Thursday, Mar. 11 2010 6:55PM
Candidates talk economic development, transportation at Chamber roundtable
Miranda Wycoff, Journal Staff
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ReprintAt the first candidate roundtable held by the Lee’s Summit Chamber of Commerce Wednesday at the Gamber Center, the focus may have been on Lee’s Summit 360 Strategic Plan Key Performance Areas economic development and transportation, but it was difficult to ignore the first barbs traded between mayoral candidates Randy Rhoads and Karen Messerli.
Although during Tuesday’s interviews conducted by the Citizens for Excellence in Lee’s Summit City Government, Rhoads — currently the mayor pro tempore and District 2 council member — said Messerli has missed more than 20 percent of her meetings since 1994, he said it while he was the only other candidate in the room.
On Wednesday he repeated the statement, which seemed to catch Messerli off-guard.
“The residents of Lee’s Summit are being underrepresented both locally and regionally,” Rhoads said in his opening statement.
“I have been there and I will be there,” Messerli said. “Anytime I’ve missed a meeting its been for a compelling reason,” Messerli said in her closing statement Wednesday.
The current mayor, who’s served 16 years, began the night standing in her leopard print high heels while delivering her opening statement, saying it has been a long time since she’s been able to stand in front of her constituents in high heels.
She suffered from a serious injury in June, which caused her to take a leave of absence from her day job and some of her duties as mayor.
Messerli told the audience she prides her self on three things as mayor, being accessible, solving problems and building relationships.
“Being accessible has been more difficult than normal since I suffered from a pretty serious accident,” she said. “But under the hands of the mayor pro tem and the city manager we did not miss a beat.”
Rhoads began the night saying the city is facing new challenges after a long period of growth.
“After we come out of this bad economy I do not think we are going to be back on the growth curb,” he said So instead of new development, Rhoads stressed the importance of redevelopment.
“The city is past the halfway point for remaining developable land and because of this we are now needing to focus on redevelopment and infill development while discouraging urban blight,” he said.
The majority of the candidates echoed Rhoads’ statements.
Running unopposed, as opponent Mark Smith announced his withdrawal from the race last week, District 2 candidate Brian Whitley said he felt the most important priority within the economic development KPA was to make sure Lee’s Summit is development and redevelopment friendly.
“This goal is the lynchpin for all the goals in economic development,” Whitley said.
District 4 candidate Dave Mosby agreed as he held up the city’s 207-page development process handbook.
“This is not development friendly,” he said. “The 360 plan is dead-on. They have it perfect.”
Other candidates cited the priority to bring the development ratio up to 35 percent commercial and 65 percent residential as the most important.
“I think that would really help the burden on the residential (taxpayers),” said Cecily Pickering, who is running against Mosby in District 4.
District 1 candidate Dusty Dahmer took that idea further, suggesting partial property tax abatement as a method on how the city could get to that ratio.
Other topics of the night included the Lee’s Summit Municipal Airport.
Many of the candidates said it is long past time to make a decision on the airport, yet they disagreed with what decision to make.
Incumbent District 1 candidate Kathy Hofmann said that when she first was elected to office she was “all for closing the airport.”
But because of what she learned as a city council member, she said she’s since had to “take a u-turn.”
“We can’t close it,” she said. “So we have to make a decision and if we expand that runway then maybe we can get some money from refueling.”
Mayoral candidate Robert Dye said, “It would be a financial disaster to close the airport.”
But he, on the other hand, would like to see the city maintain it as best as possible, “with minimal city revenue.” He continued saying he fully agrees with concerns on the negative impact bringing jets and larger aircraft to the city would have.
Robert Weeks, candidate for the District 1 seat, offered a different approach.
“Let’s have a plan where we can make a profit with the airport as is,” he said. “And then once we make that profit we can start to expand.”
Small business and job retention was another topic of discussion Wednesday.
District 3 incumbent, Ed Cockrell said the solution to small business retention was simple — “Shop in Lee’s Summit.”
“Quit going to Independence Mall or Town Center to do your shopping,” he said. “This is not a council responsibility this is a citizens responsibility.”
“I shop here,” added Hofmann. “We have to keep our dollars here and live in our area to keep the market up.”
The next Chamber of Commerce candidate roundtable is set for 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 17 at the Gamber Center and discussion will center on education and health and human services.
To reach Journal reporter Miranda Wycoff, call 816-282-7017, or e-mail mwycoff@lsjournal.com
