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Parkville taxes, haircuts and cigs

Guy Speckman by Guy Speckman
April 21, 2023
in Ponder the Thought
Downtown Parkville

A new Parkville downtown entryway marker Contributed photo

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Foley tweeted last week that the Royals are on pace for 45 wins for the season. That’s not great if they play 162 this year, but I’m sometimes shaky on math.


I’ve been contemplating the Parkville tax results for a couple of weeks now. The mayor appeared on Landmark Live earlier this year, and they had a pretty well tuned message for both issues, yet the brick-and-mortar issue failed, and the “public safety” issue passed.

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From an outsider standpoint, I thought the use tax was more bang for your buck than the public safety tax that called for officers meeting more people, whatever that means. The use tax was likely to be utilized to set in motion a new gateway corridor development into downtown Parkville, which seems like a big need.

Here is the interesting point to watch going forward. The public safety tax was about significantly more dollars annually and as the political winds shift over time, you might see the benefit in other places beyond policing. I’ve seen it time and time again. Over time, general fund money that was going to public safety may get reallocated to other uses as the public safety sales tax grows with the community and newly elected officials shift priorities. It will be interesting to see if the corridor project funding materializes without the use tax and if so, you will likely be able to point toward the public safety theme tax as the driver of that development. The old two for one tax.


Honestly, I’m a big Parkville taxpayer, although it’s in a special taxing district, so I’m not paying many of your bills, just some asphalt in the Roosters parking lot. I don’t need haircuts often because of a follically-challenged scalp, but Roosters has become my go-to place. I even let my wife tag along on a haircut trip last week and then we took in the Parkville downtown for some Easter Bunny shopping. Have you guys had flavored gourmet popcorn? That stuff seems illegal. We picked up some grape, Dr. Pepper flavor and other crazy flavors that I had never entertained to be on my popcorn.

It’s called Pop Culture Gourmet Popcorn and Ice Cream on Main Street and honestly, I just feel rich when I buy anything called “Gourmet.” Get you some.


I once bought some gourmet cigarettes in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. They smoked about the same as other cigarettes as far as I could tell. I was terrible at smoking cigarettes, so had to give it up after just a few years. I just looked dumb trying to hold one, smoke one or light one, so I just moved on. Blessed!


Just for the sake of clarification, this is not a gourmet column. This is a regular old, country, base model column. No frills, a couple of opinions and 500 words to get you through a quick bathroom break, don’t expect anything more.


According to people that know, the top five gourmet cigarettes currently are: Marlboro Southern Cut, Natural American Spirit Black, Nat Sherman Classic, Natural American Spirit Blue and Rothman Blue. Not sure if any of the product comes from Weston, but if not, it should.

Careful, smoking ain’t good for you, fyi.

(Guy Speckman can be reached at gspeckman@me.com or eating gourmet popcorn at Roosters)

Tags: Guy Speckmanlandmark liveparkvilleplatte countyPublic Safetytaxesweston
Guy Speckman

Guy Speckman

Guy Speckman is a Landmark contributing columnist with his Ponder the Thought column. Speckman is the former owner of the Savannah Reporter, where the column appeared for nearly two decades. Speckman is a former city government manager, serving as city administrator in Maysville, Plattsburg and Savannah before entering business. He is a graduate of Northwest Missouri State University (1989). He is originally from Plattsburg, Missouri. He and his wife own and operate a real estate valuation firm and a daily legal newspaper and are the parents of two grown children.

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