KCMO Mayor’s letter to Raytown School District – We will give you 25% of your money back

This document was created by doing optical character recognition on a PDF file. At the end of this post there is a link to the actual pdf file. OCR creates typos. I have corrected the typos I recognized, except for those that were in the original. I may have missed some.  If anything is not understandable., refer to the PDF file at the end of this post.

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Office of the Mayor

 Mayor Sylvester “Sly” James, Jr.

29th Floor, City Hall

414 East 12th Street (816) 513-3500

Kansas City, Missouri 64106 Fax: (816) 513-3518

December 18, 2012

Dr. Allan Markley, Superintendent

Raytown C-2 School District

6608 Raytown Road

Raytown, MO 64133

Via Electronic Mail

Dear Superintendent Markley:

Thank you very much for your patience as you waited for my response based on our conversation last week. As we consider options to potentially resolve the current dispute regarding the Winchester TIF, I want to recall the basis of this TIF and why it was set up in the first place.

This TIF plan is situated on the east side ofKansas City where, in the past, there have been very limited opportunities for investment. This TIF plan has done and continues to do what TIFs were intended to do – invest in blighted areas where investments would not otherwise be made. Restoring a blighted area of a park in the eastern urban core so that urban youth can participate in the same quality of experiences as their suburban counterparts is a worthwhile endeavor.

This TIF was established in the same way that TIFs were established at the time. The developer approached the City with a plan to develop a blighted area and for incentives to execute the plan. The incentives the City agreed to were conditioned on:

a. That private investment would be made and jobs would be created by the developer;

b. That the private development would increase the tax base for all the taxing districts; and

c. That investment in public infrastructure would be made from projected tax dollars generated fi’om the private development.

The developer and the TIF Commission entered into an Agreement in 1992 to accomplish items a -c above. To date a and b have been accomplished but c has not been completed as required by the Redevelopment Agreement. Because of this, if the Sixth Amendment to the plan is not approved, TIF dollars will remain in the SAF (not surplused) until the remaining public infrastructure investment required by the Agreement is made. Simply put, the TIF plan cannot be terminated while there exists aRedevelopment Agreement that encumbers those TIF dollars. With that being said, I am willing to discuss an amendment of the Redevelopment Agreement with the Developer that would allow for the termination. This, of course, would have to be predicated upon the receipt of a signed agreement between the County and the City such that the County, as they have verbally committed, would contribute an equivalent amount of :funds to the project equal to what their PILOTs would have been had the TIF plan not have been terminated. Should this request be accepted, the proposal below would have to be adjusted accordingly but should in spirit remain unchanged.

In light of all above and in acknowledgement of your concerns, we have considered options that might address your concerns. I caution again that all options raised in this and any subsequent communications are purely for purposes of discussing resolution/settlement of any dispute. Further, nothing contained in this letter or subsequent communications can be considered binding on the TIF Commission, the developer, or the City of Kansas City, Missouri without the express adoption of financial and other terms of any potential agreement by all necessary parties including, but not limited to, the TIF Commission, the developer, taxing jurisdictions, and the City of Kansas City, Missouri

For your consideration:

a. We propose that we will not approve another Redevelopment Project Area by the Sixth Amendment and we will not activate another Redevelopment Project Area for the remaining life of the TIF;

b. We, working with Sporting KC, have reduced the budget of the Redevelopment Project cost to exclude expansion of the Sporting KC facility. No private entity will receive an economic benefit from the Sixth Amendment;

c. We have further reduced the budget of the Redevelopment Project cost to exclude the improvements to the pool located in Swope Park;

d. Except for the City and County, no future PILOTS :from any other taxing jurisdictions will be used going forward. From an economic perspective, the taxing jurisdictions will be in the same financial condition as if we terminated the TIF.

Finally, in addition to the above, we would be willing to discuss an upfront capital contribution of $1,000,000 from the SAF to Raytown School District to address capital improvements that the district must make that are found necessary and a result of the TIF Plan. We hope this good faith gesture will also help resolve the the current disagreement surrounding the Blue Ridge matter although it is our firm position that there is no actionable agreement that legally compels or obligates the City to pay any funds for that purpose. As we discussed, the City faces the same financial consh·aints as many organizations. F or me to suggest adding a new ongoing commitment that has not been contemplated by this COlmcil or Manager would be inappropliate. We realize this is not an ideal solution from your standpoint but it is all we can offer and hope you can understand and accept it.

We believe the structure suggested above would solve the current disputes as well as the Blue Ridge matter allowing all Parties to move on.

Please let me know your response.

WinchesterJamesTIF