Bits
and Pieces . . .
The Paul Livius Report
 |
| BY GREG WALTERS |
Last
Tuesday night the Board of Aldermen set aside $20,000 for use by the Truman
Heartland Foundation to aid homeowner efforts to cleanup up code violations on
their property. The Board passed a similar resolution creating the grants last
year.
Ward 4
Alderman Bill VanBuskirk asked how much of last year’s $20.000 had been spent. He
was surprised that not one cent of the money had been spent.
VanBuskirk
is not opposed to the donation. In fact, he has voted for the last two years.
But he does believe that if the city is sincere about cleaning up
neighborhoods, then the city should target those areas where the money is
needed and use it.
It is
important to note the $20,000 is set aside for those who cannot afford to clean
up their own property. As an example, years ago, when I served on the Board of
Alderman, I learned of a 90 year old widow whose property was damaged by a
windstorm. A tree had been blown down, crushing her fence and hanging out into
the right of way of 59th Street.
I
learned the city was planning on fining her for cleaning up the mess on the
street. After some short meetings with the powers that be a city hall, it was
decided the city would clean up the mess without charge.
The $20,000
package the Board passed last night would be for similar situations.
VanBuskirk
said, “I cannot understand why this is not being taken advantage of . . . we
all know of people in situations that need help . . . we should reach out and
offer this service to them.”
The
Ward 4 Alderman also explained the Truman Heartland Foundation’s role is not
just to hand out $20,000. The Foundation also coordinates and actively looks
for volunteers to help keep expenses in check.
After
the work is done, the city is billed for any expenses.
Last
year there were not expenses . . . so the city did not spend any taxpayer money
on any particular project.
VanBuskirk
says he intends, “to keep an eye open for opportunities of true need” so that
the money will be spent as was approved by the Board.
Last
Minute Change to
August and November Ballots
State lawmakers
were busy in the final days of their session this year. In the last two weeks
of the 2018 Session the Senate and House added a ballot issue to the August 8th
Primary and added a gasoline tax increase question to the November 2018 Ballot.
Right to Work Refendum
Voters
will choose to vote in favor or opposition to Right to Work Legislation passed
by the General Assembly last year. The ballot question was added to the August
8th Primary Election, The referendum is the result of a petition
drive to allow voters to have the final say on the Right to Work question.
10 Cent Gasoline Tax Increase
Slated for November Ballot
2018
may prove to be a record breaker for tax proposals on many Missouri ballots.
Raytown is no exception. Last week the State Legislature voted to put a 10 cent
per gallon gasoline tax on the November, 2018 ballot for voters to decide.
Raytown
voters will also be voting on a 2 cent per gallon local gasoline tax in August
of 2018. State lawmakers had asked Missouri municipalities to hold off on placing
fuel tax questions on the August ballot because of plans for the 10 cent tax increase
in November.
Parks and Recreation News
NEW FOUNTAIN
FOR KENAGY PARK
FOR KENAGY PARK
Raytown
Parks and Recreation moved forward with planned improvements at this past week.
A new aeration fountain has been placed in the pond located at Kenagy Park. By
circulating the water the fountain helps to keep down the growth of algae in
the pond.
Summer
Family Concert Series
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| INTERMISSION TIME AT THE FIRST OF FIVE CONCERTS PLANNED FOR RAYTOWN THIS SUMMER. |
Anna Lee
and The Lucky So and So’s performed for two hours, treating listeners to their
renditions of music from the 1940’s and 1950’. Anna Lee provided the vocals,
accompanied by a lively mix of horns and guitars.
The
Raytown Live Summer Family Concert Series has scheduled four more concerts. All
the concerts are to be held at the Green Space located near 63rd Street
and Raytown Road. All concerts begin at 6:00 p.m. and end at 8:00 p.m. The
following schedule is planned for the series.
June
9th . . . . . . Marty and Gary
July
14th . . . . . . The Jerry Hooper Band
August
11th . . . .To be announced
September
8th. . Nick Schnebelen
Raytown
Board of Aldermen Meeting – May 15, 2018
Missy Wilson told the
Board the Sales Tax Oversight Committee is required to report to the Board
annually. For more information, to go http://www.raytown.mo.us/vertical/Sites/%7B3A1DBD03-39C2-43FA-8CC9-95B16E6438CB%7D/uploads/05-15-18_Web_Packet(1).pdf and start on page 9.
Ray Haydaripoor told the Board some of the code violations his
department looks for are tall grass, junk, trash or debris, unlicensed or
inoperable vehicles or dangerous trees, peeling paint, roof or driveway in
disrepair. The Animal Control department
looks for animals running at large, sick or injured animals, dead animals,
cruelty investigations, animal attacks or barking dogs. For more information, click on http://raytownmo.swagit.com/play/05162018-1497 and go
to Study Session.
The Board passed a
resolution approving the appointment of Loretha Hayden to the Raytown Park Board.
The Board passed a
resolution approving an agreement with TrumanHeritage Habitat for Humanity for
the operation of a minor home repair program in an amount not to exceed
$20,000. The Agreement proposed would enable the City of Raytown to partner
with the Truman Heritage Habitat for Humanity to implement a minor home repair
program. The implementation of the minor home repair program would provide
another ‘tool’ for the Community Development Department to use as part of the
city’s neighborhood improvement program. The program would provide assistance
to low-moderate income homeowners who are financially unable to correct the
following types of property maintenance code violations on their property.
•
Exterior Painting;
• Roof
Repair and Replacement;
•
Repair Decks and Porches;
•
Repair Driveways;
•
Repair and Replace Flashing and Guttering;
•
Repair and Replace Siding;
• Tree
Trimming for House Safety; and
• Yard
Cleanup.
Homeowners needing to
make repairs to address City code violations would be informed of the
availability of this program by the Community Development Department when
discussing the specific code violations listed above. Homeowners expressing an
interest in this program would be referred to staff at Truman Heritage Habitat
for Humanity who is experienced working with homeowners to meet their needs.
Homeowners meeting the required criteria will be required to repay the cost of
the repairs by making a small monthly payment, which would be collected by the
Truman Heritage Habitat for Humanity. Loans would be at zero percent interest
for a period of up to seven years. The funds collected would then be placed in
a Raytown Minor Home Repair Account for future use in this program. The
proposed program would use volunteers from local churches and other
organizations to lower labor costs. A construction supervisor from Truman
Heritage Habitat for Humanity would manage each project and supervise
volunteers. Alderman Bill Van Buskirk
asked how much was spent last year. He
was told the homeowners who applied for assistance had more repairs than the
$2,000 limit would cover. Therefore, no
assistance was given.
The Board passed a
resolution amending the fiscal year 2017-2018 budget related to the Police Department.
The Police Department seeks to reallocate underutilized funds in the current
approved budget for training expenses of new employees. In order to staff open
positions within the Department, non-certified future employees will need to
attend the police academy. There are also pre-employment expenses associated
with the hiring process for both sworn and civilian personnel. The PD is
seeking to fill 4 sworn officer vacancies and 2 civilian vacancies within the
Fiscal Year 2017-2018. Total expense for hiring and academy training of 4
officers is $26,800.00 Total expense for hiring 3 civilian positions $2,100.00
Combined total $28,900.The IT expenses can be absorbed into the Police
Department’s Fiscal Year 2017-2018 operating budget with the reallocation of
funds from Unemployment line item to the Education and Training line item. These expenses are for IT network support for
the remainder of the 2017-2018 Fiscal Year, and the renewal of two maintenance
agreements for network backup software and server virtualization. The combined
total is $71,000.00 and these expenses can be absorbed into the Police
Department’s Fiscal Year 2017-2018 operating with the reallocation of funds
from the Unemployment line item to the Computer Services line item. This
transfer will leave approximately $14,000.00 in the Unemployment line item.
The Board passed a
resolution authorizing an expenditure of funds with MDLTechnology for
information technology-related services in an amount not to exceed $56,000 for
fiscal year 2017-2018. In 2013, the
Board of Aldermen approved a three-year agreement guaranteeing service pricing
for three years, approved annually, with MDL Technology, LLC to manage the IT
services of the Police Department. The agreed upon service plan is a monthly
fee of $80.00 per workstation and $400.00 per server. The agreement was renewed
in Fiscal Year 2015-2016 for an additional three years with no increase in
service cost.
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Comments
Another school shooting has occurred.
Please explain how you can live with your child for 15 or 17 or 19 years and you do not realize they are depressed or mentally ill or stockpiling weapons?
Don't parents talk to their kids these days?
Inspect their rooms and social media accounts so you know what's going on and can get them help.
City Gasoline Tax
State Gasoline Tax
City Property Tax on home and vehicles
City Tax on internet sales
I came up with increased taxes of over $500 annually!
I will not be voting for any of those tax increases. The city will just have to get by on what it makes. Just like we do at my household.
You must own a lot of property or you have no math skills. Which one is it?
I have always disliked the idea because of the costs.
But he's tryiong none the less. I've been using
Movable-type on a number of websites for about a year and am worried about switching to another platform.
I have heard excellent things about blogengine.net. Is
there a way I can transfer all my wordpress posts into it?
Any help would be really appreciated!
1) because people are unaware it is there to apply for.
2) the $2000 limit rules them out since most repairs will be over $2000
3) It is actually a 7 year loan and people may be reluctant to go into debt.
4) People may not qualify for the program.
Andy Whiteman
Maybe more jurisdictions need laws holding parents criminally responsible for the actions of their children.
Andy Whiteman
in over 4 years, 2 and 1/2 cent per year.
It is really that simple.
Some of the "I will vote for any tax at any cost" folks will tell you the city has not had an increase in five, ten or even twenty years are lying to you. The percentage may not have gone up. But the take from the taxpayers has skyrocketed.
The answer to Raytown's problems is better management at city hall.
Read the Paul Livius Report. The police found close to $100,000 they had set aside for unemployment claims. But there were not any unemployment claims because those police who left (none were fired or laid off) did not file for unemployment.
Why? Because they had already applied for and many of them, been guaranteed jobs in Kansas City. Many of those officers said they were leaving during public comments at open meetings of the BOA.
So why did the police set aside nearly $100,000 for unemployment benefits they knew they were not going to need?
It is time to stop the silly shell games being played at city hall with our tax dollars.
Another example is the $20,000 set aside to help people clean up their property. Not one penny was spent last year! Give me a break. I can drive one mile in any direction from any point in Raytown and show where that money could have been put to good use.
The problem in Raytown is not a shortage of tax dollars. It is a shortage of honesty and simple taking care of business at city hall.
So why set aside the money for unem
Nice post, but only tells half the story. You see, the budget process begins long before it is adopted. At the time, it appeared that people were going to laid off. The responsible thing to do is to set aside funding for their unemployment instead of NOT planning for it and coming back months later asking for $100k. Many people unexpectedly resigned instead making that money available for something else. Good fiscal planning on the police department’s behalf, honest and taking care of business at city hall.
Citizens for the Truth in Raytown
It does make me wonder what other money is squirreled away up at city hall.
Do you ever wonder about those seven or eight vacant positions on the department? They are vacant because the positions have not been filled. You never hear of them discussed as unfunded, just vacant.
Honest and taking care of business? What a joke!
Speaking of taking care of business at city hall. We just passed the one year anniversary of the BOA voting to install GPS on police cars. Anyone know if they have gotten around to it yet?
I doubt it. Despite all the hoopla of the last year it is very clear nothing has changed at city hall. They are back to protecting the status quo and taking care of number one.
Meanwhile, good legislation that would have helped people in need is allowed to go unspent. Like the $20,000 that was budgeted for last year and now for this year. Guess the Board forgot it was there to use. Guess the police are unaware of anyone in need.
Andy Whiteman
Citizens for the Truth in Raytown
Where have you been? Jean Peters Baker has prosecuted more sex offenders in Jackson County than any other Prosecutor in the state. She won't sit still for Greitens nonsense, lies and half-truths. He will be convicted and impeached.
Several years ago they reduced their levy and rolled back to the citizens money that was not needed. They are the only department in the city that seems to be holding up their collective end.
How much do you think gets dumped into ems ABOVE the collections to keep that circus going? 3 maybe,4 or,500,000.00? All the while we cant staff a jail and our police are leaving for better jobs in city's that support the Police.
Raytown is long gone from what it used to be the bedroom community that the board wanted 30 years ago when they turned down the chance to annex the land from 40 hiway to 470, lees summit road to 435 the city I grew up in is gone.
oh, I know. Over time, people tend to forget how much the budget cuts hurt.
Sewer / Park tax split? We were promised a split of the revenue to go to Storm Sewer repair and the other part to go to the Parks.
A rational person would consider a split to mean half and half. For three years there was not any split. It all went to parks! When the whistle was blown on that scheme it ended up being something like 75% parks and 25% storm sewer.
These kind of word games are a trademark of the city council.
I would not blame the voters if they turned ALL the taxes down based on the track record of broken promises by the mayor and city council.
You bring up some good points and common complaints about our City government. I believe that the evidence is going to show that City revenue has been flat for well over a decade. Past City officials have kicked the can down the road, or proposed sales tax measures, trying to shield residents from the truth, when they should have been asking for is a levy increase. With costs going up, and revenues not keeping up with inflation, the City uses sales taxes as a band-aid.
Oh well. It is good to read some of the other posts. The inflationary use of percentage based taxes like the city's sales tax, property tax and utility taxes (natural gas, electricty, telephone, cable tv, cell phone and even the tax we pay on our internet service is immune to inflation because as the cost grows for the service, so does the amount of tax paid for that service.
It appears that some writers want to ignore that reality.
The problem at city hall is the waste ignored by the city council. Last year the BOA stopped the practice of over half of the pd taking cars home. But still the practice of using city equipment for Walmart's benefit continues.
The city council found close to $100,000 at the last meeting. Nearly all of it ended up going to the police department. Absolutely nothing for streets. When was the last time the streets were striped with turning lanes, etc. in this town? Drive around and take a look. It has been quite awhile.
Here is another example.
About five years ago this section of the country had an unusually snowy winter. The Raytown pd used it as an excuse to switch from comparatively inexpensive automobiles to SUV because some of the cars they used high-centered in the snow. Since then, the snowfall has been almost non-existent. Global warming is a reality. And this section of the country is proof of it.
So why did the p.d. change over from inexpensive vehicles to gas guzzling SUV's?
Because they could. Just like last Tuesday night. Why did over 80% of the money reapropriated last Tuesday go to the p.d. Because they wanted it. And the majority of the Board jumped right in.
Raytown's problem is not that they do not have enough money. The problem is the Mayor and Board of Aldermen do not have enough common sense to say NO.
Don't buy into the lie that Raytown is not taking in more money than before. The solution to Raytown's financial problems is some common sense. Something that is currently in short supply at Raytown City Hall.
There is a guy that speaks to the board EVERY meeting and rambles on multiple topics in the most incoherent way possible. You remind me of him. He is the local gadfly of Raytown according to some.
Concur. Does he practice in front of a mirror? With a stop watch?
Is. Every. Word. So. Vital. So. Important. That. He. Believes. That. He. Must. Ram. It. All. In. So. That. We. Must. Not. Miss. One. Single. Utterance? Despite the common man not being able to comprehend 3/4 of what is spoken?
Even the most optimized of cerebellums can only process language at a certain speed.
Dude needs to check himself. Whatever message that he's trying to put out there is lost in all the jibber jabber.
He has a right to express himself and takes advantage of this on a regular basis.
The opportunity is obviously the highlight of his week. We always either turn down the sound or fast forward, however.
We'd rather run our nails down a chalkboard than sit through that.
Find some extra money and dump it where you always have, on the police department. Quietly walk tip toe around the elephant in the room named infrastructure.
This city has been mismanaged. Warning signs of over-spending by elected and appointed city officials is routinely ignored. Joe Creamer used to be your scapegoat. Now it is Tony Jacobs? Who is next? Do you really think you hang all of your mistakes on Jacobs and Creamer? They are not the ones in power.
Get down to business. Run your city more efficiently.
I live within my budget and so should the city.
Antonio aside, most people already humor the "owner", the "admins" and their drama anyway. That handful are birds of a feather. Higher quality and more enjoyable banter elsewhere, IOHO.
So now global warming is being used to attack the RPD. All righty then!
At least Tony has his name out there. I don't see many of you folks signing your names!
Since the RPD is a hot topic on here, don't forget that the Citizen's Police Academy will be held in Sept at the Raytown library.
FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will vote YES to SAVE OUR CITY.
Once again. The problem at city hall is poor management of our tax dollars. Voting yes on taxes that rise with inflation is irresponsible and will hurt many Raytowners on fixed incomes. Voting yes will only encourage more wasteful spending of our tax dollars.
I urge every one reading this to vote NO on ALL three of the tax increases the city is trying to force on us. Do not reward incompetence and mismanagement. Tell your friends to vote NO.
Only a handful of Walmart haters continues to bang that drum.
There are much bigger fish to fry.
I will vote YES. This city must move forward.
Voting yes is approval of incompetence. We really deserve better. VOTE NO on all the Raytown tax increases.
Especially the doubling of our property tax, creation of a 2% sales tax on all internet purchases, and creating a gasoline tax when the state has will have us vote on a ten cent per gallon tax in November.
As if the Walmart deal is why we are needing money we need to stop the off duty work using city equipment and uniforms.
We also need to sue Walmart for protesting their taxes in Raytown after the deal they already got and for going around claiming they paid there taxes.
Sorry your taxes are NOT paid until the funds are released.
The current board is not responsible for Walmart. This happened 14 years ago. And why are you advocating the City should suffer for a decision made that long ago? AND how much longer should the City be made to suffer for this mistake? The current group of elected officials are not incompetent. 90% of them were not on the board at the time the tiff for Walmart was voted on. What you are saying is the same as blaming Trump for the invasion of Iraq. Makes no sense, and wildly deceptive.
Next you leave out DETAILS. The internet sales tax should be called the Amazon tax, as this is one company that will collect municipal sales taxes willingly and with little effort on the City’s part. Self reporting, for purchases made on internet sites that do not collect municipal taxes, is only required by residents if they spend more than $2,500 per year. Amazon is where the money is coming from on this tax. All goes to general fund.
The gas tax, with a weekly fill up, would cost .30 cents per fill up on a 15 gallon tank. $1.20 per month. Folks.... That’s the gas tax. $15.60 per year. All goes to roads.
But the delay game continues!!
Wal-Mart now is executing the next level of available appeals to the state level and is in the “process” of scheduling an Evidentary Hearing to present their case to. If once again they fail in their attempt to lower their assessed property tax value the last stop is to have the 3 members of the State Tax Commission review their appeal and be the final say on the matter. Depending on the back log of case files and summer vacation schedules, it could easily be late fall before this series of appeals would get a final settlement decision. Of note 2 of the Tax Commission members have local political history. Will Kraus and Victor Callahan. It’s safe to say Wal-Mart knows the game very well as they have executed this tactic to success in several states as recent as KS with favorable judgements.
Meanwhile communities are left in revenue collection limbo.
Steve Meyers,
Alderman Ward 4
I think some past administrators and administrations had everything to do with it all by their mismanagement and ignoring an upcoming crisis.
Get up and call the county they will tell you the truth that walmart is holding funds.