Prairie Village citizens seem to want the city council to pursue a new community and aquatic center — but what kind of funding methods they’d support for its construction and operation are not clear.
At their last meeting, members of the Prairie Village city council received the results of a survey they’d commissioned gauging citizen interest in community center. Of the 345 respondents, 69 percent said the city should place at least a medium priority on the pursuit of a community center, indicating broad support for the initiative that was identified as part of the city’s Village Vision project. Moreover, 67 percent of respondents said they might vote to support a .5 cent sales increase to fund the project.
As council member David Belz noted, though, the survey was taken before the council voted to approve a one percent sales tax increase at the Village Shops and Corinth Square as part of two CIDs. Whether those tax increases would temper citizen’s acceptance of a tax to support the community center is unknown.
The survey also revealed that 45 percent of respondents would not be willing to pay any property tax increase to support to the center. Thirty eight percent said they’d be willing to pay less than $150 a year.
