Yes, user fees are not taxes. But im2kull makes an important distinction. He refers to those who will be pay for the airport as "KC area residents". That is mostly true - the users of the airport from this much larger aggregate and NOT KCMO voters are the entity that largely pays for the airport. I think KCMO residents, if they truly understood the concept of user fees, would be more than happy to embrace a new terminal. Unfortunately, this concept of payment, factual as it is, is still met with skepticism from many of those who will be deciding the issue. In the end, education regarding funding may be more critical than the design of the new terminal. I think airport users are largely being won over to the reality of KCI's design flaws, I'm not sure if KCMO voters, however, yet grasp the facts about funding.mean wrote:I think we are largely on the same page, but you seem to be misunderstanding the difference between taxes and use fees. Just because the fees will mostly be paid by locals doesn't make them taxes, and nowhere does Highlander imply they will mostly be paid by non-locals. He just says they aren't taxes. Because they aren't.im2kull wrote:Given that 90% of the airports users ARE Kansas City area residents, your statement that KC area residents taxes won't pay for the terminal, is a bit misleading. 90% of the funds will still come from KC area residents pockets. Unless we magically gain thousands of connecting flights overnight, which would be a stretch to say the least. Eventually the airport would surely have more connecting PAX that help bear costs, but definitely not during the construction and first few years of a new terminals construction..which is when the majority of the costs will be paid for.
And while 90% of the people who use KCI may be from KC (IDK - is this actually documented?), 40% of the flights they take are business related (national average). So considerably less than 90% of the funding is actually on the dime of the people of the area.