Money Changes Everything

By early February, Barnes' scheme had been typed up, photocopied and passed out to the lawmakers of Jefferson City. Kansas City leaders tingled at the thought of state money flowing west down I-70.

But they wanted to be ready for it.

They thought Barnes' bill would require cities to pony up matching funds to get the big state money. "You've got to have the money there," councilwoman Nace says, explaining why she signed Rowland's letter urging $30 million for downtown. "At that point, there was no money in the budget to leverage those matching funds we thought were going to pass."

This was exactly what the CIC report had warned against just five years ago. Only this time it was worse -- these state matching funds didn't even exist.

Rowland's "stroke of genius" had worked. The debate over what to do with the money had begun.

"As soon as people found out there was money floating around out there, we got really popular," says Evert Asjes, who chairs the city council's Finance and Audit Committee, the public site of the scramble for scratch.

The business elite wanted some of it. The Parks Board lunged for the kitty, too, because it had suffered a few six-figure cuts. A group of citizens argued that a chunk of the money should fix the streets.

"It all became a money-grab, just a bald-faced money-grab," says Councilman Danaher. "Frankly, it's become, if you ask me, it's a campaign platform for Kay Barnes."

Odd criticism from Danaher, considering he'd helped fire the first shot for downtown by signing Rowland's letter. ("It was a compromise," he explains. "One of several in that letter.")

But downtown wasn't the first thing Barnes had thought of when she heard about the money. Early on, she had wanted to stick to the game plan -- she'd wanted to obey the "guiding principles" named in the CIC report.

On the same day that Rowland's gang of six sent the "genius" letter, Barnes had started trying to get the bond question on the August ballot. She drafted a resolution to spend the money on the city's massive list of unfinished chores.

A week later, she wrote a letter to fellow council members: "I recommend that the total proceeds of this election be used to fund the City's commitment to the Citizens Infrastructure Committee (CIC) recommendations and the Public Improvements Advisory Committee (PIAC) program."

Later, at an early May meeting of the Finance and Audit Committee, Barnes went head-to-head with Rowland.

Rowland, who folks are betting will challenge Barnes for mayor next year, said the bond issue presented an opportunity for "leadership." He argued that it could help them get those matching state funds that didn't (and still don't) exist. Barring that, he argued that money spent downtown would pay more dividends than, say, 4,000 miles of sidewalks and curbs.

He talked about the Freight House District just north of Union Station, where Kansas City lost thousands of potential tax dollars last year because a long-promised parking garage had never been built. Last December, Midland Loan Services announced it would be taking its 450 employees out of downtown to new offices in Overland Park. The company had considered moving into the wide brick Stuart Hall Building that anchors the Freight House District, rising high over the train tracks and proudly displaying its antique signage. The building offered awesome views that swept from Penn Valley Park across Crown Center to the Western Auto building but nowhere for employees to stash their Achievas and Maximas -- even though the city's TIF plan was supposed to have built a parking garage in the area years ago.

"The city needs investment in downtown now," Rowland declared.

"There have been creative ideas discussed, and I think that's terrific," Barnes sunnily said. But she was concerned how all of this would sell at neighborhood polling places. She reminded everyone that the bond issue needed 57 percent of the votes to pass. She argued -- more timidly than in her letter -- that the city should stick with what people know and trust: the PIAC process.

She offered a compromise: Direct the PIAC members to devote 15 percent of the money to downtown projects. They'd done that before, in 1998 -- more than $10 million for downtown without so much as a yelp from the neighborhoods. Barnes said this approach could mean more for downtown in the long run -- instead of blowing its meager cache of political capital with the masses in one $35 million ballot-box showdown, downtown could quietly spoon 10 or 15 percent out of the community kettle for God knows how long.

Asjes closed the meeting by saying he wanted the business elite -- "the Civic Council, the Downtown Council, the Chamber [of Commerce]" -- to show up and officially say what they thought should be done with the money.

"Because those are the key groups in this deal," he explained, "and I think they need to participate in the process. I don't know how to get them over here other than to make a heartfelt appeal. Because the last time, I forget what the issue was, but they were standing down on the 24th floor handing out position papers to the council as we were coming up to the business session on the 29th floor. And I think we can have better participation than that," Asjes said.