The Voters Have Spoken

Monday night I picked up an extra shift working for a co-worker who had a sick kid and cast my ballot on the way home Tuesday morning. The polling place is between my home and the bus stop, so no excuses, right?

I love to vote. I’ll vote on anything. I wish I could vote every day. Voting is one of my absolute favorite things in the world to do. I almost like voting as much as sex. I am sure that I have missed some or other election in my adult life, but I can’t think of one. I’ve stood in the rain and the wind and the cold and the snow and the sleet and the heat. If there is a ballot I am eligible to cast, I will be at the polls because I don’t trust you to make up my mind for me. Sorry to be so blunt about it, but that’s how it is.

I don’t just show up to vote. I know the topic and get informed beforehand. I don’t vote for anything based on commercials. I am a political analysts nightmare. I think about stuff. I ask real questions. That’s why I split my vote on Tuesday.

Let me tell Kathryn Shields and the rest of the cheerleaders for the latest KC Fantasy why. Last night, she was on Steve Rose’s new Talk Back show (a call-in show spun off from the Talk Back column in his Sun newspapers) on KPTS, channel 19, the public TV station in KC. Ms. Shields implied that the improvements passed and the rolling roof failed because the public didn’t understand what a use-tax was. Excuse me, Kathryn, but look where the voters said “no” – the areas with the highest percentage of college degrees and highest incomes in the county: Westport, the Plaza, Downtown, Waldo and Ward Parkway. We get it, Toots. We know what a use tax is. You insulted our intelligence yet again, and I don’t care how deep your Democratic roots, I’m glad your public tenure is about at an end. Not really a fan, Kathryn, gotta be honest here.

Back to why I split my vote: We the residents of Jackson County own the stadiums and we lease them to the teams, the Royals and the Chiefs (AKA the Jesters and the Griefs). As the owners of the stadiums, we are responsible for maintaining them. Anyone who has ever had a bad landlord was sure to vote yes on question one. I don’t go to the stadiums, I don’t take part in organized fun. But I did vote yes to maintain them. I am a responsible landlord. (Just like Knack Properties, who rarely if ever raises the rent on existing tenants. I’ll gladly give my landlord/management company a plug because they take care of their units and those who rent from them. Here’s hoping that the relationship evolves from that of landlord to that of mortgage-holder real soon, because the only way I’m leaving this unit and it’s <$300-for-the-whole-winter heating bills is in a body bag.)

As to question two: We rejected the rolling roof because we have a little bit of common sense left, as an electorate, apparently. Boy, we sure got promised the moon and the stars if we would just grab our ankles and take on for the teams though. Any time the pot keeps getting sweeter and sweeter I have to ask what’s up. Vote for the rolling roof and we’ll get a superbowl at Arrowhead – then Major League Baseball announced that if Kansas City voted yes for the rolling roof, we would get an All-Star Game. Next the NCAA (which moved from Overland Park to Indianapolis a few years ago) announced that Arrowhead could have a Final Four tournament if we put a lid on it.

Any boyfriend ever wooed me that hard I took a hard second look and usually dumped him.

For the record, a use tax is paid (mostly by businesses) when goods are imported into the county. Individuals are exempt from the use tax on up to 2000 dollars of merchandise. Those of us who voted “No” are not going to change our minds if we just get “educated” which is what political strategist Pat Gray seems to think. He guaranteed a victory if the issue is placed on the ballot again and us stupid rubes just get educated as to what a use tax is. “If they bring it back, it is a no-brainer, a slam dunk, guaranteed will be approved by voters, because it is so simple” Gray said Wednesday. “Once (voters are) educated and there’s nothing to divert their attention, it’s as slam-dunk, 2-to-1 (margin).”

Well, I voted “no” on the roof precisely because I do understand what a use tax is! Quite frankly, I think that’s why it failed in the affluent areas of the county – because we did understand. For convenience, I shop on line. A lot. I live in the East Plaza neighborhood, walking distance from fine food, shopping and art. But I shop on-line. Partly for convenience, and partly because the lack of taxes often more than offsets shipping costs. I don’t want to pay a use tax on my pool cues, purses, back-packs, books, clothing, scrubs, Birkenstocks, Omaha Steaks, grape-seed oil, and all the other stuff I buy with the click of a mouse. Two thousand bucks a year? That tax would hit me, and a lot of other people like me hard, and we don’t even use the facilities. A lot of people in my part of town spend that much shopping on-line every couple of months. We will never vote yes on a use tax.

My husband voted for the stadium renovations because “I’m a responsible guy” and against the rolling roof on practical grounds. If you design the thing to fit Arrowhead, it won’t fit Royals Stadium, and vice versa…Sports are played outside and you get the thrill being at the game, and if it’s foul weather, well, the Chiefs turn that to their advantage. Besides that, he and a lot of other guys his age, who still worship the ground Len Dawson walks on, would rather see Kansas City in a Super Bowl than a Super Bowl in Kansas City.

But that’s how they try to win friends and influence people in Kansas City political circles. Call those you want to sway brainless for disagreeing with you in the first place. Denigrate your opponents as toothless rubes who don’t get something so simple as a use tax. Look at the electoral map you chuckleheads, and you will see that we did in the blue districts what the red zones do all the time: We voted our pocketbooks! Figure that one out, and save the taxpayers money come August…Leave the issue alone. The voters have spoken.

You outspent the “no” faction $268-to-$1 and lost.

I don’t think the voters are the ones who don’t get it.