PV's mayor Laura Wassmer advocates RECREATIONAL WELFARE at Meadowbrook: the only free community center in JoCo: Demands SM Schools lower our property values and boost Blue Valley's.

Oh brother. PV's new mayor, Laura Wassmer is urging residents to lobby the SM Schools before the big vote to veto the Meadowbrook TIF Wednesday night. And get her preposterous spin: calling SM Schools need to collect property tax to keep competitive with Blue Valley Schools a "short term concern"? That is insulting logic. Where did Welfare Queen Wassmer learn reasoning? Hopefully not in a classroom in a Shawnee Mission School. The fact is this: The citizens of Prairie Village are now being lobbied by Ron Shaffer, their former mayor, now BOCC Commissioner, who is trying to deliver the bacon, millions of dollars of JoCo tax dollars, to provide PV with a FREE community center. That is RECREATIONAL WELFARE. 

No other community got a free community center paid for by ALL of JoCo taxpayers. Not Shawnee, not Lenexa, not even the big dog, OP, altho they are getting a stupid one room yoga studio inside the $32 million King Louie, (we paid $4.5 million for the ugly asbestos filled building and a year later it appraised at $430,000.) which is seven blocks south of the functional OP community center, Matt Ross.

Our schools protect our property values.
So it doesn't matter one whit if you have kids.
Your home is your biggest single asset.

A rec center with subsidized day care COMPETES with private industry, which is well capable of offering yoga or pilates classes and day care.
If you want the economy to improve, (so your kids and grandkids can get a job and move out of your back bedroom there in PV!) then stop allowing your governmental lackies to transfer private tasks to public tax financed efforts.

SM Schools should STOP allowing businesses to demand TIF's.
The Meadowbrook TIF is a phony head fake--pretend the tax is for the county not the car dealer, when it is just an account transfer.
By one vote, your inept JoCo Commission, including Ron Shaffer, allowed the VanTrust car dealer to set an inflated price, sans appraisal.
And because the car dealer is building things that don't generate much property tax,
the TIF is phony, because it will likely never be paid off.
It's a gift disguised as an incentive.

So like a Trojan horse, but now with 8 cylinders and 350 HP, VanTrust is muscling its way into NE JoCo to build what they want,
on the GOOD land, while sticking the county with the worse half, the inside, in need of a giant detention pond,
and then using former mayors and Welfare Queen Laura Wassmer to brand it as "long term good"
and now trying to guilt trip the SM Schools into taking it in the shorts.

PV Mayor Laura Wassmer wonders:  Where do I sign?
To get SM schools to give $12 million of our PV property taxes away?
Forget your declining resale values.   I want my name on a brass plaque
at my new Meadowbrook Recreational Welfare Center!  

Personally, I think if PV wants a community center, their residents should pay for it, and not accept RECREATIONAL WELFARE from the rest of us in Johnson County.

I think the SM School Board should man up and demand their fair share of property taxes. Period. And if you agree, and are getting to that point where you will want to sell your home, you will realize, you don't want to have to lower your selling price by $20,000 to compete with a homebuyer who believes they absolutely must move to the Blue Valley School district...for the RESALE VALUE.

So, PV taxpayers, it's your call.

What is more important? YOUR resale value of your home? Or dressing in your yoga pants to go to the Meadowbrook Welfare Rec Centerin PV instead of 30 other private health clubs?

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Quick! Changing one vote saves you $67 a year. Tell doublecrosser Steve Klika to vote against JoCo property tax increase Thurs Aug 13!!

Commissioner Steve Klika lied to voters (yep, I went there--because I verified it 9 places, including a quote from the doublecrossing commissioner himself...at a BOCC meeting, it's on video.)  Klika was desperate to replace departing Dave Lindstrom.  He needed a job--and he got it: his $65,000 one day a week Thursday job in Johnson County government.  (He is a perpetually unemployed head-hunter who was also rumored to have traded his swing vote on the $32 million King Louie fiasco trying to get Ed Eilert to get him the job running the ATA.)

Three years ago, Klika promised everywhere he campaigned in southern Overland Park not to raise our taxes or vote for any new taxes UNTIL WE ADDRESSED THE NEED FOR A NEW COURTHOUSE.  Of course, the new budget does nothing about that.  This tax increase just feeds the kitty, the library and some parks way out south and west by Sunflower.

Commissioner Klika comes up for re-election in 2016.  (Unless Ks. Speaker of the House from there, Ray Merrick, scares him out of that race.)  But this Thursday, August 13, Klika will be the swing vote to raise your property taxes $67 a year--every year (based on the average $261,000 home).

The other swing vote up for re-election in 2016 is Commissioner Jim Allen, former long-time mayor of Shawnee.  Chairman Ed Eilert and Ron Shaffer from PV are the other two committed YES votes; they were just re-elected last November.  But Allen is less vulnerable than the unemployable Klika.

STEVE KLIKA

District 3 of the Johnson County Commissioner   

office: 913/715-0433

steve.klika@jocogov.org

Represents southern OP (see map on jocogov.org)--used to be Dave Lindstrom's seat.

cell: 913/706-5547  (trust me, the only phone he answers)

JIM ALLEN

District 2 represents Shawnee and Lenexa

His State Farm Ins. office is 913/631-4600.

jim.allen@jocogov.org

Of course, the County already has $114 million in reserves.  And they've raised our property appraisals 32% since 2004 (thanks to their obedient henchman, Mr. Always- Thumbs-Up, Appraiser Paul Welcome.)   Not our actual resale values, just their appraisals--which equate to higher taxes collected.  But there is currently a one vote margin for tax increases in this non-election year, as just demonstrated by the 4/3 vote to buy moldy King Louie, appraised BY the county for $430,000 but now refinanced for renovation for $32 million.  (The expected no votes, who opposed the huge waste on King Louie, the good guys, would be John Toplikar, Jason Osterhaus and hopefully, Michael Ashcraft.)

You may have already heard radio spots alerting you to this JoCo property tax issue. Those spots aired on both KMBZ stations the past month, 980-AM and 98.1FM, and were placed by the Singularis Group, a political ad agency at 67th & Antioch, (aka Ikea-ville!) on behalf of the Ks. Policy Institute, a Wichita-based think tank headed by Dave Trabert.   Heretofore, they've only worked on state and national issues.  So this JoCo campaign is a first. Good for them.  Finally, someone else putting their money where their mouth is.

Singularis Group ran the last minute campaign that saved Kansas Governor Sam Brownback from being defeated by the goofy lap-dancing Lawrence lawyer and secret Hillary-supporting Democrat, Paul Davis.  

I am not affiliated with them at all, never met them, in fact.  Their radio spots deal with the tax facts.  Whereas the mission of JoCoPost is to name names and walk you through the "what the heck??" with action steps that can save you money and grief.

Here is the 60 second radio spot airing on KMBZ

And here is the press release, from Ks Policy Institute
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs124/1102590621053/archive/1121835552919.html

Here is the Pitch.com story by Steve Vockrodt
http://www.pitch.com/FastPitch/archives/2015/08/05/americans-for-prosperity-worries-about-johnson-county-tax-increase

Tell your friends.  And let's find someone else, with integrity, who wants a high dollar Thursday day job, and get Klika out of office.  Most of those homes are south of 135th St.