dangerboy wrote:
Wyco has been talking about an e-tax for the last few years. It would allow them to tap into the huge employment base that commutes into the county while providing some much needed property tax relief to residents. Seriously!
The earnings tax was deleted from the UG's legislative agenda years ago. The reality is it could never gain the necessary approval in Topeka because Johnson County's huge delegation in the state legislature would never support it. It was only pursued before the Speedway and Village West because it was seen as the only way to save the the KC KS municipal government from financial catastrophe. Now with the all the revenue from Village West and anticipated from proposed casino the municipal leaders have abandoned the earnings tax idea.
The fact was JOCO could never allow a KCK earnings tax. But they knew that if something wasn't done to save the KC KS city government...the state and johnson county would pay the price; financially and socially. So they (the JOCO power brokers who came to the aid of then Mayor Carol Marinovich who had after 2 terms as mayor had been trying deperately to save her hometown) pushed through Consolidation against the entire WYCO delegation who fought it tooth and nail every step of the way, especially the corrupt and power-hungry senator Chris Steineigar as well as David Haley and their allies, disbarred lawyers and former wyco power brokers Dave Carson and Ed Powers. Immediately after consolidation, came along Nascar like an angel. The leaders of the newly unified goverment saw the chance they had been waiting for to remake WYCO. Visionary Mayor Carol Marinovich (elected to 2 terms as UG CEO after 2 terms as Mayor of KCK) asked the JOCO state legislative delegation again for thier help and together pushed through STAR bond legislation specifically to try and attempt to save KC KS. The effort was spearheaded by a powerful state senator from Leawood whose name escapes me. They succeeded.
Even if only 10 % of 5,000 new Cerner employees located in KC KS that is 500 well paid people who would look for housing in KC KS which is nothing to sneeze at.
That would only be one part of the prize. The other part is a weekday-daytime population of 5K people to eat at Village West Restaurants and do some lunchtime shopping generating yet more spin-off revenue for the UG.
The next part is once there is a 400k sf office complex it becomes plausible for developers to consider WYCO's section of the 435 corridor as viable area for additional office development.
The UG gains all this and loses nothing.
They are giving up the sales tax revenue windfall that the UG was counting on when the STAR Bonds were paid off early in late 2013, which will be pushed back to the original pay off date of 2021 to fund the stadium. However this will be made up for in the form of property taxes generated by the stadium and office complex (which will both pay full property tax.... the UG planning staff has even sought to pin the developers down to valuations before hand to prevent what happened with NFM and Legends disputing of their property tax valuations)
This is going to be a boon to the UG's coffers and the greater WYCO community.
I also believe the Village West location going to be a boon to The Wizards Franchise. KC KS has a huge hispanic population. The wizards have really failed up to this point to gain a following with the metro area's Hispanic demographic. I think being in KC KS is going to really change that greatly benefiting the viability of the team.
Renderings of the stadium... It looks better than I thought it would.
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