Debating GO Bond Policy
We were disappointed to learn that Mayor Sly James has turned down an offer to debate the Go bonds issue...
Taxpayers’ General Obligation Bond Gamble
With an $800 million infrastructure bond package likely to go before voters in April, Kansas City Mayor Sly James recently...
Retooling Missouri’s Economic Engines
Dave Helling at The Kansas City Star recently wrote a piece about how Kansas City and St. Louis might fare...
Development Can Happen without Subsidies
It is a sign of how bad the subsidy culture is getting when Kansas City Star reporter Diane Stafford has...
Kansas City’s $800 Million Animal Shelter?
For months Kansas City has been talking about issuing an $800 million general obligation bond, backed by increased taxes, to...
Straight Talk on Kansas City’s Incentive Reform
In 2014, Mayor Sly James said that “Now is the time to start a conversation about the appropriate level of...
What an Honest Economic Development Study in Kansas City Might Conclude
A July piece by Steve Vockrodt for The Kansas City Star talked about the city’s efforts to study the real...
A New Agenda for Cities Must Come from Cities
Recently, Kansas City, Missouri’s mayor, Sly James, wrote in The Hill that America needed a new agenda for cities. No...
Waiting for VanLoh
The last three years of Kansas City aviation policy is much like Samuel Becket’s play, “Waiting for Godot.” We the...
Moving Forward on MCI
Given the significant opposition from the public and likely from members of the City Council, Kansas City Mayor Sly James...
Kansas City’s Tech Inertia
In the State of the City speech in late March, Mayor Sly James outlined his vision for an innovation economy...
Kansas City: Missouri’s Economic Albatross
In January, Kansas City Mayor Sly James testified before the Missouri legislature, saying, It’s a bleak future without the Kansas...
Hail to the Chiefs? City Includes Arrowhead on List of Urban Core Successes
After a recent KCPT documentary on urban neglect made waves across the region, supporters of the earnings tax are eager to counter...
Policy Choices and “Our Divided City”
In a recent documentary, "Our Divided City," KCPT's Michael Price goes to great length to detail the many problems facing Kansas City's...
Kansas City’s Earnings Tax Ignorance
Brace yourself: Kansas City leaders are preparing a campaign to scare you into voting for the earnings tax. On Monday...
Missouri Mayors and the Minimum Wage
Kansas City Mayor Sly James and St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay recently called for a statewide minimum wage increase in...
Minimum Wage Increases Not Effective at Fighting Poverty
Should Kansas City double the minimum wage from $7.50 to $15 an hour? Local politicians all seem to think so....
Convention Hotel Justification Built on Fiction
Kansas City Mayor Sly James has announced an effort, long discussed at City Hall, to subsidize a convention hotel downtown....
Kansas City Repays Money It Says It Cannot Take
About a year ago, on February 13, 2014, Kansas City Mayor Sly James told radio listeners that the city cannot...
Kansas City Airport Effort Still not Transparent
After a year considering the need for a $1.2 billion new terminal at MCI airport, the final report issued on May 30 to...
