By Emily Randall
Northeast News
Oct. 27, 2010

This upcoming Tuesday, Nov. 2, is Election Day across the nation, and in Historic Northeast Kansas City, there will be several high-impact local, city and state measures on the ballot.

At the most local level, the District 40 State Representative race will pit Democrat John Joseph Rizzo, who was victorious over primary opponent Will Royster by one vote after a long battle in the courts, against Libertarian candidate Sean O’Toole.

O’Toole, a 49-year-old executive/derivatives trader, said reigning in government spending and lowering taxes are his primary focal points in this election.

“[The state government] is not making the necessary cuts in size and scope it should,” O’Toole said. “In a place like Northeast, we pay for that even worse. The businesses we have here are less strong and are most affected by the changes in the tax structure.”

He said what sets him apart from his Democratic opponent — with whom he said he shares opinions concerning social and civil rights issues — is experience. O’Toole said he has 19 years of experience working in organizations and brings a lot to the table in terms of life experience.

“John seems to be in favor of every big government program that’s been in front of him,” O’Toole said. “I want the government out of my pocketbook — I want them out of my household.”

Rizzo, a 29-year-old self-employed marketing consultant, said it is his Democratic stance that sets him apart in this election.

“As a Libertarian, he doesn’t believe in a lot of funding to the police department, virtually anything,” Rizzo said. “It’s just somewhat radical of an idea for a district that depends so much on government and trash pickup and streets, things like that.”

Rizzo said his top three priorities in the state legislature will be reducing crime, economic development and abating abandoned housing. He also noted that in this election more than ever, it is pivotal for the Northeast to vote in great numbers more than ever.

“Coming from a candidate that won by one vote in the primary and a district that’s going to be heavily scrutinized going into redistricting next year, it’s really, really important so that when they do look at the districts, numbers-wise, they do say, ‘hey they’re voting over there,’” Rizzo said.

To learn more about these two District 40 candidates, come to the Northeast News-sponsored forum featuring Rizzo and O’Toole at 6:30 p.m. this Thursday at NorthEastminster Presbyterian Church, 301 S. Van Brunt Blvd.

In addition to the District 40 race, other national and state offices in contention on Northeast residents’ ballots next week will include the races pitting Robin Carnahan against Roy Blunt for the U.S. Senate, Emanuel Cleaver II against Jacob Turk for 5th District U.S. Representative and Susan Montee against Tom Schweich for State Auditor.

This election cycle, there are several ballot questions directly impacting Kansas Citians, as well. Proposition A — the E-tax proposition — concerns the authority of Missouri cities to fund their budgets using earnings taxes.

Kansas City currently levies a 1 percent tax on the earned income of employees who work in the city. That revenue funds 42 percent of the city’s general fund — including 76.4 percent of police and fire department expenditures.

If Proposition A passes, Kansas City would be required to put the earnings tax on a city ballot every five years for voter approval to continue using it as a funding source.

Currently, more than 4,000 U.S. cities have earnings taxes, including Denver, Baltimore, Newark, N.J., Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

City Questions No. 1 and 2 concern the city coffers, as well. If approved, the city would renew the quarter-cent Public Safety Sales Tax for 15 years and issue up to $100 million in general obligation bonds for public safety purposes. The money would be used to fund capital improvement projects, including:

• New East Patrol station.

• New crime lab.

• New North patrol station.

• Technological upgrades, including a new public safety radio system.

• New helicopters.

Additionally, City Question No. 3 addresses a recent controversy still at the forefront of many Kansas Citians’ minds — redistricting. The ballot question asks whether the City Charter should be amended to require redistricting every 10 years when official Census data is available, rather than the current cycle of every three elections.

This fall, the required redistricting fell on a census year, meaning within a year’s time, it will have occurred twice — once to get it done before the third council election and once again in 2011 when 2010 census data is available.

Vocal proponent of this measure, City Councilman John Sharp, said it is vital to approve this measure so this year’s situation doesn’t happen again every two decades.

“It’s such a waste of time and money to have to redistrict twice within a one-year period,” Sharp said. “This needs to be changed.”

There are also 15 judges and associate judges of the 16th Judicial Circuit Court in Jackson County, five judges of the Missouri Court of Appeals-Western District and one Missouri Supreme Court judge up for retention on the Nov. 2 ballot.

These judges are nominated by judicial commissions and selected by the governor. After their first year in office, these judges most be retained by the voters by a majority vote. Circuit Court judges then serve four-year terms, and Appellate Court judges serve 12-year terms. See a list of these judges on the sample ballot, page 12.

To learn more about district maps, polling places and other Election Day issues, see the Kansas City Board of Election Commissioners website, www.kceb.org.