KC Mayor Quinton Lucas missing in action when City Council hatches secret tax hike plan
The Kansas City Council’s decision to ram through a sales tax for the April ballot sets a new low in secrecy and mendacity for a governing body too often known for both.
Kansas Citians should be aghast at the outcome. The council’s stumbling rush to judgment shows it’s business as usual at City Hall, where backroom deals and pressure politics are far more important than honest, open discussion and fact-based decisions.
The vote came Thursday when the City Council, conveniently minus Mayor Quinton Lucas, approved a quarter-cent sales tax for the April 7 ballot (the election itself will cost taxpayers $600,000). The funds from the tax, $315 million over 15 years, would go toward operating and equipping the city’s fire department.
Those facts may be news to you. Just a few days ago, they were news to most members of the City Council, who complained Thursday about the last-second dash to decide this consequential issue.
At the least the city should wait for the August ballot, some said, when details could be made clearer.
No. The fix was in. The fire department can’t wait, the tax raisers said, trying to obscure the real motive for hustling: April’s low-turnout, low-interest election provides a better chance the tax will pass.
The haste alone should anger Kansas Citians. The state law enabling the new fire sales tax took effect last August. The council had more than four months to consider the plan in the sunshine. It did not. Council members waited until the very last minute.
The stampede leaves questions unanswered about the fire department’s needs, its prior spending habits, its oversized influence at City Hall. The lack of transparency could lead to misinformed voters and a poor decision at the polls.
Sadly, that isn’t the worst of it.
On Thursday, Kansas City Councilwoman Teresa Loar tried adding another quarter-cent sales tax to the April ballot — this one for the police department. The cops, she argued, have needs that are just as important as the firefighters’.
Hilariously, the fire department taxers on the council suddenly developed cold feet. It’s too fast, they said. We need time to think about this.
Loar’s proposal failed, as she knew it would. After the meeting, she said she was trying to make a point, which she did.
But she did more. Her police tax plan is still alive for the August ballot. That leaves the City Council with two options: Put another $315 million tax hike before voters this year, or tell one of the most murderous cities in America that its police force is less important than its firefighters.
That likely means a 2020 vote on an additional sales tax hammering the city’s working poor. This year, they’re likely to be asked to provide another $630 million to the two city departments that already claim 75% of the general fund.
Perhaps a voting booth can be erected in the shadow of Waddell & Reed’s shiny new downtown office, built partially on the backs of those very taxpayers.
And that still isn’t the worst of it.
Last week, Kansas City Councilwoman Katheryn Shields said the fire tax ordinance was finished several days before it was introduced. The mayor, she said, asked her to hold it for consideration until last Thursday.
Lucas was scheduled to be out of the city that day.
The mayor’s office confirms a private discussion with Shields about the tax. It rejects any suggestion that Lucas asked for the delay so he could duck the controversial vote.
Kansas Citians can reach their own conclusions. It is a fact, though, that Lucas never asked the council to wait for August, which he could have. It’s a fact that he didn’t vote Thursday. It’s also a fact Lucas was endorsed by the firefighters’ union, Local 42.
And it’s a fact that candidate Lucas publicly rejected tax increases, particularly sales tax increases, during his campaign. That commitment now seems hollow at best.
After the council vote, the mayor issued a weak statement promising to stretch dollars “as far as we can.” That doesn’t answer our question: Will you vote yes, Mr. Mayor, or no?
Supporters of the April tax will insist the vote is a referendum on the fire service. It is not. It’s a referendum on whether deals should be hatched in the darkness and whether poor kids should go hungry.
We’re confident Kansas Citians will make the right decision on April 7.