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On Friday April 6th 2018 the city manager of Raytown (Tom Cole) turned in his resignation. Mr. Cole indicated he had a desire to pursue other paths in life before it was too late. He will be missed.
The following is a list of some of the city employees that have quit since 2015. Tom Cole city administrator
John Benson community development director
Mahesh Sharma city administrator
Mark Loughry finance director
Briana Burrichter finance director
Katie Horner public works director
Brenda Gustufson public information officer
This seems like a high turnover rate.
Sources in the Raytown School District stated that the call for ambulance services went out at 7:12 and that video footage show the arrival of the ambulance at 7:27. By doing the math, and deducting the 7 minutes response time, we have 8 minutes for dispatch to take the call and relay it to a Raytown EMS unit.
More on this if and when I learn more facts.
Raytown broke a long loosing streak against rival Raytown South with a decisive 35 to 14 win on Friday.
RaytownOnline.com received multiple calls about the game, but not about the score. The calls were about the amount of time it took an ambulance to take an injured Raytown High player away for medical attention. One call claimed it took 45 minutes for the ambulance to arrive, but research indicates that was not the case, closer to 20 minutes was the actual amount of time that passed. The injury took place 3 minutes into the game. The game started at 7:00 pm. Given this, the probable time of the injury was between 7:04 and 7:08, depending on how much time passed with the game clock not running. Photos received from people attending the game show the ambulance at 7:28 pm. (see below)
Sources at Raytown City Hall report that the EMS log indicates a 7 minute response time. What is not known is how long it took the coaching staff to decide to call an ambulance. Requests to the School District for this information have yet to be responded to. Normally 911 calls would be routed to the Raytown Police Dept. dispatch and they relay this to the EMS unit. Normally this would also be relayed to the Raytown Fire District and they also would respond. Sources in the Raytown Fire District have no record of a call coming in on this incident. These are the facts to the best of my knowledge. The Raytown Board of Aldermen moved their regular meting to 6:pm on Tuesday, Sept. 5th 2017 to have a town hall meeting on the proposed budget at 7:00 pm.
The town hall meeting was packed, with people seated in a spill over room, watching it on TV. At least 80% of the crowd seemed to be supporters. friends, police, or their family members. While the meeting at times got loud and there was some heckling, the actual numbers of disruptive people were a small minority of the people attending and the Mayor did a decent job of settling them down. City manager Cole did an overhead projector presentation of the details of the budget and the information table had plenty of copies of data from past years. The audience submitted questions with the aldermen and Mr. Cole responding to them. After that there was a public comments and questions from the podium. You can view the meeting video by clicking HERE. The almost sole issue in the town hall meeting was the reduction of the amount of funds the Raytown Police Dept. requested. The Raytown GeneraL fund has a projected income of 10 million and the police requested 7 million of it. The 7 million is above and beyond the 2.7 million from the Public Safety Sales Tax and the Capital Sales Tax. The primary argument for the 7 million for the police was, give the police what they are asking for or we will not be safe. The primary position by the aldermen was, we don’t have the money. In truth the Aldermen could have given the police 2 million more, by draining the contingency funds, but that would have been a one year fix that would have left the City seriously weakened for any emergency that might occur. Once the fund is drained, there would be nothing left for the next year. Other areas addressed by the audience were crime rates and crime spillover (implied KCMO residents not staying in their area), low property taxes, TIF mistakes. I did not have enough battery power to video tape the entire meeting, but do have audio for almost all of the meeting, and probably better than the city’s recording. I will post the audio and may be able to post specific requested video if it is earlier in the meeting. Town Hall on budget 2017 audio I am not interested in dwelling of all the negative statements about Raytown that were made to instill fear and justify expenditures. The bottom line is we cannot spend what we do not have. We need to work to promote Raytown and Raytown businesses to increase tax revenues and every department in the city needs to tighten it’s belt. Below are two charts that show the proposed budget and historical spending by department.
Diane Krizek’s call for a recount resulted in Phylis Goforth gaining a vote, but no change in Bonnaye’s or Diane’s count and no change in the result.
* winner
Ward 1 *Frank Hunt 285 Ward 2 *Jason Greene 394 Ward 3 *Ryan Myers 283 Ward 4 *Bill Van Buskirk 441 Ward 5 *Bonnaye Mims 236 The Judge and Marshal were unopposed
Parties unknown claimed to Facebook that my endorsements were abusing and managed to get them deleted. To read my Endorsements and decide for yourself if there is an iota of abuse or abusive language in my endorsements, you have to go to this website if you are reading this one facebook. Everyone else, please share my endorsement post.
Michael N. Downing Half of our Board of Aldermen are up for election next Tuesday, April 4th.
Ward I No endorsement Ward II Lore
Ward III Ryan Myers : This is a tough call, as both candidates are good-natured and have good intent. Ryan add more energy and numeric analysis to the board and by that gets the endorsement. Ward IV
Ward V
The Raytown Times article gave Mims only 5 % of the space that was given her opponents and no photo and her name was the only one of all candidates in all races not highlighted. To balance the scales, Raytown Online will provide featured coverage.
Dear Neighbor, I want to be your Ward 5 Alderman and I am asking for your vote on Tuesday, April 4th. My experience as an active member of the Raytown community, a State Representative and a School Board Member make me a great choice to be the voice of the people. We have many things to be excited about! Raytown is growing and this is exemplified by the increase of new businesses and the face-lifts of current businesses. Continued public and private investment will increase the opportunities for Raytown’s ongoing economic growth. I have been speaking with residents in the 5th Ward and have been honored to meet so many wonderful people. The common theme we share is a vision for safe neighborhoods, providing local services for seniors, Veterans, and families, and repairing our streets and building sidewalks. Residents are looking for experience and leadership and I would be honored to be your voice in our city. I firmly believe it is my responsibility as a public servant to not play politics, but to give our community the resources needed to thrive, not just survive. Respectfully
The League of Women voters forum for candidates for Raytown Missouri’s Board of Alderman. In order to quickly post this no editing has been done. This is straight from the camera.
Tuesday December 13th was the first day for filing for city office. Candidates that file on the first day have their place on the ballot determined by a lottery. Candidates filing after the first day are placed on the ballot in the order they file. So far there has not been a filing for the two year remaining term of Steve Mock in Ward 5.
Here are the first day candidates. FILING FOR OFFICE April 4, 2017 General Municipal Election Alderman Ward I – 4 year term expiring April 2021 Alderman Ward II – 4 year term expiring April 2021 Alderman Ward III – 4 year term expiring April 2021 Alderman Ward IV – 4 year term expiring April 2021 Alderman Ward V – 4 year term expiring April 2021 City Marshal – 4 year term expiring April 2021 Municipal Judge – 4 year term expiring April 2021 On Friday afternoon November 18, 2016, Mark Loughry – Interim City Administrator and City Finance Director, submitted his resignation effective December 22, 2016.
Mr. Loughry has accepted a position as a County Administrator in the State of Kansas. The City of Raytown appreciates his service to our community and wishes him well in his new role. Mr. Loughry’s resignation letter is below. RaytownOnline note, the letter below was converted to text from an image by our OCR software and it may have introduced typos that were not in the original. Some were corrected, but some may have been missed. Mayor and Board of Aldermen First and foremost I want to take this opportunity to say what a blessing the City of Raytown has been to me and my family. The past five years have not always been easy but they have been fulfilling. I have had opportunities here to establish friendships that I know will follow me for a long time. I also know my career here has given me the chance to improve myself in a way that would not have happened anywhere else. Second I want to thank all of the staff that have been supportive and willing to work towards a common goal of making this a great place to work and Raytown a great place to live. Over the past five years and more specifically the last few months I have really started to see a change in attitude of some of the staff. I know I have been excited to come to work and I have seen that in others as well. Just this week I had an employee tell me they were excited to see the progress we have made this past year. We are putting into place changes today that will continue to impact this community, for the better, for years to come. Changes to our Codes that will make it easier to clean up problem areas in the community. Changes to auxiliary services that will improve our ability to maintain core services without new fees or taxes. Changes to employee benefits that keep the City competitive with surrounding communities and immediately impact our employees for the better. All of these coupled together will result in the most important change, the ability for our citizens to see an improved quality of life. Lastly I want to acknowledge how the current Board of Aldermen have worked with me over the past few months during what could have been a very challenging transition. The City lost several key staff members that had been with the City for a long time. The challenges created by that could have been nearly insurmountable, instead through cooperation with the Board and staff it has been a relatively smooth process to this point. Even with some of the outside detractors it is clear to me that the Board, without exception, truly has a common goal of doing what is best for Raytown. All of these things make my decision to resign one of the most difficult things I have had to do. Over the past few days the Leavenworth County Commission has been in contact with me about an opening they have for what is their equivalent of a County Administrator. While it was an extremely difficult decision for me it is one that I feel is best for me and my family. I will be closer to home, will no longer have night meetings and have the unanimous support of the Commission as their preferred candidate. This is not a position I sought out but it is one that feels like a good fit for me. With that I thank all of you and plan on December 22′” being my last day with the City. Sincerely, On Tuesday at 6:30 pm Raytown’s Mayor unveiled the memorial to Alderman Steve Mock. The memorial sits in front of a Sweetbay Magnolia tree also planted in remembrance.
 Steve Mock memorial Sweetbay Magnolia
 This is what the flowers will look like in the Spring.
Video of the memorial services.
October 18, 2016, 6:30 PM, Raytown City HallThe City of Raytown will host a dedication ceremony to commemorate the life and civic leadership of Alderman Steve Mock who passed away earlier this summer. The ceremony will occur with the Mock family and City leaders on the east lawn of Raytown City Hall near the staff entrance to the building. Please join us as we dedicate a tree and monument in his honor.  Aldereman Steve Mock and Clarice Titus What is the core issue in a lot of these recent letters/press releases is that the Fire District is asserting that they are not getting their fair share of tax revenue. Get being loosely defined and both not getting money and being charged too much in some cases. This is about the TIF tax abatement for what can be called the Wal-Mart development. The details are complex, and since I am personally not a lawyer, tax accountant, or knowledgeable in TIFs and the details of the Wal-Mart TIF, I am very hesitant to judge the merits of either sides arguments.
Even the flow of money is complex, in that in some cases instead of not getting money, the Fire District is paying from the taxes it gets back to the city to pay for its share of the TIF. Is the amount correct, should they be liable for all phases of the project, did they agree to some aspects, is their explicate agreement requires? These are all questions that may take a judge to decide in the end. Somewhere there is a quote about sitting on the fence getting you shot by both sides, but I cannot seem to find it. The following support document was attached to the press release from the Raytown Fire District.
Click HERE to read the Districts request for a meeting with Raytown City officials and employees.
May 5, 2016 Release from the Office of the Fire Chief: The Raytown Fire Protection District will hold a public informational hearing regarding our concerns with the 350 On April 28th, the Fire District requested that the City of Raytown participate in this hearing (attached document Since September of 2015, the Raytown Fire Protection District has made numerous attempts with city officials to In 2007, the Fire District entered into an agreement with the City to participate along with the other taxing • The submission of accurate annual financial reports to the State of Missouri The Fire District has investigated this matter and contends that the City of Raytown has failed to meet the The concerns expressed by Joe Willerth are not without merit. We agree, and are willing to limit participation to Thank You, Matt Mace Fire Chief As many of you may know, it recently came out that 7 of our 10 Alderman have taken part in secret meetings with the Fire District. The content of these meetings is still a mystery as The Disgraceful 7 will not discuss it with staff or you, their constituents. That is precisely the reason they are being investigated by the Missouri Attorney General’s office. Congratulations to the three Alderman( Steve Mock, Bill VanBuskirk and Jim Aziere) for not being part of this group. I addressed the board through public comment at the last regularly scheduled meeting and let them know of what I thought and warned if they used their position to try to intimidate me I refuse to back down. So, with that I am going to tell you about my next story. As many of you know I served 8 years on The Board of Alderman representing Ward 1 but am not currently in an elected capacity. I spent 8 years working with staff and other Alderman to try to make Raytown a better place. I found the staff at City Hall when I had questions in regards to any question I had with anything involving the community. I have set back as I am no longer an Alderman and observed the new board as they lead the community. This is where I want to take things a new direction. I have had many conversations with people to the every day workings at City Hall and they have brought up to some disturbing revelations into the way the board is working with the professional staff at City hall. The ringleader of the disturbing treatment of staff would be the one and only Jason Greene; he believes that gotcha moments and the use of his henchmen is the way to work with staff. He uses Steve Meyers and Mark Moore to intimidate whomever is around that might disagree, whether it be staff or other Alderman. All of this while your Mayor Mike McDonough sits at City Hall for the entire day every day. The treatment of staff is so bad that a friend confided in me that they were talking to an employee of City Hall and this person started crying because of the treatment they had seen staff members receive from the 3 listed above. I find that disgraceful! Now there are those that would argue the job of the Alderman is to ensure that staff perform to their highest level possible and that would be correct. However, if you condone the kind of activity at City Hall, put yourself in the position of the employees there. I know of nobody that wants to be in a position where they don’t know where the next attack is coming from. These elected officials are supposed to be the leaders of our fine community but where is the leadership in idly standing by and watching the mistreatment of other human beings. I believe that Mike McDonough is a very good person but is being pulled by a faction of very selfish people who want to impose their will on the good people of Raytown. I call on our Mayor to stand up and show us the leadership we elected him for. As a side note I have filed a complaint on all of the Disgraceful 7 with the Missouri Ethics Commission to let them determine if there is any wrong doing. There has been analysis from other news sources in regards to the matter but they are not the experts. Beginning several months prior and throughout the last two weeks, there has been a great deal of discussion regarding the Raytown Live TIF District on 350 Highway including the obligation of the Fire District in regards to the project and the TIF’s success and long term viability. Passed unanimously in March of 2005 by the Board of Alderman in place at that time, there was great hope for the TIF then.
While many TIF districts across the state and the nation implemented in the last 10 years have failed or are struggling, the Raytown Live TIF District is still progressing. No one could have predicted the economic downturn that followed the approval of the TIF, and admittedly it has been slower in growth than projected. However, at no time since the TIF’s inception has the City missed a payment or required additional input from any entity outside the original agreement. Through a review of audited numbers and future projections, the City is optimistic that the District will continue to meet the necessary revenue requirements for the life of the debt. The City has made no additional funding requests of any other taxing entities outside the original agreement. Some of the reasons for the City’s optimism in being able to continue to meet debt requirements on the TIF are as follows:
While many current Aldermen and the current Mayor were not a part of voting for the TIF, moving forward, they are looking for a strategy to deal with any burden to the budget IF—and only IF—it becomes necessary. Their goal is for the City and all its entities to remain solvent and to maintain a budget that does not adversely affect services. They are working hard to safeguard taxpayer money. In 2007 the Fire District entered into an agreement with the City to participate fully with the other taxing entities on Project Area #1, which includes Wal-Mart. State statutes govern the remaining participation. The Fire District has since asked the City to release it from the Project Area #1 agreement retroactively, but the City has a duty to protect the bond holders and the taxpayers of Raytown and cannot allow that change 8 years later. Per State Statute the Fire District was required to participate in Project Area #2; however, the Fire District has requested to not participate at all in this area. Missouri State Statute 99.848 allows for any district providing emergency services to request at least 50% but not more than 100% of that district’s tax increment to be refunded. Until November of 2014 the Fire District had not previously asserted its claim for consideration by the City. While not required to honor this request retroactively, the City did calculate the amount of refund the District would be owed since the activation of Project Area #2. The City subsequently applied that refund amount of $8,096.32 to the amount owed the City by Raytown Fire. Going forward the City will work with the Fire District to formalize their request as required by law and apply the 50% refund amount considered and presented to Raytown Fire on numerous occasions during the initial implementation of the TIF District. “I am dedicated to moving this city forward and to monitoring this TIF District just as we monitor all parts of our budget and spending,” Raytown Mayor Mike McDonough said. “Granted the TIF may not have been productive as those who supported it hoped, but we have to deal with it and it is still progressing.” Click HERE for a PDF file from Standard & Poor dated Sept. 2015 concerning this matter. Thanks to local channel 41 for providing the code to link to their segment on this matter. RaytownOnline met with Chief Mace on this matter and he present documentation supporting his position that was inches thick. We are still waiting for digital copies from the Fire District to analyze, as an hour meeting was not enough given the depth of the material. I hope to provide links to the material and supporting State documents for reader when it becomes available.
I have had a couple of phone calls asking if I had any video from the April 19th 2016 meeting. They both indicated that they were not able to see it live and not able to find it on the city website. The video is available at City Hall so without editorial comment, here is the link to that video.
Click HERE to go to the Raytown City Hall location of the video. City of Raytown and RH Johnson Company announce three new businesses coming to Raytown. AT&T is scheduled to open at 350 Highway and Gregory in late July. Great Clips and Dominos are scheduled for an early August opening.
RH Johnson Company is the owner and developer of the property. The property was formerly a mattress company but before that was a gas station. The property had to have some environmental work done because of the later owner before it could be developed. That work was completed and work to get a building for tenants was begun. “We are pleased that these three organizations are coming to our city.” said Tom Cole, Economic Development Administrator. “We continue to build the strength of 350 Highway with a good assortment of businesses.” Dominos has become more than a pizza restaurant. The new store design aims to put pizza front and center with a “Pizza Theater” format that will have pizza-making artists’ hand tossing dough and creating custom-made pies in front of seated guests. Their new menu also offers sandwiches, pastas, chicken wings, desserts and other appetizers. Great Clips, a Minneapolis-based haircare company is the world’s largest salon brand creating more than 80 million haircuts each year. The salons are locally owned and operated. Great Clips offers many services and are open evenings and weekends. For convenience they also offer online check in. AT&T mission is to connect people with their world. They provide products and services to make this happen.  Residents can now keep up with the Raytown Board of Aldermen meetings and Raytown Planning and Zoning Commission meetings from the comfort of their homes via the Internet. The City has entered into an agreement with Swagit Productions, LLC to provide live streaming video of the meetings mentioned above. Thanks to the new technology, meetings are available live through any computer, tablet or smart phone.
Residents have consistently asked for more access to live meetings. We believe streaming will help us reach more residents, business owners and others interested in Raytown. One reason we chose Swagit Productions is because they are the leading provider of hosted audio/video streaming services for many other cities and government agencies. Swagit’s Extensible Automated Streaming Engine (EASE) solution is designed to provide the City with a full service streaming media framework that reduces the need for extra staff. Meetings will run live on the City’s website, www.raytown.mo.us as well as continue to run on the City’s Cable Access Channel 7 from Comcast. The June 2, 2015 Board meeting was filmed as a test run and can be currently viewed on the City’s website. “The test run went well and the system appears to be working fine,” said Brenda Gustafson, Public Information Officer for the City. “The City has been looking for a solution to increasing public access to the live proceedings. This seems to be a good cost-effective solution.” Board meeting videos will be archived on the City’s website, allowing residents to view previous meetings. We will consider adding other meetings and events in the future. “And, the neat thing is that the videos are indexed,” Gustafson said. “People can look at the agendas, which are posted online and go to the specific agenda item they’re interested in on the video.” Previously, the meetings were filmed separately from the live broadcast on Channel 7. The film disc then had to be converted by the Information Technology Department which took a couple of days and then uploaded on YouTube by the Public Affairs staff. The meetings were not available to everyone until several days after the meeting. With this service meetings are available live and then uploaded automatically onto our Website for immediate access. The June 2nd meeting can be viewed HERE
In the recent city election, a few of the candidates relied on the age-old political tactic of “promising a free lunch” when discussing the need for street repairs in Raytown. Most reasonable people would agree that we need safe streets that are free from potholes, and curbs and sidewalks in many of our neighborhoods. To be fair, the candidates didn’t say anything actually would be free, they just failed to mention the potential financial cost of their promises. Then again, they didn’t actually promise anything specifically, they just complained about the status quo for the most part. The target of their complaint is the use of light-weight aggregate instead of mill and overlay in street repair.
Not very exciting, but please stick with me and keep reading to get the facts. Yes, mill and overlay makes a nicer surface and last 50% longer, but that process costs more than 3 times as much as aggregate. This is a simple allocation-of-resources problem. If you have $15 and 5 kids, you can buy one of them a steak and four of them go without dinner, or you can feed all five a hamburger. In the past 5 years, the city has fixed 110 lane miles of streets using a combination of the two methods. If only mill and overlay was used, that number would have been 63 lane miles. To have completed the entire 110 miles with the more expensive method, taxes would have to be raised, or other programs would have to be cut. There is no free lunch. The city spends about $830,000 a year on streets. To do all mill & overlay would cost almost a million dollars more. So the next time politicians promise steak instead of hamburger, they need to also tell us where the money will come from. At the request of RaytownOnline, the City of Raytown supplied the cost data on paving, some of which appears below. Street Maintenance Program Costs The City of Raytown maintains 331 lane miles. We use the transportation sales tax and some City revenue to pay to upkeep our streets. Over the last five (5) years the City has spent $833,600 per year for this service. These costs also include sidewalk and curb repair, striping as well as handicap ramps which is a federal law requirement under the American with Disabilities Act (ADA). We have to be in compliance with this law. To understand the numbers you need to know how the Public Works Department determines costs. A lane mile is a unit of measurement used by Public Works Departments for determining progress of maintenance programs. One lane mile is the width of one lane (12 feet) by one mile (5,280 feet). If you have a two lane street then that would be two lane miles. A turn lane also counts as a lane mile. The two tools the City of Raytown uses are Light Weight Aggregate Seal and Mill and Overlay. The cost per lane mile and life cycle of each tool is: Cost per Lane Mile Life/Treatment Light Weight Aggregate $21,542/Lane Mile 7 to 10 years Mill and Overlay $66,176/Lane Mile 10 to 15 years In the last five years, we have been able to complete Light Weight Aggregate on 70 lane miles and Mill and Overlay on 40 miles, in total 110 lane miles have been treated, or 33% of all the roads in Raytown using both tools. It is prudent to use the most appropriate tool at the proper time. Using the Light Weight Aggregate treatment stretches the life of the street and allows us to keep our roads in a manageable condition. |
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