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Makes sense to me: I live in DC too, and I remember when JoCo basically ended at 119th. Sounds like JoCo has a pretty good business model, considering the economic growth the area has experienced and supported over the past 20 years. MO might learn a thing or two.... Bite all you want on JoCo - they've got a proven model that has been working extremely well for decades, and I don't see KC dying off too badly because of it. But one thing I don't see in your rants that might appeal to those employers for their employees in JoCo that MO has always struggled with, even when JoCo basically ended at 95th.. THE SCHOOLS!
You think I, a parent of two who pulls down 6 figures a year, cares one bit about paying taxes to maintain a statue on a stick downtown when my childern's public education isn't nearly as good as it could be a few miles away? Not to mention crime associated with an urban core?
You're also forgetting something else... St. Louis. Sure, KS has Witchita & Topeka. Last I heard, wasn't Boeing on shaky ground out there? Not like KS has a major beer factory going on. At the end of the day, the facts are basic: JoCo has done something right (with less to work with) to have that kind of cash to spend, and maintain their curb appeal, while KCMO has not. This isn't anything new, it's been happening since Corporate Woods use to be the place for the high school kids to drink wine coolers at. DC doesn't have this problem, because KC doesn't have the traffic neightmares we have here. But you wait.... When that silver line is done, and all of those 4% cap rates seen on office acquisitions down in the District over the past 36 months translates into major rent bumps... Tysons and further down the line are going to be the region's main drawl, with Loudoun County on deck to mimic, Johnson County. It's happening as we speak. 5 years ago you couldn't get into Loudoun for under a million. Today, it's $600k, and the builders have maybe a 4 month stock of lot inventory left. They can't build fast enough to keep up with demand. I see it everyday in my own neighborhood. At $140 psf to live in the fed's backyard = pure JoCo recipe from the 80's, which in many ways, is the foundational years that has created JoCo into what it is today. Get a foothold, get the schools, and you've got what JoCo has enjoyed for years.
Thank you for saying it better than I have been able to!
Makes sense to me: I live in DC too, and I remember when JoCo basically ended at 119th. Sounds like JoCo has a pretty good business model, considering the economic growth the area has experienced and supported over the past 20 years. MO might learn a thing or two.... Bite all you want on JoCo - they've got a proven model that has been working extremely well for decades, and I don't see KC dying off too badly because of it. But one thing I don't see in your rants that might appeal to those employers for their employees in JoCo that MO has always struggled with, even when JoCo basically ended at 95th.. THE SCHOOLS!
You think I, a parent of two who pulls down 6 figures a year, cares one bit about paying taxes to maintain a statue on a stick downtown when my childern's public education isn't nearly as good as it could be a few miles away? Not to mention crime associated with an urban core?
You're also forgetting something else... St. Louis. Sure, KS has Witchita & Topeka. Last I heard, wasn't Boeing on shaky ground out there? Not like KS has a major beer factory going on. At the end of the day, the facts are basic: JoCo has done something right (with less to work with) to have that kind of cash to spend, and maintain their curb appeal, while KCMO has not. This isn't anything new, it's been happening since Corporate Woods use to be the place for the high school kids to drink wine coolers at. DC doesn't have this problem, because KC doesn't have the traffic neightmares we have here. But you wait.... When that silver line is done, and all of those 4% cap rates seen on office acquisitions down in the District over the past 36 months translates into major rent bumps... Tysons and further down the line are going to be the region's main drawl, with Loudoun County on deck to mimic, Johnson County. It's happening as we speak. 5 years ago you couldn't get into Loudoun for under a million. Today, it's $600k, and the builders have maybe a 4 month stock of lot inventory left. They can't build fast enough to keep up with demand. I see it everyday in my own neighborhood. At $140 psf to live in the fed's backyard = pure JoCo recipe from the 80's, which in many ways, is the foundational years that has created JoCo into what it is today. Get a foothold, get the schools, and you've got what JoCo has enjoyed for years.
This has nothing to do with schools. I'm sure those that work at AMC and all the other companies that have been poached are completely fine in the districts they are in now and won't change a thing when they move to JoCo.
This has to do with ONE thing and one thing only.
It's mind bogling that people are actually finding reasons to justify this.
Then again, it kind of goes along with how bad things are financially with the fed govt and individuals.
Makes sense to me: I live in DC too, and I remember when JoCo basically ended at 119th. Sounds like JoCo has a pretty good business model, considering the economic growth the area has experienced and supported over the past 20 years. MO might learn a thing or two.... Bite all you want on JoCo - they've got a proven model that has been working extremely well for decades, and I don't see KC dying off too badly because of it. But one thing I don't see in your rants that might appeal to those employers for their employees in JoCo that MO has always struggled with, even when JoCo basically ended at 95th.. THE SCHOOLS!
Schools have nothing to do with it.
Johnson County's so-called "proven model" is simply moving business across the state line.
No new jobs, at least none that wouldn't have been there if they'd stayed put. No saving jobs from moving to another metro. No luring of businesses from other parts of the country or the world. Just ones from across the state line. That's it.
So if Missouri is to follow that model, are they to simply out JoCo Johnson County to get them back? How would JoCo feel about that? Hunky-dory? That's just the way it is, deal with it? I have my doubts.
Creating new business would be ideal for everybody, of course. Yes, Kansas, that's what you should be going for.
I don't doubt that Kansas lawmakers would be happy to extend the same benefits they've been offering to businesses from other states and areas than KCMO. My guess is, that it just so happens that the businesses that have taken advantage of their incentives are from MO.
This is the same kind of incentives that all kinds of states give and offer to a business that is moving in from out of state. I'm sure the govt. leaders have figured out that it is a win for them, that they get all kinds of other taxes collected that more than make up for the incentives. Things like taxes on employee pay, sales taxes, etc.
I don't doubt that Kansas lawmakers would be happy to extend the same benefits they've been offering to businesses from other states and areas than KCMO. My guess is, that it just so happens that the businesses that have taken advantage of their incentives are from MO.
This is the same kind of incentives that all kinds of states give and offer to a business that is moving in from out of state. I'm sure the govt. leaders have figured out that it is a win for them, that they get all kinds of other taxes collected that more than make up for the incentives. Things like taxes on employee pay, sales taxes, etc.
I would also check to see how the legislatures individually benefit or their family, etc. Land sale to the "new" company, services to the company, stock in the company etc. This is NOT uncommon.
I don't doubt that Kansas lawmakers would be happy to extend the same benefits they've been offering to businesses from other states and areas than KCMO. My guess is, that it just so happens that the businesses that have taken advantage of their incentives are from MO.
This is the same kind of incentives that all kinds of states give and offer to a business that is moving in from out of state. I'm sure the govt. leaders have figured out that it is a win for them, that they get all kinds of other taxes collected that more than make up for the incentives. Things like taxes on employee pay, sales taxes, etc.
For the last time (well, probably not the last time ) I know this goes on everywhere.
The difference is Kansas is on the very extreme end of the spectrum when you look at the up-front cash and the amount of money per employee they spend. It's off the charts and you will find very few, if any, comparable scenarios across the country while KS does them many times a year. You might find a couple of examples of companies getting 3/4 the incentives to move across the country. But please find me one county (with the help of the state) that pays in excess of 100k per employee to poach from a neighboring county and one that does this this many times a year. There are none.
The incentives are fiscally irresponsible and very harmful to overall health of the KC metro area and you will find absolutely nothing that compares on a per employee basis.
I hope to god it stays that way. If every county/state started doing with Kansas does, then we are in for a world of hurt in this country.
There is no way Kansas will ever break even on these incentives, let alone come out ahead, and when you factor in the damage they are doing to the metro KC area's business tax footprint and the ridiculous incentives that Missouri will be forced to retaliate with (which while insane, still don't compare to KS), the entire process of business poaching just becomes even more asinine. I won't even bring up the fact that these incentives are being used in affluent, high demand suburbs where even minor incentives should not be needed or used, but extreme incentives are used and used typically at the expense of a neighboring urban core neighborhood which harm cooperation efforts within the metro. Okay, I did bring that up!
But keep blowing it off everybody or say it's okay because everybody does it (which is not true, everybody doesn't do it and few, if any do it at the extreme KS does, wanted to get that in more more time). Someday people will look back and wonder why they ever supported such nonsense.
Then again, this has been the JoCo way of growth for three decades now (aparenlty they can't do much else other than poach from kcmo), and the practice only gets praise from most people. So I won't hold my breath on people ever getting a clue.
I don't see how Kansas can justify spending 60 million to lure a 400 person company from Seattle (even if they could, which they can't), let alone six miles away in KCMO. But hey, whatever!
But JoCo isn't attracting new residents by relocating these businesses, because they are businesses poached from 5 to 10 miles away. All of the employees who's number one priority is the sewing-circle reputation of their public schools already live in JoCo or in Missouri-side suburbs. What JoCo is doing is taxing the citizens of the entire state of Kansas and redistributing their wealth into the coffers of a few corporations, who pull up stakes the day incentives run out, or demand more corporate entitlements, and the net result is a state government that is broke and can no longer afford basic services for its residents, because the money they have payed to maintain their society has been dolled out to a few CEO's and shareholders.
It's not a good model for growth or governance. Its a totally abnegation of the social contract, a perversion of so-called "free market" capitalism, a deeply immoral wealth redistribution scheme and a grave injustice to its citizens.
Um, the JOCO schools have earned their reputation, same as the KCMO schools. So you can be all cute about sewing circles because graduate kids with a future and KCMO largely graduates.....oh wait, no they don't.
My friend and his family ultimately gave up on KCMO after having a few kids and staring at the option of expensive private school or....well.....let's face it....they had no other realistic option.
P.S. When is MO going to stop with thier predatory gas taxes? You do it to IL, IA, KS etc. I wonder how much that costs those states?
My friend and his family ultimately gave up on KCMO after having a few kids and staring at the option of expensive private school or....well.....let's face it....they had no other realistic option.
Really. So they HAD to move to Overland Park or something because the Park Hill, NKC, Liberty, Lee's Summit, Platte County, Fort Osage, Blue Springs etc are just so terrible??? Why would they move to Kansas I mean, are KCK schools that great? I know, doesn't make sense does it? What do KCK schools have to do with anything? About as much as KCMO schools have to do with 95% people that work in KCMO.
You can just as easily live in Parkville as Lenexa. Unless your job moves clear down to 135th and Nall...
Schools have zero impact on these companies moving around. If that was such an issue, there would be no downtowns because urban schools have issues in all large cities.
What does the KC Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce say about this? When I moved away in the late 1980s, I had spoken with the chamber about a position there, but came east instead.
Then, the chamber was definitely interested in promoting the region, and was dead-set against playing one state against the other.
As a side note, one of the talking points from the 1980s-era chamber was that Metro KC was "larger than Connecticut." I ended up in Connecticut.
KCMO has made some serious allegations. I'd be interested in specifics, companies involved, dates, actual amouts. All I've seen so far is vague accusations.
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) I know this goes on everywhere.
