Kansas City’s Secret Streetcar Plan

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

American Public Square hosted a panel discussion at the Kansas City Public Library on January 20, and I was privileged to be included. No new new ground was broken: streetcars remain very expensive investments that do not effectively or efficiently move people where they want to go; and they certainly do not themselves contribute to economic development.

What was remarkable about the discussion is what was not said. Specifically, the representative of the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance, funded with taxpayer dollars, refuses to share its plans for a streetcar expansion campaign. Below is a transcript of the segment in which I repeatedly ask if KCTRA will make it's presentations public. You can see it thanks to a short, low quality Periscope video here (transcript starts at 1:53). 

Patrick Tuohey (Show-Me Institute): Your organization has made presentations on next steps, correct?

Dave Johnson (KCRTA): We’re talking to all kinds of people about things that are possible, especially using the transportation development district.

SMI: Will you share those plans publicly?

KCRTA: We’re talking to people about the Main Street corridor. That shouldn't be a surprise to anybody.

SMI: So the presentation you made the Downtown Council, will you share that?

KCRTA: That is a presentation that just talks about extending the streetcar to UMKC. That’s what I’m telling you right now. Theres no secret.

SMI: …So the answer is yes, you’ll share it with us?

KCRTA: It’s got a lot of boring financials.

SMI: I would love to see the boring financials.

KCRTA: It’s the same financials you voted on in the expansion plan in 2014.

SMI: Do you commit to sharing the presentation you made the Downtown Council public?

KCRTA: We’re a simple non-profit so we don’t have to share that information.

SMI: I’m not saying that you have to share it with the public, I’m asking. Will you share that plan publicly?

KCRTA: No.

The KCRTA is funded with taxpayer dollars. Regardless of whether they are subject to disclosure laws, the KCRTA should immediately share with the public how they have been spending public money and what presentations they have about next steps. If they do not, the Mayor and City Council should demand they do so, or withhold all future contributions. Good public policy requires nothing less than complete transparency.

 

Downtown Saint Louis Restaurants: Coming or Going?

Posted on by Joseph Miller

With the recent closure of a number of downtown establishments (the most recent being Mike Shannon’s), local media are considering Saint Louis’s restaurant scene, especially in the city’s central business district (CBD). Some local politicians and restaurateurs are pointing the finger at Ballpark Village, accusing it of taking business and putting the nail in the coffin of local bars and restaurants. The Post-Dispatch interviewed other restaurateurs who took a more circumspect tone, claiming restaurant industry growth is strong and blaming closures on changing tastes. But what do the data show?

In terms of the current state of restaurants downtown, it is hard to get enough information to move beyond anecdote. But if we analyze the latest census data for three zip codes containing downtown and west downtown (63101, 63102, and 63103), we can glean some knowledge about the state of downtown dining in the recent past and its trend over time. The data show that from 2000 to 2013, total full-service restaurants in the three zip codes above increased by 21 establishments (a 34% improvement). The added restaurants employed more people, too. In 2000, only 29 restaurants had more than 20 employees. By 2013, 52 did. So there were not only more restaurants, but they were larger.

Unfortunately, it was not all good news. The vast majority of restaurant additions were in the 63103 zip code, which not only contains West Downtown, but also much of Midtown, the SLU Campus, and Grand Center. If we just look at the heart of downtown and the area around Busch Stadium (63101 and 63102) there were barely any more full service restaurants in 2013 than there were in 2000:

Taking a look at the city as a whole, the zip codes containing just the downtown neighborhood performed poorly when compared to other parts of the central corridor as well as areas in the South Saint Louis City. Some areas of the city lost restaurants during the same period, but this only took place in depressed areas of North City.  

Looking at everything together, it seems clear that the city as a whole added restaurants from 2000 to 2013, but progress was spotty. Some areas were contracting, others were expanding, and still others were treading water. The situation may have changed in 2014 and 2015, but we will leave that to future analysis. Just looking at the latest available census data, the downtown neighborhood was in the treading-water category. 

Course Access for Missouri Students

Posted on by Brittany Wagner

A high-school diploma is widely considered to be the most fundamental requirement for admission to college or a chance at a good job. And so it should be—but what’s behind that diploma matters, too. Statistics from ACT show that only 30 percent of the class of 2015 scored "college ready" in all four tested subjects. Much of the problem appears to be a gap between the coursework these students complete to earn their high-school diplomas and the work required for their college classes. Here Missouri faces a problem that doesn’t afflict more densely populated states: we have many small, rural school districts that don’t have the means to offer advanced math and science courses for college-bound students—or cutting-edge career or technical education classes for students who want to enter the workforce immediately after graduating—especially if relatively few students are interested in taking them.

We can’t do a lot about our state’s geography, but neither can we accept limitations on the educational options available to students in smaller school districts. We need a way to bring advanced-level coursework to every Missouri student who wants it. An innovative program called course access offers a possible solution to this problem, and it’s the topic of an essay by the Show-Me Institute’s Brittany Wagner and Michael McShane. To find out more, click on the link below and read the essay.

 

Dodging the Stadium Bullet

Posted on by Rik W. Hafer

Think of those times when you ignored your parents’ warnings about some behavior (smoking, staying out too late, etc.) because, well, it came from your parents. But when the same admonitions came from someone else, you heeded their advice.  This is one of those times.

Show-Me Institute analysts have written at length about the now-failed Rams stadium deal.  (A recent post by Joseph Miller takes a look back at the whole ugly process.) The bottom line is that the proposed billion-dollar deal simply never made fiscal sense for the city or the state.  Keeping the Rams in Saint Louis would have been a winner’s curse.  Even so, until the last minute, ardent Rams supporters and many public officials dismissed this position: such arguments simply were against the public good.

So along comes Joe Nocera, a highly-regarded columnist for the New York Times.  Consider him one of the “other” adults in the room.  The title of his recent article says it all:  “In Losing the Rams, St. Louis Wins.”

The gist of Nocera’s argument aligns closely with the analysis and advice proposed in past Show-Me writings (and by others as well).  Here’s a small, though representative, sampling:

“But the economics underpinning the recent deal St. Louis and the State of Missouri tried to put together to keep the Rams would have been financially ruinous…[St. Louis] simply couldn’t afford to help finance the $1 billion stadium.”

“The contortions St. Louis and the State of Missouri put themselves through to keep the Rams would be comical if they weren’t so sad.”

And in response to a prominent St. Louis political leader’s post-announcement blog post that he now has “no real interest in the NFL,” Nocera intones “Better late than never.”

Next time public officials start a campaign to throw public money at a billionaire’s pet project in the name of the public good, just remember what Mr. Nocera said.

Rams Move Exposes Broken Policymaking Process in Saint Louis

Posted on by Joseph Miller

Think back to December, 2014, not long after the tragic events in Ferguson. Everyone had an opinion about what was wrong with the Saint Louis area, what could turn the city around, and where to invest. Who thought that our biggest problem was whether or not we had enough sports teams? Did anyone suggest that our first priority, both politically and fiscally, should be an improved NFL facility? Of course not. Still, any objective observer would have to conclude that the push to build a new stadium was the regional leadership’s main focus in 2015.

Consider what that focus, mostly from the Governor’s and Mayor’s offices, accomplished. The plan to spend some $400 million on another stadium in downtown Saint Louis faced significant opposition. Most state legislators were not in favor of state support for the plan. Both the city and county had ordinances requiring votes before public money could be used on a stadium, and the public’s support was anything but guaranteed. The Saint Louis City Board of Aldermen was divided.

But that didn’t stop the committed leadership. The governor and the RSA moved to unilaterally extend state support, cutting out the antagonistic legislature. The RSA sued the city and succeeded in getting the ordinance requiring a public vote struck down. When the county executive said they’d have a vote with or without an ordinance, the Governor’s stadium task force dropped Saint Louis County out of the funding scheme. After lengthy negotiations, the Saint Louis City Board of Aldermen signed off on the stadium financing plan.

The only obstacle stadium backers did not overcome was the resolve of Rams’ ownership to move the team, which was ultimately decisive. If Saint Louis’s regional leadership had had their way, taxpayers would be handing hundreds of millions of dollars to Stan Kroenke. The only thing that saved Saint Louis residents from making a terrible investment of public dollars were the votes of thirty NFL team owners.

The “accomplishments” of the stadium task force expose what’s broken in Saint Louis regional governance. Common-sense reforms, like simplifying the city’s business code, languish in the Board of Aldermen. The sewer system is so out of date that city streets have a habit of collapsing. Fire and police departments are so broke they are using duct tape to fix equipment. No one has answers for a continuing lack of safety throughout the metropolitan area. With these problems, there is little will to push through change, and there is never enough money.

But when the NFL might leave town, suddenly regional leaders found $400 million between the seat cushions for yet another big-bang development project. And the political will was there too, no matter how the public felt about it—and regardless of the sad history of similar projects in the city, and all the economic evidence saying it was a bad idea. That’s how the region’s policymaking process played out, with misplaced priorities and half-hearted respect for the democratic process. With that kind of leadership, is it any wonder Saint Louis has a lagging economy?

Empowerment Scholarship Accounts: How Parents Could Spend Funds

Posted on by Brittany Wagner

Recently, I wrote about a proposed law that could expand educational opportunities for students with disabilities. The Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program would allow parents who have children with disabilities to customize their child’s learning.

Five states have adopted ESA programs, and more than 7,000 students currently have access to ESAs in Arizona, Florida, and Mississippi. Similar to the programs in other states, Missouri’s program would allow parents to spend ESA funds on services like private school tuition, tutoring, online courses, textbooks, curriculum, and education therapies. The graphic above shows how parents wanting to customize a kindergarten year for a child with autism might choose to spend the ESA funds that would be available to them under the proposed program.

A parent might spend $150 on registration and application fees, $5,000 on a year’s worth of tuition, and $1,000 on therapies, namely behavioral interventions, or arts classes geared toward children with disabilities. In this case, that would leave $658 in the account. When the child graduated from high school, the $658 plus other accrued funds could be directed toward college or other post-secondary programs.

In our current public school system, parents must fight to access the educational services that fit their child’s needs. Organizations like Missouri Special Education Advocates and MPACT provide advocacy and parent training services that help children reach their full potential in the traditional public school system. An ESA program turns a system where parents must fight for a limited number of services into a child-centered system where services reflect a child’s unique abilities.

The Demolition Option in Kansas City

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey
Kansas City Policy Police Chief Darryl Forté has an idea. According to The Star, Forté has suggested “reallocating some money earmarked for hiring extra police officers toward demolishing abandoned properties in crime-ridden neighborhoods.” Large scale demolition is not a new or controversial idea. The same day the Star reported this, Bloomberg Business published a piece about other cities that are spending money to tear things down. In it, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan said he would spend $75 million to tear down 4,000 vacant houses. “Fixing what is broken in Baltimore requires that we address the sea of abandoned, dilapidated buildings that are infecting entire neighborhoods,” he said.
 
Back in Kansas City, Councilwoman Alissia Canady agrees,
 
“That is a great indication of [Forté’s] understanding of what the real underlying issues are with crime, and to the extent he can minimize the areas where criminals like to take over,” said Canady, who is chairwoman of the council’s Neighborhoods and Public Safety Committee. “Most of the violent crimes occur in these blighted areas.”
 
The blight isn’t due to absentee landlords, either. If you visit the website for the Kansas City Land Bank, you will see that the owner of the most blighted land in Kansas City is… Kansas City. The City does a poor job of maintaining the properties, from cutting the grass to removing trash and eventually tearing them down. As a result, the neighbors suffer the consequences of City neglect, which include not just crime and declining home values, but also health. City Manager Troy Schulte says, “the city had 875 dangerous buildings on its list and estimated it would take $10 million to eliminate them.” 

It would be a shame if this money came from the police department amidst a spike in Kansas City murders. Where else could we find the money?

  • Perhaps the city could sell the land it is considering using for the convention hotel. After all, that is city-owned land that is also blighted. And according to The Star, it’s worth $13 million. The Pitch says $4.5 million. Either way its a good start. And the city likely owns all sorts of valuable land that it is doing nothing with.
  • The city could halt its awful idea to spend $12 million in taxpayer funds to tear down and rebuild a grocery store within 3 miles of at least two other grocery stores.
  • Schulte is under order from the Council to find $18 million for the so-called Jazz District. Maybe tearing down “dangerous” buildings is more important.
  • We could stop the streetcar project altogether on the grounds that protecting the health and well-being of thousands of families on the east side is more important than a 2.2 mile streetcar to nowhere.

 

MO Money, MO Problems for MoDOT Funding

Posted on by Joseph Miller

MoDOT’s funding future is certainly looking brighter these days. The department’s user-funding base is, at long last, providing more revenue. Since 2013, motor vehicle sales tax revenue increased by more than 10% and license fee revenue is up by 2.6%. Even state fuel tax revenue, which many feared was entering terminal decline, is on the upswing. In the last year, MoDOT’s highway user revenues increased by a total of $27 million. For all this we can probably thank a better economy and lower fuel prices (an average price of $1.66 per regular gallon as of 1/11/2016). Fears of an imminent funding crisis have, for now, subsided. As an added bonus, the federal government passed the FAST Act late last year, opening up the possibility of increased federal funding for MoDOT.

However, in an ironic twist, the increased federal support promised under the FAST Act could once again put Missouri in a bind. As we’ve discussed before, the federal government gives highway funding to states in the form of individual project grants, not as a lump sum. This means that for MoDOT to get federal money for highways, it needs to spend state money. Thus, increased federal support through the FAST Act requires increased state spending.

Back in early 2014, MoDOT officials predicted decreased federal support (of 19% in 2016), not a steady increase, as is now expected (see the chart above). While a decrease in federal dollars was feared, it also meant less revenue would be needed to maintain state matching funds. Even so, MoDOT officials at the time predicted they would not have the funds necessary by 2020.

With more federal funding available, MoDOT’s situation today is similar to that in in 2014—left wondering whether it will be able to match all federal dollars in the coming years. The key difference is that in 2014, the loss in federal funds would have meant the MoDOT would not have had the funds to maintain the state highway system. Now, it would mean the state was not taking advantage of all federal funding that will become available (which would then be redistributed to other states). Better problem.

Furthermore, as we’ve stated before, nearly all major highway projects receive a $4 to $1 federal to local match, meaning that it does not take much increased state revenue to match significant federal dollars. For example, the dollar gap between pre– and post–FAST Act projections should reach $305 million by 2020. MoDOT would need to spend $76 million in additional state-based revenue to cover that gap.

How will MoDOT cope? The department is already using creative accounting to get federal dollars for projects that were previously ineligible. The state legislature is also looking to shore-up the department’s user-funding base through increased fuel taxes and the possible introduction in tolling. If policymakers can focus on fair and economically sound solutions, Missouri should be able to capitalize on the better funding environment for transportation. 

Regional Leaders Should Keep Their Word over Stadium Plan

Posted on by Joseph Miller

It’s official. The Rams are leaving Saint Louis. Residents might have disagreed over whether to spend public money on a stadium to keep them here, but no one wanted the region to lose an NFL team. However, while a lot of frustration has been directed toward Rams ownership and the NFL, including accusations of broken promises, we should remember that Saint Louis regional and state officials made their own promises over the past year regarding the riverfront stadium plan, and residents should make sure that those promises are kept.

First, after the Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority (RSA) got a judge to throw out the city’s ordinance requiring a vote before public money could go to a stadium, the mayor’s office promised that city officials and the Board of Aldermen would craft a new, legally defensible ordinance in the same spirit. The mayor’s office claimed this couldn’t be done for the riverfront stadium, because time was of the essence. Now the Rams are moving, and there would appear to be plenty of time for ordinance-writing.

Second, at the state level, most legislators were indignant that the governor and the RSA would extend bonds without their approval. Senate leadership threatened to withhold bond payments for a new stadium. They claimed that the RSA was not created with the intent of becoming a permanent stadium-building authority. Now the state legislature has time to close that loophole, assuming that their opposition was more than grandstanding.

Finally, just about every public official and the leadership of the governor’s stadium task force told the public that if there is no commitment from an NFL team, there will not be a stadium. Last time Saint Louis lost a team, the city built a stadium on spec. After failing to land an expansion team, the city and state scrambled to lure an existing team—which turned out to be the Rams—to Saint Louis. To lure them, the region signed the terrible lease that is the cause of our present troubles. Let’s not repeat past mistakes. The RSA has already spent more than $16 million of public money (equivalent to about two years of maintenance on the Dome) planning a stadium (and suing the city) for a Rams organization that was not interested in staying here. It’s not time for the regional leaders to try to buy another football team or build a soccer stadium. It’s time to stop.

The criticism being leveled at the NFL and Stan Kroenke at this moment is understandable. But it is worth remembering that Mr. Kroenke did not attempt to extort money from Saint Louis. He did not ask for a publicly funded stadium. He did not ignore state legislators, cut the county out of the funding scheme, threaten to use eminent domain, or throw out the city’s vote. He did not ask us to grovel. We did it to ourselves. Now it’s time for policymakers to follow through on their promises and make sure this does not happen again. 

Support Us

The work of the Show-Me Institute would not be possible without the generous support of people who are inspired by the vision of liberty and free enterprise. We hope you will join our efforts and become a Show-Me Institute sponsor.

Donate
Man on Horse Charging