Jeff Vaught, Shawnee Council Member from Ward 3 had some email comments about my posts regarding the CID for 10 Quivira Plaza. It's only fair that I post his comments here, along with my response.
From: Jeff Vaught
To: Ray Erlichman
Sent: Tue 7/6/2010 4:55PM
Subject: RE: Sunday morning update - Sticking it to one part of the community
Ray,
I have a difficult time responding to your comments because you seem to be all over the board in your political philosophy. One of my main campaign points was increasing development and improving the development climate in Shawnee. For too long the attitude has been that Shawnee is not pro development so we tend to lose projects to other cities. This is mostly a holdover from the past when Shawnee aspired to be a “residential community” with little to no emphasis on commercial development. Nice concept, bad idea. Without commercial development and redevelopment, our residential mill levee’s will continue to rise until we are no longer able to compete with other cities for even housing. Residential development puts an extreme demand on city services, from public safety to public works. Shawnee desperately needs an increase in both sales tax revenues and commercial property tax revenues.
That being said, I am not automatically onboard with every incentive that is proposed. If you look back and read the minutes from that meeting, I voiced my concern for the 10 Quivira Plaza CID and said I was struggling with it. My goal as a Councilman is not to blow a developer out of the water at his first appearance in front of the council, but to see if we can come to a win-win agreement that we can get public buy-in on. If you truly want to be a voice for the public and not a bomb thrower, I suggest you listen a little closer and maybe even ask a few questions before you make automatic assumptions. I think it’s great that you care as much as you do, but feeding bad information to the public can be just as destructive as bad Government.
Sincerely,
Jeff Vaught
Shawnee City Council – Ward III
My reply:
From: Ray Erlichman
To: jvaught
Subject: RE: Sunday morning update - Sticking it to one part of the community
Sent: Tue 7/6/2010 6:37PM
Jeff,
In my opinion there should not have been a struggle on your part.
The fact that a certain segment of the community would be paying a higher sales tax for the benefit of a shopping center is wrong.
The fact is that if the collections of that sales tax exceeds the expenditures the city then gets to keep the difference to use as it sees fit. Contributed by one segment of the community.
The concept of the CIDs was to draw additional funds from tourist and/or transit dollars...........not from local community shopping venues.
If you are struggling with whether or not the citizens shopping in a local shopping center, where the primary merchant is a necessity merchant (groceries) should pay a higher sales tax, then sir, it is my belief that you are not concerned with the community. And again, it is one of the more moderate income areas of the city. There should be no struggle here.
A TIF was just approved for the I-435 corridor. That is where the commercial development needs to come in.
Ray
