Northeast News
August 10, 2016

Once again Kansas City’s claim to light rail infamy, Hillbilly Clay, has emerged from the backwoods of Virginia to advance yet another rail scheme designed to separate Kansas City taxpayers from their hard-earned money. Chastain’s petition initiative was recently approved by the city clerk as having the requisite 1,708 valid signatures to advance it to the city council for an up down vote this November.

If that number seems just a tad small, credit that minuscule amount of signatures to those registered voters who opted out of the last municipal election. Petition initiative sigs are directly tied to voter turnout; but that’s a sermon for another day. Clay’s “plan” would levy a ¾ cent sales tax to build his crazy train from KCI to the Cerner campus near the old Bannister Mall site, as well as adding a fan-train from Union Station to the Truman Sports Complex. For the record, that tax increase (if passed) would raise sales tax within the city limits to over 10% in some areas, mainly entertainment districts such as Power and Light, Westport and The Plaza. Think about that for a minute. For every $7 beer you buy at P&L, there’s a 10+ percent levy placed on that glass of suds – and that’s before any gratuity is paid to the server.

This conservative news writing canine says go home Clay, you’re drunk. Go back to the Virginia woods and brew up some more of that moonshine you’re drinking. You’ve had your fifteen minutes and then some riddling this cow town with ridiculous schemes for running trains hither, tither and yon for the expressed purpose of keeping your name and clipboard in the limelight so you can get phone numbers from female shoppers at the Westport Sunfresh. While this pooch doesn’t think much of the present gerrymandered rail district that’s in existence now, we don’t need your half baked dream-scheme that doesn’t address any of the commuter routes that currently jam on a daily basis coming into downtown. To the locals who keep giving this Wind-Wagon Thomas type the time of day; STOP! He only comes out from the backwoods in Virginia because some twenty-something news producer doesn’t know his spotted history here and sends another twenty-something talking head out to interview him. Read: slow news day. This news-dog is happy to give Clay his rail. It runs straight out of town and comes complete with tar and feathers.