EDITOR:
Upon making an inquiry into Parkville City Hall for financial projections pertaining to their proposed new Prop U and Prop P taxes being presented to voters on April 4, I received the following response, in part:
“The costs associated with clerical staff time (including research time and duplicating time) is estimated at $85.00. Estimate 5 hours at $17/hour. The amount will be due prior to the records being searched, compiled, and duplicated. Due to the scope of your request, the time needed to review the documents…and the press of other City business…once payment is received…will take approximately 7 days…”
In other words, they have nothing. No financial projections, no analysis, nothing. Despite this new administration’s pledge to open records, the games continue. In the past, when I made a request for an Excel file, it was provided. No questions; no stonewalling.
The fact that they have nothing should cause your nose to turn up as this has the same smell as the 2004 levy that was aggressively promoted by the city. After the 2004 levy was approved, the city did an about face on certain campaign pledges.
The city is hoping to con you into believing that they will do great things with your money. Pay attention to what they don’t say. A significant issue, and the reason for needing financial projections, is that the 2004 levy sunsets in 2025, which means those temporary tax revenues disappear. How will the city fill that hole? I predict they will come begging prior to that levy’s expiration for a no tax increase tax continuation ballot. Since you are accustomed to paying these taxes, why not continue paying them? Deceptive tactics are not new to Parkville City Hall.
In 2004, after a circus-like program to “educate voters,” the city received approval for a 21-year levy to be used for various projects. It turned out that most of the amounts identified to projects had no substantive basis. The city then borrowed $2.75M via certificates of participation (COPs). For the unknowing, COPs are a financing mechanism used to avoid the Missouri constitutional requirement of 4/7 voter approval to issue debt. Included in the city’s 2004 plans were:
·Shoring up Rush Creek with rocks; estimated at $300,000; ultimate cost $1.2 million.
·$400,000 to purchase and develop Mill Street just west of the Power Plant. A few years ago, then-City Manager Joe Parente made a public statement that this land was never for sale. In essence, the city lied.
·The biggest lie was in regard to rehabbing city hall, for which $1M was allocated. Only months after the 2004 vote, the board of aldermen was evaluating a proposal for a new building using what a private group called “creative financing.” That prompted then Mayor Kathy Dusenbery to reply, “I would like some education on this creative financing.” Thereafter, contrary to what voters approved, without informing voters, and avoiding voters entirely on debt issuance, the city increased the COP debt from $2.75M to $6.4M. In the end, the city spent in excess of $4M on a new city hall when voters approved only $1M for improvements to the existing city hall.
Ms. Dusenbery later proclaimed that she built a new city hall without raising taxes. Of course she did. She borrowed money and then paid the debt using future tax revenues that would have been available for other needed improvements. Residents have suffered the consequences of a financially strapped city ever since. Expect something similar on this go around.
As for the proposed public safety tax, never approve a perpetual special purpose tax. Perpetual special purpose funds will allow the city to misuse general fund revenues currently allocated to public safety in a fashion similar to what the city did post 2004.
Mayor Dean Katerndahl claims it’s only an extra $.05 on that $10 Sonic order. What he didn’t say is that the sales tax in Parkville Commons corridor will become one of the highest in the KC metro area. How much is enough?
As to the proposed use tax, the city claims this is not a new tax. Nothing like lying to your face. A tax I have never paid in the past, but that I will pay if approved, is not a new tax? That alone should send you scurrying. Further, the city claims this tax is necessary because delivery trucks drive on city streets. And…? I can shop in adjacent counties and haul my goods home on city streets. That said, the use tax on small purchases is pocket change. The real money will come from vehicle and major appliance and furniture purchases. Add $1,000 for new use taxes to that $50,000 vehicle.
Vote no on these two taxes. Force the city to do its job of preparing a detailed financial projection showing the impact of these new taxes, how population growth will impact costs, and how the various taxes the city receives will be impacted, including the impact of giving away the farm on Creekside. Giving city hall more taxes without accountability is no different than arbitrarily increasing the allowance of a whining child. The child never learns and the whining never ends.
--Gordon Cook
Parkville