Voters to decide on funding new city jail on April 8

By Don Bradley

Kansas City voters first approved a quarter-cent sales tax for public safety in 2002 with the money earmarked for equipment and capital improvements for the police and fire departments.

When it came time to renew the tax in 2010, it passed easily with 70 percent approval.

Now, it’s time again. Only this year, the ballot issue, which would extend the tax another 20 years, is being referred to around town as “the jail vote.”

That’s because the city plans to use a big chunk of the tax’s $24 million in annual revenue to build a $250 million jail and, depending on whose math is being used, perhaps twice or three times that when operating costs are included.

Supporters say a city the size of Kansas City needs a jail for prisoners whose crimes are not serious enough to land them in county jail. Some are now sent to rural counties, but that’s a costly and clumsy practice.

So, offenders are sometimes ticketed instead of being arrested because there’s no place to put them and they often become repeat offenders.

“They know we don’t have a jail,” Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson, who previously served as the city’s public safety director, said at a recent debate.

Opponents say those lesser crimes, things like petty theft, urinating in public, minor assault and trespassing, are often more about the social ills of addiction and mental health than criminal behavior.

“The vast majority are non-violent, homeless, have mental health needs, and require community resources and professional support rather than jail,” argued Sixth District Councilman Johnathan Duncan.

He favors a “community resource center” where offenders could get help with mental health and addiction rather than a 250-bed jail.

Duncan, the only council member to oppose the jail, took some heat Tuesday at a Center Planning and Development Council meeting.

One man said the city should be building a 700-bed jail. And a woman said Duncan was omitting domestic violence from crimes that could get someone locked up in city jail.

If voters approve the extension, funds from the tax would also be used for Emergency 911 improvements and to purchase fire and police equipment, including police car camera systems, body cams and a new building for the Central Patrol Division.

Most city officials, the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City support the tax extension.

The jail is opposed by a coalition of liberal groups such as KC Tenants, Decarcerate KC and Stand Up KC.

Amaia Cook, executive director of Decarcerate KC, questioned the logic of spending a half-billion dollars or more to house offenders charged with minor offenses for three days.

Still, voters are typically more likely to approve a tax extension rather than a new one because they’re already paying it. In this case, since 2002.

But the jail does give this one a twist. Also, the Kansas City School District is asking for a $474 million bond package on the same ballot, which could put some voters in an either/or mindset.

The jail opponents also point out that if the extension passes, taxpayers would be paying for two jails at the same time because Jackson County is also building one.

Early on, there was talk of the city and county partnering on a jail project, but no agreement was reached.

The city currently sends prisoners to jails in Vernon and Johnson counties in Missouri. But those jails can refuse certain offenders.

The city’s plan is now to build its jail on land adjacent to the county site and has already approved $2.3 million to buy land from the county.

Johnson, the prosecutor, warns voters not to expect the new county jail to provide space to the city because it will be at capacity as soon as it opens.

Duncan said he hears all the time from residents weary of violent crime and property theft. But he wants voters to understand that those are state crimes and offenders would go to county jail.

“Simply put,” Duncan said, “a new city jail is another expensive band-aid that will not solve our public safety issues and will only continue the cycle of harm and violence we shove our most vulnerable neighbors through.”

Second District Councilman Wes Rogers counters that the city would be in a better place to provide mental health services to prisoners if they were in a city-owned jail.