Today we continue publishing the Roeland Park mayoral candidates’ responses to our general election questionnaire. Here’s the second question:
What types of businesses or amenities does Roeland Park lack today that you’d like to see come to the city? What will you do as mayor to bring them here?
Mike Kelly
Roeland Park has no sit-down restaurant, bar and grill, coffee shop, or entertainment destination. It lacks local retail stores and has few options for working professionals wishing to office within city limits. I will work to prioritize welcoming these types of businesses in our underutilized, or unutilized, areas.
While we can, and should, recruit major employers, we should complement this by creating developments that maximize our footprint in a landlocked town. Compact, diverse, and walkable growth should be our focus. By doing so, we can incentivize businesses that share our vision for the city to come here, and can take advantage of state and federal funding when it’s available.
We can create momentum toward change by keeping our citizens informed and engaged about our vision for growth within the city. Roeland Parkers, like Kansas Citians, are loyal. We support our Chiefs, drink Boulevard beer, and eat at Joe’s KC. If local retailers come to Roeland Park, we will repay them with our loyalty and our dollars. We welcome the chance to prove it.
Roger Cooper
Note: Mr. Cooper submitted his response after our initial deadline, but we’ve since added it.
The best approach to obtaining new businesses or expand current businesses, would for everyone in the City Government to focus on asking the question: ” How may I help you develop a business in Roeland Park?”
Yes, this a simple answer, but in the past there may have been resistance from the city to help out possible business.
Tomorrow we’ll run responses to question three: With the prospect of Walmart and its significant sales tax revenues leaving the city, Roeland Park raised its property tax rate by 26 percent in 2014. Are you comfortable with the city’s current mix of revenue from property taxes and sales taxes? Or would you like to see tax rates adjusted?
