Thursday, May 22, 2008

Council delays museum tax proposal

After pushing though a proposal to increase a tax benefiting Kansas City's museums, the city Council today decided to pull the measure that was to be voted on today.

Councilwoman Deb Hermann introduced the referendum Wednesday that would have asked voters to increase the mil levy, from 2 mils to 10 mils to help fund several area museums.

Currently those two mils only benefit the Kansas City Museum. Hermann's plan, which was made public just last week in an interview in The Star, would have used the additional mils to fund other "museum" sites in the metro such as Union Station, Liberty Memorial, the Black Archives, and 18th and Vine museums.

But Hermann caught ire from some Northeast residents and even fellow councilmembers for not including them in the talks that preceded the referendums' introduction on Wednesday.

Hermann said yesterday that the she only caught wind of the proposal two weeks ago and wanted to get things smoothed out before making it public. Part of the rush, also, was for the issue to make it on this August's ballot. In order for that to occur however, the council would have had to approve the measure today.

It does not appear that the resolution will make that deadline.

For more on this, check Wednesday in The Northeast News