how are you voting on Bistate?

I'm voting no,

I never go to Chiefs or Royals games. Let those who think it's good to have professional sports teams in our city be the ones who actually support them, not those of us who think tax money is better spent on, I dunno, frivolous stuff like schools.

The arts need more support, I grant you that. I think the arts part of Bistate II is to try to get the non-sports people on board, and it won't work for me.

I voted yes for the first bistate tax and I love seeing Union Station all spruced up today.

I am NOT in favor of giving tax dollars to pro teams, but I think we need more unity and common causes for the entire KC area. We are so handicapped by that darn state line.

I also support the arts portion of the tax.

But hey talk me out of voting yes if you want. I am really torn on this one.

that's enough to make me vote no, ticket prices go up every year, they sell out every game, they aren't going to leave

There are several other ways this money will be spent.

that's for arts.

I still maintain that if an immensely popular pro sports team cannot raise all the revenue needed to stay in town from the television contracts and sales of tickets, then they may as well go elsewhere.

I've lived in cities with pro sports teams and cities without, and trust me, the quality of life is NOT determined by the teams. It's determined by lots of other things, such as good schools, decent funding for arts, public transportation, clean air, good restaurants, theaters, and so on.

and raise ticket prices every year, they aren't going to leave

I did some research and here is some stuff I found out:

Only two states in the country have no residents who are Chiefs season ticket holders. Now you know those ticket holders in Hawaii aren't traveling here 8 times every fall to see the Chiefs play. Those tickets are making them lots of money. My bro in law is a ticket broker and makes a mint on sports tickets. So if so many people all over the country have invested in Chiefs season tickets, they must be making a killing off of fan support.

I also heard Jack Kerry - the sports guy on 41 - say that the Chiefs make enough money to meet their payroll on TV royalties alone. So everything else - ticket sales, parking lot fees ($20!!) and their share of concessions plus royalties from sales of memorabilia is all just gravy to the Chiefs.

So why the hell isn't Jackson County asking them to pay to refurbish Arrowhead? I think they can afford it.

I am voting NO on bistate. This stuff about the Chiefs convinced me. Hope it helps sway any other undecideds out there.

Just a couple years ago they had to increase sales tax in order to fund changes to their police departments, including the funds to build a new station in North KC, which had 911 response times of more than 10 minutes! The city council should have budgeted this in, but they didn't and the police department had to ask for money through higher taxes.

I just don't think that KCMO has their act together. There are more important things than funding sports teams (50% of the money raised goes to that, btw). The other 50 percent is a good spend in the arts department, but what about their horrible education system?? What about the fact that the entire downtown area is an abandoned, rundown hell-hole with small patches of manicured wealth thrown in here or there?? They really need to raise some taxes of their own to renovate the basics of their city before they try to woo sports fans and teams with new facilities they can't afford.

I voted no yesterday.

I definately am for more arts and culture spending in the area, but 50% is to go towards sports. Johnson county will fund most of this (like they fund most of the other programs and activities already in existance in KCMO). KCMO, IMO, needs more spending on their education system, downtown renovation (not just in arts and culture, but other sources of revenue and revival), etc. KCMO should be funding that and in my opinion, those are higher priorties than building a new stadium or anything like that.

:hi:

profitable as hoped, and I agree that KCMO has more pressing problems to work on!

of what our area does with these types of plans makes me vote NO.

Everything has grand plans, spends the money, then seems to fall flat.
The downtown library that got moved to a renovated bank building? How many million was that for a library that isnt going to get much use.
Unions Station. Well, you know.
The jazz district? How much business does it do?

It pains me to admit it that most people would rather stay in their suburban living areas, and would consider coming to Oak Park Mall to be "getting into the city".

isn't being used?

but my wife works downtown, and occasionally goes to grab something from the library.
She says that the "new" library certainly is nice, but it's not crowded in the way that a JoCo library is. Or even the Waldo branch of the KC library.
For the millions that were spent on it, I don't think it's a good return on the investment.
But I could be wrong.

work for the KC School District. The library used to share the school board admin building with the school district. The library was full of homeless people every day. Not a pleasant place to hang out. We in the school district were not sorry to see the library go. We had heard that the library enacted some new policies to keep the homeless out of their new facility. I was wondering if they were having any luck. If they don't have much traffic thru their new place,it could mean the homeless have invaded again.

from my wife. It actually made her fear for her safety, the way it was before.
Honestly, I don't know how it is now. She just gets what she needs at the HUGE JoCo library that we live close to.
All I know is what she siad it looked like when newly opened. And I believe she said she read that it cost around 12 million for the renovations to the old bank building that it moved into.

What I'm really saying is that KC seems to be trying to make the downtown into some sort of cosmopolitan mecca, when all the residents seem to prefer to stay in their suburban hideaways.