By Joe Jarosz
Northeast News
February 11, 2015

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — A grassroots group is collecting signatures to make sure the city doesn’t spend money on a streetcar expansion without voter consideration first.

Last year, voters decisively rejected plans to expand the downtown streetcar east and south. Supporters of Modern Affordable Regional Transit, also known as SMARTKC, are worried the city might still try and push for an extension.

On their website, SMARTKC has launched an Initiative Petition to require the city to stop spending tax dollars on a streetcar expansion without first putting it to a vote. This petition is a direct response to the city’s recent approval of ordinance 141052. On Jan. 22, the Council approved an ordinance that read, “providing for the continued use of proceeds of the bonds to pay costs of preliminary work related to the expansion of the City’s streetcar system.” The ordinance left around $2.4 million available for the preliminary expansion.

“Since the Council seems bound and determined to continue spending our tax dollars on a streetcar expansion that a majority of the voters resoundingly rejected, we MUST put a stop to that spending unless the Council first gets approval from us, the voters,” the website states. “To make that happen, people must come out and sign the petition.”

The group hopes to gather more than 4,000 signatures. The petition would require the city council to get approval from voters before spending any more money on expanding the downtown streetcar.

Last Thursday at the North-East Library, those who oppose the streetcar made their voices heard. Northeast residents Judy Hendren and Linda Pernice both are very much in favor of the petition and the work that SMARTKC is doing. Hendren believes the money should go to repairing the city’s streets and to making improvements to the bus system.

“The excess spending is outrageous,” Pernice said.

The petition can be found at http://smartkc.org/.