Downtown Convention Hotel: Not Now, Not With Our Money

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post Build it and they will come. Makes for a catchy baseball movie theme but lousy economic development policy. The Sprint Center sits as a shining example of how not to go about public-private partnered development. Not only has the Sprint Center not attracted a premium tenant, it has essentially killed the Kemper Arena in the process. It's called "market dilution" and this market can only support one arena. Then there's the Power & Light District. It's not even necessary to describe the failure that has been. How is it that with such monumental failures visible from their office windows, that the City Council can be considering using public dollars to help finance a 1000 room hotel? Yes, yes, I know. It's the "increment" in TIF and it's the increment of the appraised property tax abatement in a 353 plan, etc, etc... What it is, is more downtown real estate that will never grace the tax rolls because by the time a standard 20 year abatement ends, the property will be in need of renovation, and you guessed it, even more public funding. Fortunately, not even some embarrassing cheerleading in the Kansas City Star can spur this City Council into action. The Council's love of useless committees is just too strong, and its desire to blow an additional half a million dollars on consultants too much. As someone who has in the past been a strong advocate for downtown development, this is difficult to write, but Kansas City taxpayers cannot afford to get into the convention hotel business. The Star's cheer leading aside, it just doesn't make good financial sense. If it does, then I want someone to show me. Show me exactly which conventions Kansas City is losing due to lack of hotel space. Name them. Show us letters of intent guaranteeing a multi-year commitment from tangible groups if we build this hotel. Show me you can fill the hotel rooms we already have. Conventions come in all shapes and sizes. Fill downtown 52 weeks a year with groups that bump up against our current capacity. This talk about the arbitrary 1000 room threshold that convention planners look for is just that; arbitrary. Show me you can overwhelm our downtown transit capacity. Fill the buses and the new shuttles (no I won't call them trolleys) and occupy all the taxi cabs. Populate the sidewalks with lanyard wearing conventioneers searching for bars and restaurants. Show me the numbers! A savvy investor always buys into a rally and sells out of a decline. Show me the increasing revenues from a growing convention trade and convince me I'm buying into a growth industry. Because the reality is what we're really doing is assuming a larger equity stake in a shrinking market. The convention business is dialing back, and not just because of the economy. Show me the money! If a new convention hotel is such a good investment, convince the private sector. For that matter, the private sector should not need "convincing" at all. If the numbers work, private investment will come. If private investors are putting their funds elsewhere, why should we as taxpayers do the exact opposite? Does the city council know something the entire private equity market does not? Answer: That's a big "no". This is the committee forming, consultant hiring, resolution making bunch, remember? A 1000 room hotel is not going to bring high-paying jobs and consequently is not going to generate its fair share of e-tax. A 1000 room hotel is not going to draw conventions, what group thinks about the hotel when they're choosing a site for their gathering? A 1000 room hotel is not going to make up the shortfall of the Power & Light District bonds. So what is it going to do? Add a few bucks to some council re-election campaigns and plunge the city even further into debt. I say "no thanks".

Sidewalks Aren't Free

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post Recently a Resolution was forwarded out of committee for the full council's consideration. Considering "Resolutions" are only useful if they're printed out and the backs can be used as scratch paper, I normally don't pay much attention to them. But this particular resolution caught my eye because it deals with sidewalks. Curbs and sidewalks are probably the most misunderstood pieces of infrastructure in all of Kansas City. Witness every four years when council (and even mayoral) candidates stand up at forums promising to "fix the curbs and sidewalks" some even going so far as to imply that they "will find the money" (another one of my favorite expressions). Promising voters that you will fix the sidewalks is misleading at best. It implies to the voters that you the candidate will somehow beautify long neglected streets with brand new curbing and billiard table smooth sidewalks. There's only one problem. As these less than knowledgeable candidates soon find out after they're elected, the curbs and sidewalks abutting a property are the fiscal responsibility of the property owner. Yep. That's right. You pay for the maintenance, upkeep and eventual replacement of the curbs and sidewalks in front of your house. Twice the price if you live on a corner! So I was hopeful when the following post flashed across my news aggregator. Curb & Sidewalk Policy Perhaps our elected officials had finally decided to tackle the tough and unpopular topic in such a way that would bring many neighborhoods back into walkable form. But I was wrong. In true Resolution form, the document simply parrots a suggested sidewalk policy authored by City staff and directs the City Manager to develop a policy. The highlights are listed as follows: All curbs and sidewalks are to be brought to acceptable standards city-wide within 25 years. 25 YEARS?! My neighborhood's sidewalks were completely replaced in 1985 but thanks to the pushing and heaving from our lovely Sweetgum trees, many are already in need of being redone. Why not set an aggressive goal of 10 years and actually put some people to work? Creating jobs? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? One guy with a wheelbarrow and a trowel could probably do them all in 25 years... Not only should they all be brought up to code quickly, there should be an ordinance that no curb or sidewalk should be allowed to remain in a state of disrepair for longer than two years. The financial impact to residential property owners shall be kept to reasonable minimums. That's a nice vague statement. Concrete ain't cheap. The T&I Committee members could have done a little research (it's called "G O O G L E") and found some very innovative financing plans implemented by other municipalities that are both fair and practical. Environmentally-friendly and low-maintenance materials and construction methods are to be used where possible. At least they didn't say "Green". And what about the sections of town that do not have curbs and sidewalks at all? Even in some of the most wealthy neighborhoods in the 4th District there are entire sections of sidewalk that are missing, having been removed by homeowners years ago. Will they be replaced in this "plan"? It takes more than a resolution to get things done. The council is supposed to bring diverse backgrounds and experiences to the area of problem solving. If we can't expect them to tackle basic infrastructure issues with nothing more than a general Resolution, we're all in trouble.

Our Insular Leadership

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post Years ago while serving on an advisory committee at City Hall I found myself interacting with many levels of our government bureaucracy. Our committee charter was to analyze different department procedures, and help them formulate a pseudo-business plan to make them more competitive. It was a fantastic lesson in the inner workings of day to day life of the people who literally keep the wheels turning. I saw firsthand the frustration of City workers who felt alienated from the City Council having never so much as seen an elected official in their department, let alone asking questions or even bothering to introduce themselves. I was stunned that the majority opinion of the rank and file is that the City Council resides in an ivory tower, dispensing not only budget dollars, but policy decisions affecting functions which the council knows very little about. Watching a recent business session on Channel 2, I was reminded that while the names and faces have changed, the relationship between our elected leadership and the rank and file at City Hall has not. Still insular, still ignorant of those pesky details about how basic city services are delivered. The council was reviewing the results of an internal audit questioning City employees about their opinions on council performance. The results were bleak. Even more bothersome was instead of taking the results to heart and vowing to dramatically improve the numbers, the mayor and council members took turns lamenting that the results must somehow be skewed. "They can't be talking about me because I do this or I did that so they must be referring to someone else." Government is no different than business. How can you run an enterprise without being completely familiar with its inner workings? Relying on 10 minute PowerPoint presentations sanitized and dumbed down for its audience is not the route to success. Perhaps if the council spent less time grandstanding over dress codes and more time learning the business they are supposed to be running, they might actually see those survey results improve.

I'm still here...

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post Apathy. Boredom. Being busy with my day job (thank goodness!). I haven't had the motivation to write much as of late. By doing so I have ignored my own blogging credo; "Write every day". Someone from the "mainstream media" asked me once how I managed to come up with posts. I told her you have to write something, anything every day regardless of whether it makes it out of your draft folder. Like any other skill, if you don't practice you get rusty. Last night I had the good fortune to attend an event at the Kansas City Downtown Library featuring Nick Haines of KCPT moderating a discussion about newspapers and their predicament of becoming more and more irrelevant in today's fast-paced world of immediate news flashing across your computer screen or smart phone. It was a lively discussion mostly dominated by Tony Botello of tonyskansascity.com and Dave Helling from the Kansas City Star. To me the general theme of the evening was mainstream media lamenting that fewer and fewer people subscribe to news printed on paper anymore and somehow it's the fault of the internet, bloggers, and these darn kids who just don't appreciate professional journalism. That may be true. But to use a phrase I've grown tired of hearing, "It is what it is". Newspaper publishers can cry foul and point fingers all they want, but it's not going to increase their subscription numbers. Two things stood out for me during the evening. One was Tony Botello calling me out by name from the stage. That is the primary reason I am typing this post. It was the kick in the pants I needed to get back in the saddle. The other was Dave Helling lamenting that if the Kansas City Star became a non-profit entity, they would no longer be able to endorse political candidates. I wish I had the exact quote, but Dave basically implied that if the Star didn't endorse candidates, people would have to go out on their own to inform themselves in order to make educated choices at the polls. And that's a bad thing in what way? The irony of implying that the downfall of news print equates to the weakening of our democracy, and then asserting that a news organization needs the ability to influence peoples' choices about candidates was not lost on me. Particularly because I have firsthand knowledge of how the Star editorial board makes their endorsements. So hopefully next week I'll have something of substance to write instead of my rambling thoughts about a TV panel discussion. But just ignore it. If it's not printed on paper by someone getting paid to write it, you can't trust it. And so it goes...

False Alarms: Abusers Should Pay Their Fair Share

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post Every day in Kansas City the police have to respond to automatic alarm alerts. The majority of those calls turn out to be false alarms. How much of a majority? Try 97%. Factor that number into the actual amount of alarm calls received in a year (20,000!) and you're looking at 55 times a day that at least one officer is dispatched when there is no crime in progress. Twice an hour the police end up wasting valuable time. With the current budget cuts that wasted time becomes even more valuable. Since I'm a numbers kind of guy, I dug a little deeper. I wondered if the KCPD kept cost estimates on how much it costs to dispatch an officer to investigate an alarm. Turns out they do. According to Community Interaction Officer John Trainor, it costs about $42.50 per alarm response. That's an average taking into account that during the day one officer responds on an alarm, unless a second is needed or requested. In the evening, after dark, two officers are dispatched. That's 20,000 x $42.50 = $850,000 in wasted time and tax dollars. As you can see, when a door blows open here, or a cat sets off a motion sensor there, pretty soon you're talking real money. And that number changes from year to year. For example, in 1997 the number of false alarms was 60,000. Next year who knows? Part of this cost is offset by alarm permits. The police do not respond unless the alarm is registered. Residents and businesses pay a one-time permit fee to register their alarm with the KCPD. Recently the Board of Police Commissioners approved a fee increase for these alarm renewals from $35 per alarm to $40 per alarm beginning May 1, 2009. So here's the breakdown. New residential and business permits $45 – one-time fee, are not transferable from address to address or from person to person Master Permit for apartments (6 or more units) $45 Annual Renewal Fee – Resident $ 0 (two or less false alarms per permit year, $40 per false alarm above two not to exceed $120 total) Annual Renewal Fee – Business $40 (per false alarm, no maximum) So the offenders aren't fined as the offenses occur. Their renewal fee goes up for the next year. So theoretically if a business racked up a few thousand dollars in false alarms, it could just choose not to register for the next year and not pay, leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill. The same goes for residents, although their fee is capped at $120. So a private residence can have an alarm go off once an hour for the whole year and never pay more than $120. Doesn't that sound a little off? Kansas City does have an alarm ordinance, Chapter 50 - Article X for those scoring at home, but it doesn't have any teeth. It gives the Board of Police Commissioners the power to set the initial alarm registration fee, and sets protections for citizens with disabilities or financial restraints, but it does nothing to fine those who use a disproportionate amount of police resources. A quick Google search on false alarm ordinances reveals that a lot of communities have the same statistics, but are much more aggressive in recovering the costs. There are ordinances that not only fine the offender as the false alarms occur, but have a graduated scale, in some cases fining as much as $500 per occurrence after multiple offenses. This seems only fair. Why should the rest of us pay for a small minority of people who can't figure out how to run an alarm system? Perhaps the council would have been made aware of all this if its one representative on the Board of Police Commissioners, the mayor had been present at the April 28th meeting where all this was discussed. Perhaps they would be discussing a simple ordinance change that would alleviate some financial burden on the KCPD and put it squarely on the people unnecessarily using extra police resources. They might be, if the mayor hadn't missed the meeting (one of many he's missed) because he was off sulking in Nebraska while claiming "his vote didn't count".

A Midwesterner’s observations on “San Francisco values”

By Kevin Klinkenberg The Kansas City Post We’ve had some elections around here recently, and even more nationally where people like to express their distaste for “San Francisco values”. God forbid, they suggest, that we allow our area/city to become like San Francisco – it’s such an un-American place, representative of what some groups think of as all that’s wrong in the U.S. Well, allow me as simply one person to differ with that viewpoint. I’ve had the good fortune that my work has taken me to the Bay Area a number of times (including last week), and I’ve also had a couple of short vacations there. Each time I’m there, it amazes me as to how this particular place has become demonized in so much of the national culture. Sure, the housing prices are high, and the traffic is congested. And yes, sometimes the constant drumbeat of everything “green” can get to be a little much. But let’s consider a few things objectively about what the Bay Area and San Francisco has: a dynamic and vibrant urban core; excellent mass transit options in the City and suburbs; two of the best universities in the world; arguably the most entrepreneurial sector in the world; astounding natural beauty that has been lovingly preserved; a temperate climate that supports great agriculture (including some of the best wine in the world) as well as being comfortable to live in. Is it any wonder why so many people want to live in the Bay Area? Today, it swells with over 7 million people, and continues to attract more daily. It fascinates me how critics of high housing costs in the Bay Area seem to always miss this basic fact of supply of demand. Of course it’s expensive to live there – more people want to be there than can be accommodated in a quick/easy/cheap fashion. Is it somehow a problem that Bay Area residents want to protect the natural beauty that is a prime reason for its attractiveness? If we lived there, we’d say – duh, no. So, call me crazy, but if “San Francisco values” means a vibrant city, dynamic economy, excellent transit, world-class universities, a beautiful natural environment and a general “live and let live” attitude toward life than please count me in. Why wouldn’t we want that here in KC or anywhere for that matter? But then, I’m not naive. I recognize that “San Francisco values” is code for “they have lots of gay people” and that somehow we should be scared. After all – if we live that way we might just all turn gay! Our kids might all turn gay! The horror! Fear is no doubt a powerful emotion, and political consultants have used it to great effect over the last couple of decades. And, it still works. But if we look beyond the tactics and to the actual truth, we might learn something. In this case, we might learn that a place like the Bay Area actually holds many clues as to what it takes to be a competitive, successful region in the 21st century.

Funkhouser: This Recall Looks Real

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post "It's political." That was the accusation former councilman George Blackwood made about the Funkhouser Recall movement on Steve Kraske's "Up To Date" program on KCUR yesterday. Of course it's political. By definition the recall of an elected official is always "political". Aside from Steve Kraske's usual lack of followup on tough questions and letting both sides meander into answers that had nothing to do with the question, the only thing I garnered from the show was that the leadership of the recall is a ragtag group of disillusioned former Funkhouser supporters and George Blackwood wants desperately to keep his international trade connections intact. There really wasn't any new information. I think the deciding factor for me was when Kraske asked George Blackwood, aside from himself, who are the community leaders, the big names if you will, coming out in opposition to the recall. Mr. Blackwood regressed into a story about attending law school "a hundred years ago" and his nostalgia for some obscure legal filing that made sense before the advent of electricity. So I was left to infer from Blackwood's evasiveness that he is the only "name" coming out in full support of the Mayor. Kraske, as usual, did not press for an answer to his question. Later that afternoon, I finally saw a recall petitioner outside the Brookside Market after Kraske’s show aired. He was wearing a bright yellow "Recall Mayor Funkhouser" t-shirt leaving now doubt as to what you were being asked to sign. Contrary to some reports about uninformed or possibly paid petition gatherers, this man identified himself as a former Funkhouser supporter. He seemed genuinely saddened that he, like myself had no idea the utter lack of disrespect Funkhouser seems to have for our city. So I signed the petition, we exchanged pleasantries, shared our mutual sorrow at the complete failure of the public trust originating from the 29th floor of City Hall (or more accurately from West 57th Terrace) and then parted ways. From my brief encounter I am starting to believe that the recall is very real and very possible. Rather than dismissing the same "regular folks" that Mark Funkhouser likes to evoke, perhaps he should begin to take this movement very seriously. It seems the "regular folks" are the ones holding the clipboards. We may very well be voting for mayor this summer. Start researching your candidates now.