Clay Chastain’s latest light rail plan appears headed to November ballot

For the umpteenth time, it appears that one of Clay Chastain’s light rail plans is headed to a Kansas City election.

City Attorney Bill Geary said Chastain’s latest proposal could well be illegal but is not “unconstitutional on its face,” so under the city charter it should be put to voters Nov. 8.

“Put this on the November ballot and see what happens,” Geary told the City Council’s Finance and Government Committee on Wednesday. The full council votes on the ballot language July 28.

Chastain gathered more than the 1,709 valid petition signatures needed to place a measure on a Kansas City ballot. His plan seeks three sales taxes totaling three-quarter cents for 25 years each to help construct a light rail and electric bus system from Kansas City International Airport to the Cerner campus in south Kansas City and from Union Station to the Truman Sports Complex.

Geary and council members said they were in no way endorsing Chastain’s idea even though they were agreeing to put it before voters.

Three-eighths of the sales taxes in the ballot proposal would be a citywide tax increase beginning in 2017, and three-eighths would be diverted from the city’s bus system beginning in 2024, depriving the bus system of about $26 million per year.

The ballot language makes clear that this local money might not be enough to finance the entire system, so it would go to construct as much of the system as possible.

Chastain issued a statement Wednesday urging voter support and saying it was a “long overdue public transportation plan” that promises a more green, prosperous and transit-oriented city.

If voters were to approve the tax increase and tax diversion from the bus system, the City Council would then have to decide how to implement the plan, or council members could repeal it if they determine it is unworkable.

Chastain, who lives most of the time in Virginia, has argued that his idea is preferable to a plan by a different group of petitioners seeking to expand the city’s downtown streetcar system south on Main Street to the University of Missouri-Kansas City. That plan has a different process and is awaiting a September hearing in Jackson County Circuit Court.

This story was originally published July 20, 2016 at 10:02 AM with the headline "Clay Chastain’s latest light rail plan appears headed to November ballot."