They are passing a law in Missouri says that folks from the "show me" state will receive a 50% discount on parking at the stadiums where the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals play…Read about it here.
Its like this — If you live in Kansas and drive the few miles to see your team, the Kansas City Chiefs play football or the Royals play Baseball, their will pay 50% more to park than those who drive a few miles to see their teams play but live in Missouri (Kansas City, for you geographically challenged, is on the Missouri/Kansas state line. You can live in Kansas City, Kan, or Kansas City, MO, and be just a few feet from each other.).
Sooooo I show up for the game — and drive up to the parking attendant –how does he tell where I’m from – does he check my license number ( I’m sure there are a lot of folks who actually live in Kansas and have "Mo" license plates and vice versa) or what, their drivers license, or water bill…
The justification for this is that some politician feels that the Kansas folks should pay more since the Mo folks are paying for the refurbishment of the stadium with their sales tax. That in itself makes no sense to me. If the Chiefs and Royals want a prettier place, let them pay for it. If they can’t afford it, raise the ticket prices to all the people who come to see the games, or lower the outrageous salaries of the players. I’m sure there will be a lot of people who will pay the increased taxes in Mo who will never attend a game. (Whoops, that’s a bit of the subject, isn’t it.) But that isn’t fair, either since this tax increase is only in Jackson County where I assume Kansas City MO is located. What about people from the burbs outside Jackson County. Do they get the half rate? They won’t be paying the extra taxes.
The pols have an answer to that – they say that folks in surrouding counties will shop in Kansas City MO and therefore pay the extra taxes (about 30%). Now — does that mean the folks from Kansas don’t cross the state line and visit the fine stores at Crown Center in Kansas City MO?
In the end the only people who will profit from this will be the attendants who will simply have no KAN folks in their line, ever.
I had dinner last night with a fellow who ran a lot of event parking in Missouri. It was flat rate in. He had all sorts of ways to ensure that the right amount of money was collected per car. Most of them seemed to work well, but none of them allowed for a different amount to be collected depending on the origin of the car, or its contents.
These people are nuts.
J
