Kansas City voters took a chance in 2017 when they approved a one-eighth cent sales tax dedicated exclusively to economic development on the East Side. It was an acknowledgment that decades of public and private investment had disproportionately flowed elsewhere, and that a targeted effort was needed to help a part of the city that had too often been left behind.
The idea was sound, but the execution initially was not.
The Central City Economic Development sales tax spent its first several years bogged down by a cumbersome approval process that required projects to pass through several layers of City Hall. Projects approved by the oversight board languished in City Hall for months or even years waiting for contracts. Some developers watched construction costs soar while they waited. Supporters who had fought to create the tax were understandably frustrated…