The post Kansas City Ordinance 231019 and Housing Vouchers appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Although the ban was removed, strict regulations still exist, as food trucks must be part of a special event, which is a serious obstacle. Special events require a thirty-day notice prior to the date, and if a special event uses more than eight vendors (among other stipulations), then 120 days of notice are required. These rules constrain opportunities for food trucks in Ladue, making the city an occasional stop rather than a hub.

The scale of the food truck industry has skyrocketed in recent years, as the number of businesses has increased from 9,705 in 2012, to 22,474 in 2018, to 35,512 in 2022. Ladue regulations prevent the city from effectively capturing sizeable sales tax revenue, increased options for consumers, and job opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs.

For consumers, food trucks provide on-the-go food options to those on lunch break, on a walk with their children, or hanging out with friends. The increased competition drives down prices and provides increased choices (including niche ones) to consumers.

Permission to more easily operate in Ladue could lead to more permanent businesses in the city. If a food truck found success in Ladue, food truck operators may decide to establish traditional brick-and-mortar locations in the city. This isn’t just hypothetical—food trucks have turned into traditional restaurants elsewhere in St. Louis.

Most anxieties about food trucks are unfounded. If concerns exist regarding restaurant surplus, increased competition helps create a more efficient economy. If policymakers fear exacerbating the labor shortage in restaurants, the average food truck business has 1.2 employees. Whatever the worry may be, food trucks should not be strictly limited to special events, and Ladue would benefit from food trucks being able to fully and freely operate within its borders.

The post Ladue Food Trucks Have Started Rolling—Now We Need to Step on the Gas appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But that is not good enough for certain Missouri cities that won’t be content until we are all forced onto the dole.

Maplewood is the latest city to consider passing a “source-of-income” law compelling landlords who operate in that city to accept Section 8 housing vouchers as payment. It would be illegal to decline to rent to people in the program, even though it is a federal program and federal law allows landlords to choose to participate or not. The City of St. Louis, Clayton, and Webster Groves are the three cities in Missouri that currently have these laws. Kansas City has considered it, but thankfully not passed it.

Cities cannot, and should not, be able to tell doctors within their boundaries that they must take Medicaid patients. Cities should not be able to force grocery stores to take food stamps. Clearly, most grocery stores choose to, just like many landlords choose to participate in the Section 8 program, and many doctors and hospitals serve Medicaid patients. I can’t find any examples in Missouri of cities that compel food stamp acceptance, but feel free to share with me if there are (so I can go oppose it). For food stamps, the debate is more about what you can buy with the program, not where you can buy it.

You might — believe it or not — as a landlord, store owner, unemployed person, disabled person, or anything else, choose not to accept a government welfare check or join in a certain program. You have, and should continue to have, that right. Cities with “source-of-income” rules are basically like Marcellus Wallace telling the Harley-Davidson riding, sword-wielding watch-enthusiast/boxer Butch Coolidge what he should do with his sense of pride.

The fact that Marcellus is a mobster just makes the analogy more delicious. These “source-of-income” rules are relatively new to Missouri. But new or not, they are wrong. The state should not compel anyone to participate in a welfare program if they don’t choose to, and this includes landlords. Maplewood should reject this proposal (which has not yet been introduced as a bill). If cities continue to adopt such laws, the state legislature needs to step in and prevent it like they did in Texas.

The post You Will Accept This Welfare Check Whether You Want It or Not appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

                The sections of Springfield’s municipal code that deal with for-hire vehicles (which are likely to encompass Uber) were not written with ridesharing in mind. The code is primarily concerned with the operation of taxis, limousines, and hotel courtesy vehicles, and has no language for companies like Uber. It also envisions an industry consisting of taxi/limo companies (which own and license the vehicles) and drivers (who are hired to contract to drive the vehicles). However, ridesharing companies do not own a set amount of vehicles that they let out to professional drivers; instead, they merely connect potential passengers with people driving their own personal vehicles.

                This means that as things stand, if Uber attempted to open up in Springfield, it would be unclear who had to register the vehicles and how they would be registered. Either option—taxi or limo—would create awkward requirements for part-time drivers, as the code requires that vehicle owners:

1. Maintain a business address with telephone service.
2. Maintain a daily log of all trips.
3. File a balance sheet and income statement prepared by a certified public accountant that shows the “business” has not less than $5,000.00 in liquid assets.

The code also requires that drivers:

1. Follow a dress code (slacks and a collared shirt).
2. Complete first-aid training.
3. Take a physical exam.
4. Present evidence of previous taxi or driving experience.

Additionally, regulations regarding fares would block Uber’s surge pricing practices, an integral part of their business model.

Springfield’s for-hire vehicle regulations were written for a purpose, but times and market realities are changing. States and cities across the country have changed regulations so that Uber and companies like it can operate. This is a chance for Springfield to be proactive and write sensible regulations now, so that its residents will be able to enjoy ridesharing as soon as possible. 

The post Springfield May Be Ready for Uber, But Its Regulations Aren’t appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Those interested in reading the ruling can read it here (http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/a/71/a7116828-ac39-5c13-ab82-0a558fb68353/55bfaef6e79eb.pdf.pdf). I’m no lawyer so I’m not equipped to discuss the merits of the judge’s decision. However, it is interesting that there has been such an effort by the St. Louis Regional Complex and Sports Authority to block (http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-st-louis-nfl-stadium-lawsuit-civic-vote-20150410-story.html) a vote. One wonders why.

Is it because the new stadium cannot be justified economically (https://showmeinstitute.org/sites/default/files/20150323%20-%20Rams%20Testimony%20-%20Miller%20_0.pdf)? Is it because they know that a new stadium won’t lead to downtown redevelopment (https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/corporate-welfare/show-me-now-new-stadium-rams)? Could it be because they know taxpayers won’t see a positive return on the subsidies that would go into stadium construction (https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/local-government/no-post-dispatch-rams-dont-pay-their-way)?

It’s also not like the Authority didn’t have time to get this issue on the ballot. The stadium taskforce unveiled their plans in January (https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/transparency/thoughts-latest-rams-press-conference. If the April ballot was too soon they could have gotten it on the August ballot (i.e. today’s ballot). What was holding them up?

Whatever the Authority’s reasons might be, it got its wish. The project can move ahead without a public vote. That doesn’t make this project a good idea though, at least economically speaking. Hopefully, policymakers will come to realize that.

The post Why NOT let the public vote? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The ordinance in question is Chapter 3.91 of the Revised Code of the City, which requires a vote on any public assistance for a professional sports stadium. Assistance is defined as:

. . . any City assistance of value, direct or indirect, whether or not channeled through an intermediary entity, including, but not limited to, tax reduction, exemption, credit, or guarantee against or deferral of increase; dedication of tax or other revenues; tax increment financing; issuance, authorization, or guarantee of bonds; purchase or procurement of land or site preparation; loans or loan guarantees; sale or donation or loan of any City resource or service; deferral, payment, assumption or guarantee of obligations, and all other forms of assistance of value.

Banning both direct and indirect assistance may seem broad, but cities too often spend large amounts of public dollars planning, and then publicizing, controversial projects. For example, Kansas City spent almost $2 million planning a streetcar expansion that was ultimately defeated at the ballot box.

Far from being vague and overly cautious, the ordinance’s language seems prescient, as the RSA plans to use just about everything the ordinance describes as assistance, including:

1. Extension of the $6 million annual bonds that currently fund the Edward Jones Dome. How the dome, which is in need of expensive rehab regardless of what happens with the Rams, will be funded is anyone’s guess.
2. Providing land, which presumably would be bought with public dollars. This would include the Bottle District, which is currently owned by Paul McKee’s Northside Redevelopment Project, to be redeveloped as a parking lot.
3. Transportation Development Districts and Community Improvement Districts. These districts, of indeterminate size, would levy additional sales or property taxes. The larger the size of the district, the greater the revenue.
4. Tax Increment Financing. Sales taxes, earnings taxes, and utility taxes that would otherwise have gone back to the city to fund regular services would instead pay for the new stadium.

It seems obvious the situation here is not that of a badly written ordinance restricting reasonable city planning, but rather an ordinance that blocks, and was designed to block, exactly what the RSA is trying to do: get city dollars for a stadium, no matter the source, without a public vote.

The post Stadium Planners Move to Block City Vote appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Uber, a transportation network company (TNC), is disrupting over-regulated taxi markets across the country, including Missouri. By using an app to connect passengers with drivers operating personal vehicles, Uber and TNCs like it have the potential to vastly increase the quantity and quality of affordable taxi service. Unfortunately, these business models run afoul of municipal taxicab regulations and entrenched cab industry opposition. Saint Louis and Kansas City have invoked Byzantine, competition-restraining regulations to restrain TNCs like Uber and Lyft.

Columbia’s for-hire vehicle regulations are not as onerous as those in Saint Louis or Kansas City. However, they might be just burdensome enough to make Uber’s entry difficult, if not impossible (especially if city officials are opposed to Uber). The city’s regulations are written to deal with taxis, limousines, and buses, not TNCs.

Based on the plain language of these ordinances, it is unclear which sections of Columbia’s city code would govern Uber. If Columbia officials classify Uber as a taxi service, the company would be required to have a phone dispatching service, taxi meters, vehicle color schemes, and a taxi light on top of every car. This would make Uber’s business model, which uses dynamic pricing (without meters) and utilizes its drivers’ private vehicles, noncompliant with existing regulations.

Likewise, Uber’s business model also would be impossible under Columbia’s limousine regulations, which require a limousine to charge a fixed fare from the airport or an hourly rate (with a charge of no less than one hour) for intra-city service.

Uber could fall into a nebulous “vehicle for-hire” regulatory category, which might allow the company to avoid the regulations listed above. However, Columbia does not appear to offer any type of business license for general livery service, so that needs clarification.

Columbia officials should consider altering their regulations, as other states have, so TNCs like Uber can provide service to city residents. Better yet, Columbia could reduce regulations so that those (be they Uber, Lyft, or other drivers) who pass background checks, pass vehicle inspections, and purchase proper insurance can offer Columbia residents a ride.

The post Will Regulations Keep Uber Out of Columbia? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Ordinances that limit market entry:

• Section 76-43 prohibits jitneys (private vehicles operating fixed routes within the city).
• 76-73 (a). Caps taxi permits to 500.
• 76-73 (b). All new applicants to operate taxicabs must permit at least 10 vehicles.
• 76-75: Cab and livery vehicle owners must pay $300 per year for every permitted vehicle (in addition to a $50 application fee, driver’s fees, and inspections fees).
• 76-191 Holder of taxicab permits have to provide on demand service 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• 76-191 (b). All taxicab companies must maintain a non-residential place of business that is staffed 24 hours a day.
• 76-212 Taxis cannot be more than eight years old and must have a luggage capacity of 15 cubic feet or greater.

Ordinances that set prices and reduce competition:

• 76-192 (a) requires all taxis to use a meter.
• Section 76-43 prohibits jitneys (private vehicles operating fixed routes within the city).
• 76-192 (b) sets fares for meters.
• 76-236 Livery vehicles cannot solicit passengers on any public way or airport or cruise in search of patronage. They cannot park for any time longer than picking up passengers and cannot accept any fare that has not been previously arranged.

Ordinances that are ridiculous, needless, and/or outdated:

• 76-203 Taxi drivers cannot sleep in their vehicles or play loud music.
• 76-203 (1) Taxi drivers cannot wear jogging suits or shorts from October 1 to April 30.
• 76-207 All taxis are required to have at all times detailed street map.
• 76-210 Taxicabs must have a top light visible from all directions.
• 76-210 Taxis must have the company name of vehicle written in letters not less than two inches or more than six inches in height.

These are just a few of the many questionable regulations that have nothing to do with customer safety and everything to do with controlling the market and reducing competition for large taxi companies. Needless to say, transportation options in Kansas City would greatly improve if these and other sections of the taxicab code were repealed.

The post Useless Taxi Regulation In Kansas City appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Columbia’s Downtown Community Improvement District (CID) hopes to update a city ordinance to allow food trucks on downtown streets. CID board members, restaurant owners, and food truck representatives worked together to find a solution that should please all parties.

Hopefully regulations will not look like the 75 pages of food truck rules that the Council of Washington, D.C., recently introduced. Several food trucks staged a protest a few days before the Council hearing (short video here). Trucks parked at their normal lunch spots, but refused to open for business during the lunch rush. These trucks wanted to show what lunch would be like in their absence if the city imposed overly burdensome regulations on the trucks.

Columbia’s food truck business, on the other hand, is only just beginning. The city has two food trucks operating right now, Pepe’s and Sunflower Waffle Co. But the CID is smart in thinking ahead, looking to prevent issues before a problem starts. The CID board members, restaurant owners, and food truck  representatives all agreed on certain public areas that would be best suited to food truck occupancy.

While it is helpful that varying interests are working together, the city can best encourage food truck business by imposing as few regulations as possible. Excessive rules or fees would deter entrepreneurs from starting up new food trucks. Confining the mobile vendors to specific areas of the city may help keep restaurant owners from complaining, but it also may limit the success of food trucks, if they can’t freely go where customers want them.

The post Columbia Could Pave The Way For Food Trucks appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Kansas City Star’s editorial board wrote recently that the city should deal with vacant houses and buildings more aggressively, by putting vacant properties that are deemed a nuisance into new hands (“To protect neighborhoods, KC must enforce law on vacant properties,” Sept. 22). By turning to such extreme measures, the city runs the risk of implementing a policy that will push people out of their homes or deprive them of their property so that others of the government’s choosing can take over. In Montgomery, Ala., a city with a similar policy, property owners found their homes bulldozed. In one instance, a construction site was razed.

The Kansas City ordinance in question is designed to deal with a large number of vacant properties in the city, and it leaves a great deal of discretion in the hands of city’s Neighborhood and Community Services Department. Under this law, the department is responsible for recommending properties to take over, and can even suggest a new city-appointed caretaker. The department effectively has the power to take property from one person and give it to someone else.

Awarding this power to the department will enable special interests to mold the process in their favor. The law could be manipulated in a number of ways, starting with the definition of vacancy. This “vacant” property law specifically notes, for example, that apartment buildings with five or more units can be considered vacant if a majority of the units are unoccupied — meaning that a building may be deemed vacant despite having residents. This strange definition of vacancy means that apartment residents can be caught up in the process and find themselves without a home.

Furthermore, the structure of the ordinance lends itself to selective enforcement. It is inconceivable that the department has the time to file the necessary paperwork to transfer ownership of all vacant properties in Kansas City. Instead, it is likely that the department will start to enforce this ordinance against properties that are particularly desirable to well-connected developers. Despite the requirement that the city notify property owners at least 60 days before beginning the taking process, property owners may not receive notice of the impending confiscation — a common oversight in Montgomery.

Finally, it’s not guaranteed that that the city will be successful in transferring property to owners that are more responsible. The ordinance only guarantees that someone will attempt to match properties with “better” owners. No person is so omniscient that she can predict accurately who will be a better, more successful property owner. Similar attempts to predict future success have resulted in both a vacant property logjam and unused luxury office space in the city of Saint Louis.

There are good ways to fight vacancy. Taking on additional power to seize land from private owners isn’t one of them.

Audrey Spalding is the public information specialist for the Show-Me Institute, a Missouri-based think tank.

The post Blighting and Taking Private Property Not the Right Fix for Vacancies appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The text of the proposed ordinance anticipates concerns about sanitation and possible nuisances, and it includes regulations to prevent problems. I hope that those clauses satisfy the critics. Cities like Columbia should not allow anyone to pack unsanitary numbers of poultry into city plots, but residents who raise a few hens in their backyards without harming their neighbors should be left alone.

If you’d like to learn more about urban chickens in Columbia, supporters have created a blog and a series of YouTube videos.

The post Urban Chicken Vote Is Here appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

SAINT LOUIS — Another plaintiff (and set of attorneys) has joined the lawsuit filed against the development company that the city of Saint Louis recently approved for $390.6 million in tax increment financing (TIF) to redevelop 1,500 acres in the city’s north side and in northern portions of downtown.

Dorian Amon, the attorney who filed the initial lawsuit against the development company, NorthSide Regeneration LLC, argued that the city’s development agreement with NorthSide was invalid because the city failed to investigate the project’s financing thoroughly.

The attorneys representing the new plaintiff are arguing for the same ruling, but for different reasons. Some of the allegations made in the motion to intervene filed by attorneys Eric Vickers, W. Bevis Schock, and James W. Schottle, Jr., were:

• The blighting of the properties in the redevelopment area was “unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious,” because the city didn’t conduct an independent study to determine whether the redevelopment area should be blighted.
• The city blighted the area in “bad faith” because it didn’t seek out alternative development proposals, and because the city misled the public and plaintiffs about “the power of eminent domain provided NorthSide under the Ordinance.”
• The city failed to show that the area hasn’t had recent growth and development.

You can read the pleadings submitted by Vickers, Schock, and Schottle here.

On Wednesday, circuit court Judge Robert Dierker granted the new plaintiff’s motion to intervene, and set a hearing for 11 a.m. on Feb. 16 to hear the new arguments against the city ordinance.

Dierker is expected to decide soon whether to grant Amon’s request for a temporary injunction, which would stop the development for a short period of time. At the February hearing, Dierker will consider whether to grant a permanent injunction.

Full disclosure: W. Bevis Schock, one of the intervening attorneys in the case, also serves as the secretary of the Show-Me Institute’s Board of Directors. Schock is involved in the case through his private legal practice, not through his capacity as an institute board member.

Correction: According to city records, the Feb. 16 hearing was rescheduled for 11 a.m.

The post New Plaintiff Joins NorthSide Case appeared first on Show-Me Institute.