Budget Cuts, Revenue Streams and Anchor Tennents

Last week, Mayor Funkhouser and the rest of the city council announced a series of budget cuts for the city so as a city, we'd have a balanced budget.

Certainly none of us like to see most of these projects cut.  Certainly some of the cuts, like funding cuts for the Zoo and Liberty Memorial threathen cultural attractions in our city.  Certainly no one can say they like the idea of not hiring incremental police officers.

With all of that said, it is difficult for me to blame Funkhouser for this. One of his campaign promises was to be financially responsible and to work with a balanced budget. This is certainly him living up to his campaign promise. Anyone who voted for him shouldn't criticize these decisions...and people who didn't vote for him should blame their fellow voters for putting him in office.

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Meanwhile, I hope the budget cuts are a one-year adjustment. At some point as a city we have to find a way to increase revenue for the city so we can fund the many projects this city needs to move forward.  We're not going to cut our way to prosperity. The city is still declining in population, in spite of huge growth downtown and in the Northland. We must work to make the city's urban core neighborhoods in Midtown and on the East Side viable places for people to live.  This includes making the schools viable and minimizing crime.  Until we can make these areas places people WANT to live, the city will continue to struggle financially. We also need to work on increasing new business opportunities in Kansas City. This includes not making it nearly impossible for entrepreneurs to get business licenses, increasing the amount of investors willing to invest in new businesses in KC, and increasing the quality of our work force so these companies can have competent and skilled workers (darn it, there are those schools again).  This is how we will develop a balanced budget in the future, not trying to cut our way to prosperity.

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Last week, BlogKC noted that with the funding cuts to the Zoo and Liberty Memorial, that it might now be time to go back to the idea of a bi-state sales tax to help fund these projects that help provide a cultural richness to our city -- and differentiate us from cities like Springfield and Wichita.  Most of the Johnson Countians I've talked to about this would be more than willing to pay their fair share of these regional attractions.  I think this would be a perfect opportunity to move forward with this idea...if the past 2 weeks have tought me nothing else, they've taught me that people really love the zoo, whether or not they really go there all that often.

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I've been hearing a lot about the Power & Light district and how there is very little margin for error in the city's budget for the P&L to not do well. Apparently, we have only a 4% margin of error and if the district doesn't do well, the tax payers may well end up paying the difference.  Much of the talk centers around our ability to gain an anchor tennent for the Sprint Center.

While I certainly hope that the city is able to attract and NHL or NBA Franchise, it is really frustrating that we HAVE an anchor tennent in town that could have provided traffic 81 days a year to the Power & Light District and STILL left room for an NBA or NHL franchise.  Instead, the county is spending $300 million in renovating Kaufman Stadium out at the Truman Sports Complex vs building a new stadium downtown. While the cost difference of building new downtown would have been substantial, it may have been worth it in the long run to ensure the vitality of the entertainment district.

How much better would it have been for KC to go out recruiting a winter sports franchise if we had a shiny new arena, with a blossoming entertainment district that we were moving the team into. The team would have just been added to the already vibrant entertainment scene. Instead, we're forced to rely on the team to make the Power & Light District vibrant.

I'll also note, in my couple of trips to the P&L District, it seems to be doing well. Most of the bars and restaurants seem to have good crowds, even during the week in crappy weather.  My fear though is that we're bringing people in that were previously spending time in the Crossroads, Martini Corner and Westport areas...as many of the places I frequent in those areas seem to have less traffic now than they did before.  I hope we're indeed bringing in more revenue to the city, vs just moving it around.

Comments

[Kyle]

I've had those same fears about the P&L district. We did not suddenly gain 20,000 new residents to support the whole district, so even if it makes it big and the city's costs get covered, I think we're pretty much destined to have another area of the city go under. Top candidates include Westport, Martini Corner and the various great bars/restaurants throughout midtown and downtown.

I'm right there with you on the Royals too. What an incredible boom for downtown that would have been. Instead, we're spending $600 million to renovate two stadiums that are in the middle of nowhere.