have gone to something useful was wasted. And as a taxpayer, if I can't depend on them to manage cell phone bills, how can I depend on them to manage projects that cost hundreds of millions of dollars?

QueSi2Opie · Post by **QueSi2Opie** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 7:37 pm

Maybe you should switch cities with me, because I'd pay for pro-sports because I know the consequences if we don't. Then again, JOCO taxpayers will pay for professional sports if KCMO doesn't. The Overland Park Royals, hmm, sounds nice.

It's all about pride and makin' your city the absolute best.

Post by **bahua** » Fri Oct 10, 2003 3:35 am

Even if the Royals did move to OP, they'd still be the KC Royals. Look at the New York Jets and Giants, and the Detroit Lions. When i moved here, I thought that the Truman complex was actually in Independence.

Post by **dangerboy** » Fri Oct 10, 2003 8:35 am

QueSi2Opie wrote:Maybe you should switch cities with me, because I'd pay for pro-sports because I know the consequences if we don't. Then again, JOCO taxpayers will pay for professional sports if KCMO doesn't. The Overland Park Royals, hmm, sounds nice.

It's all about pride and makin' your city the absolute best.

But will they help pay for sports even the teams aren't in their county? That's the only way any county is going to be able to afford new stadiums, if the whole metro area shares cost.

KC0KEK · Post by **KC0KEK** » Fri Oct 10, 2003 9:29 am

If the tax' backers make a compelling case, and if voters outside of KCMO believe that the money will be used prudently, then it has a good chance of approval.

If JoCo residents viewed the Chiefs and Royals strictly as a KCMO team, you wouldn't see so many JoCo license plates in the parking lot of the Truman Sports Complex.

QueSi2Opie · Post by **QueSi2Opie** » Fri Oct 10, 2003 10:31 am

Renovating the sports complex should, and will, be a Bi-State decision.