1. Well, at the special council meeting Jim Neighbor was appointed as the Ward 1 council person to fill the unexpired term of Cheryl Scott. My opinion on this is pretty well known via my previous posts. Certain members of the council, used, IMHO, some convoluted logic for giving it to him. A good guy, but, again IMHO not the best qualified. See the resumés at http://www.cityofshawnee.org/Meetings/AGENDAS.NSF/vwNews/6990F2D05EC85D9F862577150073D23B/$FILE/84XQXB.pdf My opinion, James O'Connell was the best qualified.
The mayor denied that there was any predetermination as to who would get the position. He must be right, and that means I am just super clairvoyant since I've been saying that no matter what, Neighbor would get it.
2. The public hearing for the CID (with its accompanying 1% sales tax) had various members of the community speaking out against it. No action was taken last night as this was a public hearing only. Council could have killed it completely but they didn't. It's possible that city staff could work it out differently and bring it back.
Five members of the council were pretty specific in saying that they would not vote for it with the 1% sales tax. These were Michelle Distler, Dan Pflumm, Neal Sawyer, David Morris and Mickey Sandifer. If Sandifer doesn't pull a flip-flop that would be enough to stop it. Dawn Kuhn and Jeff Vaught seemed to be leaning towards wanting this. The newly appointed council rep, Jim Neighbor didn't voice any opinion.
Interesting to note that the store director for Price Chopper said that they had no opinion at this time since they had not been consulted and had not had time to review the item.
An article in the February issue of the Journal of the Kansas Bar indicates that these types of financing plans should be for areas that would attract mostly transient shoppers as opposed to local neighborhood centers. The three current CIDs in Kansas are along I-70. One includes a truck stop (Maple Hill) and the other includes a motel (Hays). Common sense says those would have a tendency to derive most of their sales (and the corresponding sales taxes) from transient customers. I am currently trying to determine what is in the third one, though it too is along I-70, in Junction City.
Sidebar:
A resident, while voicing her opinion against the project was also critical of Dawn Kuhn's lengthy comments. After the resident took her seat, Kuhn then went on to explain how her constituents elected her to express those opinions and yada yada yada (ad infinitum). From her seat in the audience the lady said "be concise". Don't think the lady was saying that Kuhn shouldn't voice her opinions, it's just that Kuhn has a habit that if something can be said in 60 seconds she stretches it out to 5 minutes, 10 minutes etc etc. Is Dawn Kuhn a graduate of the old fashioned used car salesman school? You know, the one that goes, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance then baffle them with BS".
