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Old 02-04-2010, 04:20 PM
 
12,282 posts, read 13,164,268 times
Reputation: 4985

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Samantha S View Post
Yeah, I know they have. Which is about the equivalent of your brother-in-law asking for a loan to go bet on a horse.

With the poor fiscal management that KCMO's leadership has shown over the years, it would be political suicide for any KS leader to suggest throwing good money, over the state line, after bad.

If KCMO wants cooperation from JoCo, they first have to show that it's a good risk to take.
Kansas City has all the cultural attractions etc Johnson county has nil in regards.The stadiums must be a risk but just watch all the Jo.County traffic that goes there.

I doubt that anyone in Mo would want to rename Kansas City "Johnsonville"
Most likely the rest of the USA would call us a bunch of Brats'.
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Old 02-04-2010, 04:21 PM
 
Location: Washington, DC area
11,108 posts, read 23,709,235 times
Reputation: 6417
I'm not talking about asking for money, I'm talking about asking KS to stop using incentives to bring companies from KCMO to into Kansas. KCMO has asked for a metro wide truce to stop this from happening. JoCo leaders did not see any reason to join such a pact because they were on the winning end of 99% of these cross state line moves. A few years later when KCMO built the IRS and took a 1000 employees out of OP (along with those from Bendix), OP cried and starting saying KCMO should stop doing that.

A big press conference was called by those trying to fix the problem. Esrey basically said we are ONE KC. We have got to stop this process of luring companies across the metro and concentrate on landing companies form outside the region. We also need to do more with regional cooperation such as create dedicated funding sources for transit, the arts and sporting and cultural venues. It seemed like a major turning point in metro KC.

The VERY NEXT DAY, it was announced that Quintiles (a long time kcmo company dating back to the Marrion Merrow Dow companies) would move hundreds of jobs to a new building in Overland Park. The company would receive massive tax breaks to move from the Triangle area of SKC 5 miles down the road to OPKS. So the entire time while area leaders were putting together this, OP was aggressively pursuing a KCMO company.So that kind of burst the bubble on the ONE KC effort and sure didn’t slow down the migration of companies from MO to KS. Dozens more have moved since.

When leaders were trying so desperately to get a regional transit plan on the ballet JoCo wanted no part of it. They were so adamant against the idea that they were trying to pass laws that would prohibit a regional tax of any sort from ever being even proposed again so they would never have to worry about it. (for the record, Shawnee and Olathe leaders were the ones trying to kill any bistate efforts, OP and Leawood were actually pushing for it). The transit plans all presented would have spent ALL money raised in KS on the KS side. NO money would have gone to MO side transit. Actually, MO would have built the piece to connect the KS trains to Union Station. You see area leaders though that it was important for the KS side to be apart of any regional transit plan, but KS would have no part and after wasting several years of trying to convince JoCo and Topeka, they finally gave up, but the area lost several years and probably lost out on a lot of potential federal money in the 90's and 00's in the process. They basically shot themselves in the foot trying to involve JoCo and now planners in Jackson, Clay, Platte (and possibly even Wyandotte) are ignoring JoCo. Good move for them,bad for "regional" transit.
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Old 02-04-2010, 05:12 PM
 
Location: KC
396 posts, read 991,424 times
Reputation: 413
I wouldn't mind if KC was all in Kansas. Fine by me. It would still play the same role it already does to Western Missouri but like KCMO says it would have the benefit of being the lone major metro in Kansas. A lot of people I know from Missouri think of St. Louis first then KC anyway. While in Kansas, the majority of folks associate KC as our major city.

On the transit thing.... being that I live in Olathe this makes pretty frustrated. Contrary to popular belief there are a lot of us folks out here that would love to have a rail system to ride.

regardless of the move from MO to KS actually happening (because of course it won't), I think 90% of people in this metro do consider it to be onekc in terms of everyday living. Sure a little banter back and forth but you get the same thing anywhere. It's at the leadership level where there is an issue between the two sides it seems to me.
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Old 02-04-2010, 05:24 PM
 
13,721 posts, read 19,131,659 times
Reputation: 16970
Quote:
Originally Posted by kcmo View Post
I'm not talking about asking for money, I'm talking about asking KS to stop using incentives to bring companies from KCMO to into Kansas. KCMO has asked for a metro wide truce to stop this from happening. JoCo leaders did not see any reason to join such a pact because they were on the winning end of 99% of these cross state line moves. A few years later when KCMO built the IRS and took a 1000 employees out of OP (along with those from Bendix), OP cried and starting saying KCMO should stop doing that.

A big press conference was called by those trying to fix the problem. Esrey basically said we are ONE KC. We have got to stop this process of luring companies across the metro and concentrate on landing companies form outside the region. We also need to do more with regional cooperation such as create dedicated funding sources for transit, the arts and sporting and cultural venues. It seemed like a major turning point in metro KC.

The VERY NEXT DAY, it was announced that Quintiles (a long time kcmo company dating back to the Marrion Merrow Dow companies) would move hundreds of jobs to a new building in Overland Park. The company would receive massive tax breaks to move from the Triangle area of SKC 5 miles down the road to OPKS. So the entire time while area leaders were putting together this, OP was aggressively pursuing a KCMO company.So that kind of burst the bubble on the ONE KC effort and sure didn’t slow down the migration of companies from MO to KS. Dozens more have moved since.

When leaders were trying so desperately to get a regional transit plan on the ballet JoCo wanted no part of it. They were so adamant against the idea that they were trying to pass laws that would prohibit a regional tax of any sort from ever being even proposed again so they would never have to worry about it. (for the record, Shawnee and Olathe leaders were the ones trying to kill any bistate efforts, OP and Leawood were actually pushing for it). The transit plans all presented would have spent ALL money raised in KS on the KS side. NO money would have gone to MO side transit. Actually, MO would have built the piece to connect the KS trains to Union Station. You see area leaders though that it was important for the KS side to be apart of any regional transit plan, but KS would have no part and after wasting several years of trying to convince JoCo and Topeka, they finally gave up, but the area lost several years and probably lost out on a lot of potential federal money in the 90's and 00's in the process. They basically shot themselves in the foot trying to involve JoCo and now planners in Jackson, Clay, Platte (and possibly even Wyandotte) are ignoring JoCo. Good move for them,bad for "regional" transit.
Why doesn't KCMO offer incentives of its own to keep companies in Missouri? Companies are going to go wherever they think it makes the most business sense for them to be. Why don't they work on making KCMO a place that companies want to be?
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Old 02-04-2010, 05:26 PM
 
Location: Washington, DC area
11,108 posts, read 23,709,235 times
Reputation: 6417
Quote:
Originally Posted by pioneer88 View Post
I wouldn't mind if KC was all in Kansas. Fine by me. It would still play the same role it already does to Western Missouri but like KCMO says it would have the benefit of being the lone major metro in Kansas. A lot of people I know from Missouri think of St. Louis first then KC anyway. While in Kansas, the majority of folks associate KC as our major city.

On the transit thing.... being that I live in Olathe this makes pretty frustrated. Contrary to popular belief there are a lot of us folks out here that would love to have a rail system to ride.

regardless of the move from MO to KS actually happening (because of course it won't), I think 90% of people in this metro do consider it to be onekc in terms of everyday living. Sure a little banter back and forth but you get the same thing anywhere. It's at the leadership level where there is an issue between the two sides it seems to me.
Agree with everything you said. Great post. BTW, polls showed that most KS side residents want regional transit, but for some reason elected officials in Topeka as well as many in JoCo have been very opposed to the idea and won't even give the residents a chance to vote. Must have something to do with how they got into office and the people that don't want it donating to them. That's all I can come up with. Why else not let residents decide?
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Old 02-04-2010, 07:19 PM
 
1,662 posts, read 4,477,347 times
Reputation: 539
Quote:
Originally Posted by kcmo View Post
So that kind of burst the bubble on the ONE KC effort and sure didn’t slow down the migration of companies from MO to KS. Dozens more have moved since.
Once again, and still unanswered by you, this stopped these companies from leaving the metro altogether! Would you rather these companies have moved to Des Moines or Denver??? Feel free to ignore this basic question once again.

IMO, JoCo won't agree to the "truce" because KCMO has shown that they aren't capable of holding up their end of it and the result would be that these companies would choose another metro altogether.


Quote:
When leaders were trying so desperately to get a regional transit plan on the ballet JoCo wanted no part of it. They were so adamant against the idea that they were trying to pass laws that would prohibit a regional tax of any sort from ever being even proposed again so they would never have to worry about it. (for the record, Shawnee and Olathe leaders were the ones trying to kill any bistate efforts, OP and Leawood were actually pushing for it). The transit plans all presented would have spent ALL money raised in KS on the KS side.
And what the heck good does it do KS to have a transit system that stops at the state line because KCMO ditzes and farts around and never gets their side up and running???

Answer: NADA. It would be a collossal waste of money and all those taxpayers that wanted to ride the train into downtown would soon be ticked at all the money that went down the drain.

Bottom line: JoCo doesn't trust KCMO when it comes to "cooperative" projects and for good reason! Would you take on a business partner that can't even balance his own checkbook???
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Old 02-04-2010, 07:49 PM
 
13,721 posts, read 19,131,659 times
Reputation: 16970
Quote:
Originally Posted by Samantha S View Post
Bottom line: JoCo doesn't trust KCMO when it comes to "cooperative" projects and for good reason! Would you take on a business partner that can't even balance his own checkbook???
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Old 02-04-2010, 08:29 PM
 
Location: Washington, DC area
11,108 posts, read 23,709,235 times
Reputation: 6417
Quote:
Originally Posted by Samantha S View Post
Once again, and still unanswered by you, this stopped these companies from leaving the metro altogether! Would you rather these companies have moved to Des Moines or Denver??? Feel free to ignore this basic question once again.
I have answered you many times. I have told you that the vast majority of companies that have left KCMO for JoCo and played the state line game never even considered leaving the metro. You say you read the KCBJ, so I figured you would know this, but I guess not.

Are the cities and counties in Kansas doing any better balancing their checkbooks? I hear much more coming from the KS side about drastic cuts in school funding, road funding etc than I do from the MO side.

KCMO is a large city of around half million people. I'm sure that whatever budget defict they are facing is probably very similar to other large urban cities. Still, KCMO projects tend to get done on budget and on time. Look at Bartle, Sprint Center, KC Zoo, Liberty Memorial, KCI etc.

The first Bistate tax was on time and under budget. It was a success. The tax restored the station. That's all it was supposed to do. The privately funded Science City has been a failure, but that was a totally separate deal and that is also a problem caused by the KC area not having a dedicated funding source for public cultural assets. A successful science museum has to be subsidized by a substantial percent. KC sees what you get when you don't properly fund a science center.

But the first bistate tax was flawless. It did exactly what it was supposed to do and then was canceled. I was on a volunteer team for BSI and I pushed hard to get people to re-think the short term tax and think about doing something more permanent so the attractions in the museum had a chance of succeeding. I told everybody from day one the science center would fail, but that is was they had to do to get the KS side on board. The tax had to be short term. That's fine, but I wish people would see that the tax worked and it restored union station and that now the station simply needs a permanent funding source. The project was not a failure.
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Old 02-04-2010, 09:44 PM
 
13,721 posts, read 19,131,659 times
Reputation: 16970
Quote:
Originally Posted by kcmo View Post
I have answered you many times. I have told you that the vast majority of companies that have left KCMO for JoCo and played the state line game never even considered leaving the metro. You say you read the KCBJ, so I figured you would know this, but I guess not.

.
You haven't once answered the question I keep asking, which is why doesn't KCMO offer incentives to KEEP businesses in KCMO? It's up to the business to decide where they want to be located. If they feel like they are getting a better deal in Johnson County, that's where they will go. Why should they stay in KCMO just for the sake of being in KCMO if it does not make any business sense to do so? They are looking out for their company, not KCMO.

Also, you never addressed my comment that DOCTORS are leaving KCMO for Johnson County because medical malpractice insurance in Missouri is so much higher than in Kansas. That's not Johnson County's fault.

If KCMO wants to keep businesses, it needs to be COMPETITIVE, not just expect Johnson County to refuse to have businesses move from KCMO to Johnson County. That sounds like you want KCMO to be able to keep businesses even if they don't deserve it and aren't doing anything to keep businesses. Competition is a fact of life. If KCMO can't be competitive, then too bad.
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Old 02-04-2010, 10:17 PM
 
1,662 posts, read 4,477,347 times
Reputation: 539
Quote:
Originally Posted by kcmo View Post
I have answered you many times. I have told you that the vast majority of companies that have left KCMO for JoCo and played the state line game never even considered leaving the metro. You say you read the KCBJ, so I figured you would know this, but I guess not.
Right, because everything that happens in the corporate boardrooms gets reported 100% accurately in the KCBJ. There is no guarantee that the companies that moved would have stayed in the metro had they not moved to JoCo.

Of course it's easier to stay in the same metro and keep the same workers as opposed to moving altogether. But if they were unhappy enough to want to pick up and move, they might well have kept on going if JoCo had not been an option. This, I realize, you will never acknowledge.

Quote:
Are the cities and counties in Kansas doing any better balancing their checkbooks? I hear much more coming from the KS side about drastic cuts in school funding, road funding etc than I do from the MO side.
Well, let's talk in a few years when both are still better in KS than in MO. The recession is affecting both sides of the state line for sure. Some state and local govs will handle it better than others. Time will tell.


Quote:
I told everybody from day one the science center would fail, but that is was they had to do to get the KS side on board. The tax had to be short term.
KS didn't want to sign a blank check. No kidding. But there are a lot of KS dollars that flow into the city. There is not nearly as much that flows the other direction, so this also has to be considered. KCMO is significantly more interested in what JoCo can do for them, as opposed to what bistate cooperation would do for JoCo. JoCo has to look out for itself too.
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