Rimsie McConiga
Special to the Citizen
The City of Platte Woods board of aldermen meeting Aug. 15 featured news of a slight increase to the tax levy.
Mayor John Smedley reported a slight increase in valuation in Platte Woods from $11,353,290 in 2018 to $11,867,047 for the current year by the county. It was submitted to the state and the state made a modification and dropped it down to $11,867,000. With those numbers the state auditor calculated the pro forma under the Hancock Amendment which caps the amount of property tax increases in the state of Missouri. Those numbers came back to the city of Platte Woods and accrue no more than $91,357 based on real estate and property taxes.
“What that means to the city is that if we use a mandatory levy setting of .7702 for the city of Platte Woods for 2019, the city will increase its revenue for property and real estate taxes by $1,072,” the mayor said.
Last year’s levy was .7427.
He expects there to be additional funds next year for emergency management, police services, the park and public safety. Expenditures will include sidewalks and street repairs, which the mayor said were moderate expenses.
“We expect to spend $145,700 additionally on road work,” he said. “We expect to spend about $25,700 on expenditures for a general fund for computer upgrades, radios and things we need for the police.”
Public comment included a resident who asked with police department costs going up what was happening with revenue from Lake Waukomis. The mayor said that it all goes into a general fund and pays for police services depending on how many hours police are spending in the lake vicinity.
“Anything we’re spending over there we’re getting complete capture on it,” Smedley said. “And that’s adding about $100,000 a year.”
The board approved both the levy increase and the budget for the next fiscal year.
The park director, Erika Nielson, said there was now a new roof on the park house. Interior repairs from water damage will begin around Aug. 22. Landscaping, including planting trees and shrubbery around the house will begin in September or October. The 2019-2020 budget will reflect the cost of the wood replacement and painting of the house.
The mayor reported on a recent monthly meeting with the city of Lake Waukomis.
“In that meeting I opened up the opportunity for … they have a lot of public works employees and equipment and we have none,” Smedley said. “We have a lot of police and they have none so I kind of merged the two and I asked them to give us a proposal to take care of our snow removal going forward so we could compare that versus having to contract it out. We could kind of get a little quid pro quo.”
He said he needs to get back with their sub-contractor for the next season and figure out if the city needs to stock up on salt and sand after a tougher than usual winter season.
Smedley also addressed the road project on NW 72nd Street, which has been closed for more than two months for repaving.
The project has been stalled because when the old pavement was removed the soil under the road was found to be unstable and needs to be replaced with a stable foundation. The first bid for the project was about $300,000, but the soil problem may result in that cost being tripled.
Smedley said KCMO Public Works, Platte County and Platte Woods are working together to negotiate a price for the completion of the project and he’s hoping the road will reopen around Thanksgiving.
Max Ahmed owns the Sinclair gas station, which can be reached around the detour signs.
He told FOX4 that his business went down the past three months since the project started in May. He estimated he has lost more than 50 percent of his usual business due to the road project.
“Terrible,” he told FOX4’s Pat McGonigle. “It’s very depressing. It’s hard to pay bills.”
Under new business, The Jason Ayers Insurance Group was approved for a license. He will be at 6600 NW Tower, Suite 103.