One Missouri lawmaker thinks voters will vote for a sales tax extension to keep the Royals and Chiefs in Kansas City.
Because the process of attempting to get the owner of the National Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs franchise, Clark Hunt, and the owner of Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals franchise, John Sherman, to move operations from Jackson County, Missouri to a spot near Kansas City, Kansas has started, Jackson County officials are springing into action. They think that Jackson County voters should rethink their decision about saying no to extending a sales tax that was designed to renovate the Chiefs’ football facility and build a new Royals downtown Kansas City baseball stadium. Kansas lawmakers are mulling over a proposal that would see STAR bonds used to help pay 75 percent of the cost of building two stadiums in Kansas. Additionally, sports gambling and lottery gaming and sales tax revenue from businesses in the stadium development districts would cover bond debt. Another source of revenue to pay off the debt would come from a liquor tax. Kansas lawmakers could use a mechanism that would allow up to 100 percent of sales tax revenue on alcoholic liquor sales within a stadium district to pay off bonds for the structures
Missouri State Senator Jon Patterson recently said “I think now with the Kansas option staring us, staring us right in the face, I think that changed the dynamic, and it would be a different vote next time around. I do think before all this is said and done, Jackson County is going to have another vote,” On April 2nd, Jackson County, Missouri voters said no by a 58 percent to 42 percent vote to continuing a stadium sales tax. Hunt and Sherman are now in a good spot, two states are ready to throw money at them to build stadiums for their businesses. It is a place that sports owners dream about.
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