Wichita voters will decide March 8 whether to approve a proposed 1-cent citywide sales tax expected to generate about $850 million over seven years for public safety and housing initiatives, revitalization of Century II and the convention center, property-tax relief and a new performing arts center. The measure would include citizen oversight and annual audits. Early voting begins Thurs., Feb. 26.
As part of our continued coverage, Margaret Shabazz and former City Councilmember Brandon Johnson present opposing perspectives on the proposal — outlining the arguments for and against the sales tax before voters cast their ballots.
If you’re not up to date, you can learn more about the measure and its background HERE:
VOTE YES
Voting yes provides the council an additional option and a dedicated funding source to address the issues identified in the sales tax proposal.
Yes, a sales tax is regressive. But as I said earlier, it’s happening now anyway in lower-income communities. So we have to choose our hard.
But the positive of that sales tax is that nearly a quarter of it, or more, would be paid by other people who visit and spend money here.
This isn’t too big. You keep hearing that. But our challenges are big. You have to have a big solution for big challenges.
It’s not too vague. You see the buckets. You see what we addressed. You saw the ballot language. These buckets are defined.
We cannot say we have not been talking about these challenges with homelessness for years. We can’t say public safety hasn’t been discussed.
And many of you know I’m not supportive of the property tax piece of the sales tax. But electeds have continued to hear about property tax issues for years.
All of these items — all of these buckets — performing arts and conventions have been studied, have been talked about. We know we need improved performing arts facilities.
What is new — and what people kind of think is rushed — is the opportunity before you for a different funding stream that would dedicate funding to address those needs.
The council will be legally bound to only fund the items defined in those buckets. And additionally, there’s a citizen oversight board that will look at the items purchased, the revenue coming in, have regular meetings — that’s all open to the public.
And another positive of this sales tax is not only will you save $20 million in interest because you can cash finance versus debt finance, it also allows council to redirect some funding that would have paid for those items right now in the CIP and allow them more flexibility to address more neighborhood needs.
Things like mow tall grass and weeds, sidewalk repair, road repair, extended library hours, improvements in service delivery like sweeping our streets more often, and more opportunities for affordable housing.
But we have to hold the council’s feet to the fire.
Now again, is this perfect? It’s not. Will this be a burden on some more than others? It will. Those are true. But we have to choose our hard, and all of these decisions are hard.
The reality is that those who need better service delivery, those who need investment in their neighborhood, those that many of us are concerned about now — those folks are going to be impacted by both options.
Voting yes provides the flexibility to the City Council — this one and future ones — to help them more than having them just wait and hope that things will happen.
Or you can vote no, do things the way we’ve always done it, hope they can handle those deficits, and then pray that the services and programs that help lower-income communities in the core of Wichita don’t get impacted too much.