Raytown doesn’t need politicians paying for a ‘brand’ in the Aug. 2 election on bonds

The Raytown city administrator signed a contract in January to pay more than $21,000 in taxpayer money to hire a consulting firm to promote the general obligation bond issues and a mill levy increase in the Aug. 2 election. Coupled with the ballot cost, the price tag comes to more $40,000. Despite this, many city residents did not even know these ballot issues existed.

The city says it hired this political consulting firm to educate Raytown voters as to why they should vote for these taxes. A list of deliverables cited in the contract included the “creation of the brand, tagline and talking points for GO bonds.” That brand is called One Raytown.

With 10 aldermen in a 10-square-mile town, using taxpayer money to pay a consultant for a “brand” on a tax issue is disturbing.

Brands are best reserved for soap, cattle and corporations, not tax increases in smaller towns. Brands are meant to be persuasive by creating an identity — of sometimes dubious truth — around an idea. Brands shape themselves to what others want you to hear.

Brands are not real. Brands are the creation of narcissistic politicians who calculate their relationship with you based on their return on investment. The whole thing reeks of manipulation.

Despite the One Raytown brand, it is sad to see the seething and gnashing of teeth when someone dares to ask a question about an enormous tax increase or — God forbid — dares to disagree with them.

It is a shame the city’s website is so awful. It is a shame that to get real information, you must file a Sunshine Law request. It is a shame city officials can tell us how many road miles we have but not how many road miles of asphalt $47 million would buy us, while they provide only a vague map with no plan. It is a shame that our elected officials threaten on social media that if these taxes are not passed, there will be no more road work — ever. It is a shame they lead us to believe that a levy increase for the general fund would be spent only on roads and infrastructure.

But the biggest shame is that in exceptional inflationary times, they did not get or want public input to put a more reasonable proposal before us.

Raytown residents are not hashtags. We are diverse. We have our personal and work lives. We are parents, partners, friends, dog lovers and dog haters, and all the rest. It seems that this warm fuzzy slogan is just what they paid for — a brand.

We are all for improvements, but they must be affordable, especially now. As taxpayers, we deserve what we’ve already paid for: City Hall should engage all taxpayers as people, not as the One Raytown brand.

I encourage the residents of Raytown to vote no Aug. 2. Now is not the time for these taxes.