$1.7 Billion and the East Side’s Money
Beneath the statewide amendments, KC votes on five questions of its own. Every one touches the east side of Troost whether it says so or not.
📌 The Stakes Are HighFive city questions: a $100 million bond for affordable housing, a $100 million bond for civic buildings, renewal of the one-eighth-cent Central City development tax, and two $750 million revenue bonds for water and sewer. City Hall says none raises the tax rate. Plainer sentence: the water and sewer bonds are repaid through your utility rates, and rates are a tax by another name.
Housing Trust Fund bond, $100M. Real money through the fund that has backed nearly 3,000 affordable units since 2018. Needs a four-sevenths majority, so every vote is heavy. Our key: YES.
Civic buildings bond, $100M. Municipal Auditorium, the Music Hall, Bartle Hall, City Hall. Historic public buildings, and the question with the least to say to a family fighting a rent increase. We give you the facts and leave this one to you.
Central City tax renewal. Roughly $10 million a year since 2017, restricted to development inside the historic Black core. Renewal keeps the East Side’s dedicated fund alive; the honest critique is pace and accountability, not existence. Our key: YES, with our eyes on the board that spends it.
Water and sewer bonds, $750M each. The sewer work is ordered by a 2010 federal consent decree, so it happens either way. Rejection does not cancel the work; it forces costlier borrowing, and rates climb faster. Our key: YES, because the cheaper financing is the only thing actually on the ballot.
🧢 Cap vs. FactsThe campaign line is “none of these raises your tax rate,” and for the property tax rate it is technically true. Underneath: $1.5 billion gets repaid through water bills that fall hardest on fixed incomes and old housing stock. The real question was never “will this cost you.” It is which path costs you less, and who is watching where the money goes.
✊🏾 What You Can DoVote August 4. Then treat the development board and the Housing Trust Fund like public bodies that answer to you, because they are. Show up to a meeting. Ask what moved into your neighborhood this year. Money with no witnesses develops habits.
