KC Light Rail

Photographer Eric Bowers captured Clay Chastain during his petition drive at Union Station on Saturday, which was also National Train Day. Chastain gathered about 1,000 signatures, but announced today he'd be scaling back the proposal.

Earlier in the week, Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders made a competing pitch to the Kansas City City Council; the Council tentatively agreed to support the Sanders plan [PDF] and is considering a change in the petition process that would require a financial statement from the city auditor for each petition initiative submitted to voters.

Photo used with permission.

We received this in email this morning:

PRESS RELEASE

April 22, 2010

Clay Chastain

Once again, we are exercising our right under the Constitution to petition our government for grievances.

Our grievance is that Kansas City’s government has failed to provide the people a modern, efficient, and attractive transit system to move about the city that saves people money, protects the environment, and helps stimulate the local economy.

Included in this press release is the text and the audio of a radio spot advertising this effort and informing the voters of Kansas City where they can come to sign the light rail and charter change initiative.

This new radio spot will air today at 5:52p.m on KMBZ radio and continue to run as funds allow up to the petition signing rally at Union Station on May 8 from 9:00am to 3:00pm.

In the past, people have complained that they did not know where to find us to sign light rail petitions. So, we are giving the public a one-day opportunity to come to us.

Thank you for any assistance you can provide in informing the public of this most important civic matter.

The radio spot is here [MP3].

Punch #1 – Another light/commuter rail plan. PrimeBuzz has the details.
Punch #2 – Strip the City Council's ability to invalidate petition initiatives.

We've maintained that Chastain's motivation actually seems quite pure and is valuable in keeping the city's feet to the fire on transit improvements. Our system is undeniably underfunded and has yet to make the leap from poor-people mover to economic development engine.

BRT, commuter rail, and streetcars are all great proposals, but none of them will ever come to fruition if our operational funding isn't significantly increased (and preferably on a truly regional basis).

Regarding Punch #2, the Council will never live down repealing the only successful vote on light rail, flawed as it was. Since that first repeal of a petition initiative didn't go so well, expect voters to do some punishing.

After a failed attempt at working directly with the Parks Board, Clay Chastain is starting another light rail petition initiative. He will be gathering signatures from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday at Union Station. Laugh if you must, but Chastain is the only person who's actually doing something about light rail right now. What better way to keep the city's feet to the fire than sign the petition again?

No gondolas this time — which we feel was a pretty good idea… ever walked from Union Station to Liberty Memorial? Yeah, didn't think so — but the electric buses are back, fueled this time by wind turbines on the riverfront. And if you think that's koo-koo, check out Oklahoma City's plan again.

And even though the Missouri Court of Appeals struck down Chastain's legal challenge from the last initiative, he's still threatening to take that one to the Missouri Supreme Court.

The Missouri Court of Appeals put the final nail in the coffin of Clay Chastain's only successful light rail petition initiative today by denying his appeal. Chastain argued that the city council's repeal of the petition initiative was unconstitutional, but the robes disagreed.

The city's charter was amended years ago to allow the council to undo any petition initiative. Opinions on the wisdom of applying that option in this situation vary. It was, at a minimum, short-sighted to reject Chastain's plan entirely (which was approved with 53% in a low-turnout election) than to put all of our eggs in a similarly-problematic basket in a replacement ballot question (which was swept under the rug with only 44% approval in a tide of "change").

Of course, it all seems obvious in retrospect. The council was simply not given adequate information on the options.

In the interim, KC transit riders endured a fare increase and an unsuccessful attempt to secure state funding to prevent service cuts. Brights spots actually exist, however: County leaders are poking around in the commuter rail attic, the city is getting somewhat serious about bike and pedestrian issues (vital to supporting transit), and SmartMoves is progressing with our Bush-era BRT-lite template (the Troost Avenue corridor is next in 2010).

Two very different takes on the continued legal challenges from Clay Chastain: Star columnist Mike Hendricks and Scott Wilson on Pitch Weekly's Plog.