EDITOR:
As Platte County’s Presiding Commissioner, I can’t support “Project Kestrel,” the $100 billion data center planned for the KCI-29 industrial site just north of the airport. The project as currently structured gives massive property and sales tax subsidies to one of the world’s largest and richest corporations at the expense of our residents, small businesses, and essential public services.
The enormous demands for water and electricity posed by six hyperscale data centers will inevitably drive-up utility rates for ordinary households and small businesses as the cost of new and expanded power plants, grid improvements, and water treatment facilities are passed on to households and small businesses. Evergy’s recent 13.4% rate increase was a direct result of the need to add generation capacity, and Evergy’s first quarter 2025 investor call highlighted new and expanding data center development as the primary driver of the need to expand generation capacity.
Port KC tells us the project will ultimately generate $110 million in new tax revenue. We know that $2.62 million will go to the Northland Career Center, but where is the rest going? To Kansas City so it can be spent on pet projects south of the river? How much of this $110 million will stay in Platte County? We don’t know because Port KC doesn’t have to tell us.
A total of $16 million will go towards “area” workforce development, but why wasn’t similar financial support offered to the other vital public service entities in Platte County like the health department, the Senior Services Fund, the mental health board, the Platte County library, and the Developmentally Disabled Board, fire and ambulance districts, and municipalities? Why were these critical local resources completely ignored in favor of the narrowly targeted benefits as currently structured? Are free mental health services less important than workforce development?
I urge Port KC to restructure this project in a way that benefits all Platte County residents, businesses, and public service agencies. And I call on the Missouri State Legislature to reform Port KC, an agency governed by unelected bureaucrats that needs more transparency and direct oversight from local or state elected officials.
Instead of handing out billions of dollars in subsidies to massive out-of-state corporations on projects that don’t benefit the people of Platte County, let’s focus on sustainable growth that strengthens our local services, supports small businesses, and protects households.
--Scott Fricker
Platte County
Presiding Commissioner
