Midwest Voices

Yael T. Abouhalkah

The Kansas City Star

The idea of using millions of dollars of Raytown School District tax funds to expand a youth soccer complex in Swope Park should be pulled off the table immediately by Kansas City officials.

Unfortunately, that’s not likely at this point, given the hard lines that everyone seems to be taking on a case involving how to spend some current and future revenue from a tax increment financing district in Kansas City.

(Here’s a Star editorial with more background on this issue.)

Consider the Brookside Soccer Club. It’s trying to put pressure on Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders to support the plan, calling on parents to call Sanders. So far, Sanders is not budging; the county has voted in support of Raytown and against the soccer project so far.

Then there’s Sporting Kansas City which - so far - continues to embrace the idea of expanding a facility near its home practice field in Swope Park. That could become a controversial stance, especially if it appears Sporting KC is just fine with taking money from the school district for what should be more of a public/private deal.

At City Hall, City Council member Cindy Circo is the lead proponent of diverting school tax dollars from Raytown for the soccer fields - even though the project isn’t even in the district’s boundary lines. That’s absurd (and illegal, Raytown school officials claim) because it means money from Raytown patrons will be spent in the Kansas City Public Schools district.

Finally, Raytown officials correctly are taking a hard line by saying they want the $4 million that has accumulated in the TIF plan - and want the $1 million a year they are supposed to get from the current businesses in the Winchester TIF, now that this part of the project has been completed.

One big problem with resolving this mess is that Kansas City - because of state law - seems to have the upper hand in passing the youth soccer project. The city has the majority of votes on the Tax Increment Financing Commission. And, if the panel approves the project, the City Council - not the Raytown School Board - makes the final decision on how to spend millions in school district funds.

This dispute is one of those clear cases where ordinary people would take one look at it and go - of course this makes no sense: Let Raytown schools have the money and make the city find a good way to pay for a soccer complex within its own borders.

But battle lines have hardened and compromises are being sought, even when no truly good one aopears to be on the horizon.

Comments

1. 

   Phil Cardarella

   5 months, 3 weeks ago

   Of course, Yael.

   Why should any suburb ever have to help make the metro area better?

   You fail to mention that a large portion of the Raytown School District is actually IN Kansas City — including Mayor/Congressman Cleaver’s home. Lots of “Kansas City” money goes into the Raytown School District.

   It is bad enough that Johnson County has always had such a “free ride” attitude. We should not encourage it in Jackson County, too.

2. 

   Patt Getman Losiewicz

   5 months, 3 weeks ago

   This entire issue needs to be looked at. There is more at stake than just the soccer fields. The residential portion of the Winchester TIF plan was promised 20+ years ago infrastructure improvements because we provided the “but for” argument to make this a TIF area. There has been NOTHING done to improve the roads, provide sewers, sidewalks, storm water runoff but we have to endure 3,000 plus vehicles in and out of the neighborhood daily. Please do the honorable thing and keep the promises made in this TIF plan before you divert the funding to an area that hasn’t paid any taxes in this TIF account. What good is a TIF plan and using innocent people doing this city?

Sign in with Facebook to comment.