Controlling floods seemed like a good thing. I didn't want to have the city issue $600 million in bonds for sidewalks.DaveKCMO wrote: why the hell would you vote no on sidewalks but yes on flood control?
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Controlling floods seemed like a good thing. I didn't want to have the city issue $600 million in bonds for sidewalks.DaveKCMO wrote: why the hell would you vote no on sidewalks but yes on flood control?
While I voted yes for all of those bonds, it was not easy. I walked the 3 blocks to my polling station and that required navigating 4 sections of torn up sidewalks. In this case, navigating meant walking in the street. If I was in a wheelchair, it would have been nearly impossible. Those sections were previously fine and included ramps. I suppose they were not up to current ADA standards, but they were certainly navigable and I've seen people in wheelchairs use them without any problems.DaveKCMO wrote:
why the hell would you vote no on sidewalks but yes on flood control?
If this was in Columbus Park, CW Justus would be a receptive ear for these complaints. That's a terrible way to go about the business.taxi wrote:While I voted yes for all of those bonds, it was not easy. I walked the 3 blocks to my polling station and that required navigating 4 sections of torn up sidewalks. In this case, navigating meant walking in the street. If I was in a wheelchair, it would have been nearly impossible. Those sections were previously fine and included ramps. I suppose they were not up to current ADA standards, but they were certainly navigable and I've seen people in wheelchairs use them without any problems.
A contractor came in over 2 months ago and busted these sections up and roped off those corners, so no one could pass. About 3 weeks later, another came in and removed the busted up chunks, took another few weeks to prep them, then poured the new ramps with 3 of those bumpy pads that turn into ice sheets when we get cold, wet weather. They apparently did their part, which involved pouring and forming the concrete, but the asphalt has been cut away and there is a huge gap between their new pad and the street. So, now there is a cone there and you better have a 4WD all terrain wheelchair if you want to get across that mess. I have no faith that anyone will come and repair the asphalt and remove the cones.
My point is that there was no reason to do that work. Those sections were fine, while we have plenty of other sections literally within spitting distance that are broken and dangerous. I admit, I don't have a full understanding of how that money will be used, but it's difficult to support public improvements when you witness this type of gross waste, mismanagement and incompetence on the way to vote.
Exactly what I planned to say. Share this with Jolie--she's all about doing what she can to improve policy and process.Eon Blue wrote:If this was in Columbus Park, CW Justus would be a receptive ear for these complaints. That's a terrible way to go about the business.taxi wrote:While I voted yes for all of those bonds, it was not easy. I walked the 3 blocks to my polling station and that required navigating 4 sections of torn up sidewalks. In this case, navigating meant walking in the street. If I was in a wheelchair, it would have been nearly impossible. Those sections were previously fine and included ramps. I suppose they were not up to current ADA standards, but they were certainly navigable and I've seen people in wheelchairs use them without any problems.
A contractor came in over 2 months ago and busted these sections up and roped off those corners, so no one could pass. About 3 weeks later, another came in and removed the busted up chunks, took another few weeks to prep them, then poured the new ramps with 3 of those bumpy pads that turn into ice sheets when we get cold, wet weather. They apparently did their part, which involved pouring and forming the concrete, but the asphalt has been cut away and there is a huge gap between their new pad and the street. So, now there is a cone there and you better have a 4WD all terrain wheelchair if you want to get across that mess. I have no faith that anyone will come and repair the asphalt and remove the cones.
My point is that there was no reason to do that work. Those sections were fine, while we have plenty of other sections literally within spitting distance that are broken and dangerous. I admit, I don't have a full understanding of how that money will be used, but it's difficult to support public improvements when you witness this type of gross waste, mismanagement and incompetence on the way to vote.
http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/reade ... 63589.html...
The amount of new funding will definitely make a difference, but $800 million is only a fraction of the funding needed to adequately maintain the massive network of infrastructure we’ve developed. Our city leaders told us as much during the recent campaign.
Even with these additional taxes, the total property tax we pay to maintain our infrastructure is at least five times short of what is needed when you account for the estimated $4 billion price tag to fix the aged combined sewer and stormwater system. It could easily be 10 times short, perhaps much more. On balance, our streets, sidewalks and utilities are going to continue to deteriorate faster than we can afford to repair them.
We’re not likely ever to increase our taxes to the amount necessary to maintain the infrastructure we’ve built. The cost is unreasonable. Perhaps had we known 70 years ago the implications of maintaining the expansive development we have since built, we would have reconsidered. Kansas City is not alone. Every major city in the country is upside down, with commitments and liabilities exceeding the resources needed.
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When I moved to Houston, I bought the ubiquitous lie that the western suburbs (and the Woodlands) had the only decent schools. With two kids in high school, I moved to the western burbs. By the time I left, nearly 8 years later, I had to leave at 5 AM to avoid an hour plus commute of the 20 miles into work (and I worked in the Energy Corridor - a long way from DT). With hellish commutes like that, and Houston is among the worst in the country, there is a huge market for anything close in and people will pay the high per sq ft price to avoid the commute. I looked several times more inboard but I was never that impressed by the area inside the 610 loop and it would not have been an upgrade for me in terms of commute.flyingember wrote: The cities that are seeing success are taking the immediate post war suburbs and allowing tear downs with denser development. Houston is a sprawling city where this is happening close in. My brother lives in a neighborhood where single family homes 8-10 to a block are replaced with 10-20x as many homes or apartments. He lived in a detached row home on a tiny lot within walking distance of the train and loves it. They located there because there's a good school nearby.
You are right in a deferral of costs necessary to rehabilitate older infrastructure. It's also the first time I've seen you admit, at least tacitly, that massive expansion of city services and the resulting sprawl was not necessarily a good thing. KC has suffered from having a civic equivalent of an enlarged heart for decades, the strain on the city's wealth in an unsuccessful attempt to maintain a sprawling infrastructure beyond its means. It's unfortunate we keep making the same mistakes - the latest being the ridiculous Cerner complex.aknowledgeableperson wrote:Points made above apply to some degree. However I was in KCMO city government for quite a few years and involved in budgeting. Of course for many of those years the city has had to contend with the Hancock Amendment. There was much resistance to the idea of asking voters to raise taxes to reduce the backlog on infrastructure maintenance items, it was easier to sell to the voters building something new instead of we need to fix this or fix that. In the early 00's there was even a program put in place to freeze water/sewer rates for 5 years or so. Of course all that did was delay many of the fixes that needed to be made to water/sewer lines. There were yearly budget presentations to showed annual decreases going to repairs/maintenance, decreases in the amounts that were a joke in the first place. So of course the cost of backlogged items increased year-by-year. Even the special tax money that was annually spent by district for projects was compromised when the program was switched from pay-as-you-go to borrowing funds for a few projects therefore using tax money for interest payments instead of actual projects.
Of course Kansas City was faced with its own suburbs within its city limits but other older cities with smaller, contained footprints suffer much the same with regards to deteriorating infrastructure. They, like KC, ignored their infrastructure needs when times were good and decided to spend their resources expanding city services, among other things, instead of fixing what needed to be fixed at the time.