JOPLIN, Mo. —
My service to the city of Joplin began in 1972 and includes council member, a member of the Building Board of Appeals, Planning and Zoning Commission, Planned Industrial Expansion Authority, Enterprise Zone Tax Abatement Study Committee, City Manager Screening Committee (2), Home Rule Charter Review Committee, Land Clearance Redevelopment, Board of Adjustment and an earlier Tax Increment Financing Commission. I also served as a member of the Joplin School District Board of Education multiple years.
This background has prompted this statement. I believe the previous TIF programs have proved their value to the city and the tax-sharing entities. The current proposal is very different, in my opinion. First, the size of the zone is much larger both in acres and in scope. Including the downtown area is not justifiable under the TIF rules, in my opinion. Much of the area in the program and other areas will be developed as housing units, which means more student enrollment during the TIF period with no increase in revenue to the school district. Making up this loss will fall on the taxpayers in the district.
The recent effort to push for approval before the problems are resolved seems to be the wrong approach. The gains, if true, do not justify the potential problems for the school district and their patrons. Unlike our leadership in Washington, we need to completely evaluate the potential gains and problems before we rush approval. At this point we have not done that.
Jan C. Tupper
Joplin
Opinion
Your View: Resolve problems
- Opinion
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Other Views: Conflicts in SEC
Money talks. In the continuing dispute over the all-too-cozy relationship between the people who create and sell financial products and the people who rate their risk, the money says: Shut up and let us do what we want.
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Phill Brooks, columnist: Missouri Senate did what Founding Fathers had in mind
George Washington once described the Senate as being like a saucer in which you pour coffee or tea.
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Our View: Fixing failure
Some 1,200 injured workers will finally get the payments they are owed. In its final week in session, Missouri’s General Assembly, through bipartisan efforts, passed a solution to address the insolvency of the state’s Second Injury Fund.
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Herb B. Kuhn, guest columnist: Delaying Medicaid reform could hurt rural Missouri
The Missouri Legislature missed a rare opportunity in the just-ended session to transform Medicaid and make a real difference in the lives and health of hundreds of thousands of our neighbors. Rural Missouri has the most to lose from the legislature’s failure to act.
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Kevin Wilson, guest columnist: When fear wins out, so do the terrorists
I’m going to make a bold statement that’s sure to draw a lot of comments, but hear me out before reaching for the keyboard to type a rebuttal.
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Sandie Morgan, guest columnist: Unions benefit workers more than they may know
In a recent guest column (Globe, May 14), Elliott Denniston made the case for Missouri not to become a right-to-work state, and he made this case very well.
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Marta Mossburg, columnist: Maybe government is tyrannical after all
Less than two weeks ago President Obama stood in front of graduates from The Ohio State University and told them to reject those who warn of government tyranny.
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Our View: Spying on us
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
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Our View: Pass on the legacy
Forty hungry members of the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry began gathering corn at the Rader farm near the village of Sherwood when they were ambushed by a guerrilla band of about 70 Southern sympathizers.
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Our View: Big Brother looms large
The federal government, working under the cloak of secrecy, has been having a heyday at the expense of all Americans.
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