© 2024 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Prop A Win Sets Up Divisive Election in KC

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-932771.mp3

Kansas City, MO – Council and mayoral elections are in March, and a vote on maintain the earnings tax will follow about 2 weeks after. That means the newly elected mayor and council will be campaigning for the tax right away While it's not clear who will be taking the message to the voters, Councilman Ed Ford says it is pretty clear what they'll be saying.

"I think the message is simple", said Ford. "If you want city services at any sort of comparative level to what we've had, and you don't want to pay more real estate tax, you don't want to pay more sales tax, then you need to support the e-tax."

Ford says the only people who would benefit from repealing the earnings tax are those who work in Kansas City, but live elsewhere . people not eligible to vote on the tax. The tax must be renewed every five years, so Kansas City residents will be asked to vote for their self interest, against that of their suburban co-workers twice a decade.

I’ve been at KCUR almost 30 years, working partly for NPR and splitting my time between local and national reporting. I work to bring extra attention to people in the Midwest, my home state of Kansas and of course Kansas City. What I love about this job is having a license to talk to interesting people and then crafting radio stories around their voices. It’s a big responsibility to uphold the truth of those stories while condensing them for lots of other people listening to the radio, and I take it seriously. Email me at frank@kcur.org or find me on Twitter @FrankNewsman.
KCUR serves the Kansas City region with breaking news and award-winning podcasts.
Your donation helps keep nonprofit journalism free and available for everyone.