Been There, Done That

For more information on this topic please view the October 18th posting. From reading comments on last week’s post on the Raytown Report it is clear that there are two schools of thought on HyVee receiving a 50% tax abatement on the told Schnucks property. From discussion offered at the City Council meeting it is also clear that the Board will grant the abatement. But there are still some items the Board should consider before placing their stamp of approval on the scheme. As a long time member of the Board I can remember these same discussions when Shnucks asked for the original tax abatement on the property located at 350 Highway and Gregory Boulevard. The Board of Aldermen signed off on the deal. Three years later, Shnucks pulled the plug on the store. The city was left with a tax abatement that is still in place. All those years, the building in question was used as a warehouse. Not a very good return on the tax abatement. Especially when you consider that the main argument for such an abatement is that it encourages an increase in sales tax dollars. There is a simple solution to ensuring that the same scenario does not happen again. “Claw Backs” is a term given to conditions written into the tax abatement agreement that require occupancy of the tenant for a stated purpose. In this case, HyVee plans to open a new state of the art grocery store. That is all well and good. However, any tax abatement given to encourage that action should contain a clause requiring that the store remain operational. In other words, if the store closes down for any reason, the tax abatement would end. It is a common sense provision the Board of Aldermen should take a hard look at in its negotiations with HyVee. OBSERVATIONS: A Little Honesty Please! At the last Tuesday’s meeting of the Board a number of private citizens gave testimony in the HyVee Public Hearing. Part of the drill any speaker goes through to speak before the Board is to give their home address. Two of the five speakers at that meeting gave addresses that were not their home. One gave a business address -- the other a Post Office box number. Such actions make a farce of a simple rule to bring accountability and honest information before the Board for consideration. The Administration at City Hall should step up and insist that speakers before the elected body give accurate information when making their presentations. Light up the Night: In a conversation with Raytown’s City Marshall, Jim Lynch, I learned that a good number of the city’s street lights are not functioning or, at best, functioning poorly. The electric companies do not meter streetlights. A flat rate is charged per light. That means the city is paying for lights that do not “light up” at night. Mr. Lynch told me he has had his officers identify the burned out and non-functioning lights by pole number. The list was turned over to the Public Works Department so that they can monitor repairs by the utility companies. Good job, Jim! Censorship? . . . Never! A recurring theme from a small number of bloggers has been that certain topics be forbidden for discussion on these pages. Usually these have to do with personal opinions written about individuals. To my knowledge, these pages, and the comments written on them by many contributors, have been free of anything nearing libel or defaming. The closest it has come to profanity is when one contributor referred to this writer as a “jackass”. Given those facts, I see no reason to censor or delete any contributor’s comments. As Harry Truman plainly put it, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!”