In November and December of 2022 I visited a city called Zwolle in the Netherlands. This city has the same population and the same average income as Independence, but I wanted to visit because they had something Independence doesn’t have; a thriving city center. You can see a 3D video I made of their city center below.

Independence used to have a city center like this, I’ve talked to many people while going door-to-door that told me that they remember when the Square was very much like the Zwolle I visited. This experience is why I’m running for city council. I plan to live in Independence the rest of my life, and I want to live in an Independence that has a thriving downtown.

Thankfully there are plans in the works to get us there. The two biggest ones, that are intertwined, are the GO (general obligation) Bond and the master developer’s plan. The master developer had an open house recently to show some of their early ideas, and they are definitely thinking in the right direction. A lot of the concepts they presented are the exact thriving Square that we need.

The GO Bond is further along. A GO bond would, if given 57.2% approval by the voters, would give the city council the ability to raise property taxes in order to make infrastructure improvements. Before we get into the specifics, it’s important to take a step back and think about how we’re going to get this done.

In going door-to-door a common theme among voters who have answered the door is a distrust of the city council. Because of long history of shady deals like Rockwood and Missouri City the public simply doesn’t trust the city council to spend their money effectively. If we want to get this through, the first step is going to be putting a councilmen into office that citizens can trust to spend their tax dollars effectively.

But having the right person isn’t enough. We will also need to make sure the plan is something that voters can buy into. Specifically, I believe we need to make sure GO Bond projects are ones that have a positive return on investment while also addressing the major concerns voters have.

The Streets, Bridges and Culverts, and Curbs and Sidewalks portions of the GO Bond proposal made by the city manager check these boxes. They are highly desired by the voting public and will provide a positive return on investment by decreasing long-term costs. Public Buildings aren’t a major issue of voters of course, but if these funds are effectively spent then they should also see a positive return on investment and the public will buy into it if presented to them effectively.

Historic Sites will not provide a positive return on investment, but this is an area where I believe tax payers are willing to spend a little bit to preserve Independence’s history.

The Community Center, however, I don’t think the public would buy. Not that people wouldn’t want a community center, but the $75 million price tag (which would entail a yearly payment of $5.7 million plus operating expenses) is just too much when we have other, higher priority needs along with a fiscally unstable general fund.

To put it into perspective, the police use tax that allowed us to hire 30 more officers brings in roughly $4 million.

It also doesn’t generate revenue for the city, it is instead a financial liability as the city will have to pay to staff and maintain the building. It would be a great addition to our community, but we are unfortunately not at a place where we can afford it right now.

That being said, some of the arguments in favor of it are good. The argument is that a community center would drive more people to the Square than city hall and the police building, which is true. But it is also not necessary for a thriving Square. The Square didn’t have a community center for its first 150 years when it was thriving. And Zwolle currently has a thriving city center that doesn’t have a community center. If we bring back the thriving city center first, it will be an economic engine that will allow us to be financially stable enough to afford a community center in the future.

What those thriving city centers do have in common is an effective use of space. Even though Zwolle’s city center and our Square take up the same amount of space, satellite images show how much more stuff they have in theirs.

Independence Square and Zwolle city center comparison at same size.

This difference is in large part because the Square has too much space dedicated to parking, while Zwolle’s city center has parking garages that take up less space. Parking garages would allow us to sell our parking lots to developers to infill the Square and make it a place with lots of stuff to do.

The argument against parking garages is that they’re expensive, which is true. But they’re less expensive than the proposed community center. It costs $25,500 per parking space to build a parking garage (Source). The Square has about 1,400 parking spaces, bringing the cost to replace them all with a garage to $36 million, less than half of the community center.

A parking garage at this location could open up other possibilities as it’s right across the street from the transit center. For example, with a downtown baseball stadium possibly coming in the near future, we could provide park and ride services to baseball fans from Eastern Jackson County (and even out of towners who would be incentivized to stay in Independence), which would encourage people to visit the Square before and after games.

It should also be noted that the master developer includes parking garages in some of their plans, so this would fit nicely with all of our plans for the future.

Another idea could be a homeless shelter. Homelessness is one of the most important issues to voters, and our services are extremely lacking. I don’t have a cost estimate for this project, and it would entail costs to operate, but having a place for people to go would have a huge impact on our homelessness problem and would be a major step in solving the problem altogether.

As I noted in my homelessness plan problems associated with homelessness are caused by homelessness. By providing more shelter services to people temporarily experiencing homelessness we will prevent them from developing long term issues.

While these are not the only good ideas, they are more in line with the priorities voters have expressed to me and will have a larger positive impact on the community.