Tuesday, Jan. 22 2013 4:36PM
Who is selling bond to voters?
By John Beaudoin
jbeaudoin@lsjournal.com
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ReprintThe Lee’s Summit City Council’s vapid leadership finally turned into action last week.
They passed a measure to put in front of voters two no-tax-increase bond proposals on April 2.
If 57 percent of the voters give a nod to these ballot initiatives, we will set in motion processes that include improvements to Orchard Street and Pryor Road and continue our commitment to cultural arts in Lee’s Summit with a new downtown performance area and improvements to the amphitheater at Legacy Park.
If we can get the votes, that is.
Because of the political games played with this issue, we’re already behind in selling these ideas to the voters. We have a lot of ground to make up in a short amount of time.
So the question is obvious: Who is going to educate the voters on why they should vote yes for these improvements to our community?
Orchard Street is a noble project that further demonstrates Lee’s Summit’s pledge to helping improve older neighborhoods.
Cultural arts are a significant part of our community now and investing in the arts will only help us to continue to not only highlight our creativity as a community, but will be a worthwhile investment in keeping and retaining brain power in Lee’s Summit and attracting new residents to our town.
There is a whole lot more than that, though, to sell to the voters.
I would love to outline it all here, but I am still smarting from weeks of politics.
In the past, many groups have stepped up to take this important education lead.
This process has to happen quickly, be powerful and ready to thwart the usual suspects that come out during these elections.
The pessimists will point to this as a “no-tax-decrease” election instead of a chance to better our community. Some will say the city is picking “pet” projects to fund. Others will simply say, without any firepower to their arguments, that this isn’t the right financial time to take this to a vote.
Whether it is our arts community, business leaders or private citizens, I hope there are people at the ready to take this lead for the education and selling pieces that need to be done to pass this in April.
If not, there will be an even heavier burden on our elected officials that left us so little time in the first place to inform the voters ahead of the vote.
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