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Thursday, October 27, 2011

On that zoo tax

A question for Yael Abouhalkah or someone at the Star or someone, somewhere (Pitch? Radioman? somebody?) who can come up with the answer: How many times, in the last, say, 30 years, have we been asked to pony up more money for the KCMO Zoo, always with the promise that "this time we'll REALLY save it"? It seems like many and repeated times as one who has lived here for a while. Omaha has a great zoo as does Topeka (Topeka, for pity's sake!) and Wichita but never here. What's up with that? Link: http://www.onezooforall.com/Groups/1000060849/One_Zoo_For/News_articles/News_articles.aspx

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

In August 1990 there was a $50 million bond package for improvements, plus another $5 million from a levy.

In 2004, renewing parts of the zoo were part of a $300 million package of general obligation bonds (but no new taxes).

So, chill the fuck out: not as much as you think, really.

Mo Rage said...

A) I was never that "up in arms" or out of control or emotional about it so I really needn't "chill..out" and

B) that makes this at least the third time we've voted on this stuff to "save the zoo" and it has come to $350,000,000.00, at least, to date, to, again, "save the zoo".

Exactly how many times do we have to do this and go through this and keep voting for higher taxes in order to get a zoo that works, one that is self-sustainable?

I think it's an extremely valid question.

And I'm all for zoos and good amenities but how many times, as I asked, do we have to do this and how much does it have to cost, ultimately?

Very legitimate questions, I think, and I think a lot of people would agree.

So far, that's way over one-quarter of a billion dollars.