Supporters of an effort to put the new Prairie Village municipal complex project before voters say a new survey shows residents “overwhelmingly” back the idea.
But roughly two-thirds of the 435 respondents polled in the survey, which was sponsored by a conservative Wichita-based think tank, live outside of Prairie Village.
While some backers of a public vote, including one city councilmember, have touted the survey’s results as they continue to make the case to put the city hall project on the ballot, other elected leaders have dismissed the survey as misleading.
2 of 6 ZIP codes surveyed in Prairie Village
Earlier this month, public opinion firm SurveyUSA released results of the survey, backed by the Kansas Policy Institute, asking residents their thoughts on the prospective $30 million municipal complex project, which aims to build a new city hall on Mission Road and expand the police department’s headquarters in the current city hall building.
Of the four questions asked of participating residents, three pertained to the municipal complex project and a fourth asked about property taxes.
For a question that asked whether the city should put the municipal complex project before voters, 85% of respondents said “yes.”
According to the survey’s methodology, the firm reached out to residents in six Johnson County ZIP codes, but only two of those ZIP codes fell within Prairie Village.
In total, 149 of the 435 survey respondents live in the two Prairie Village ZIP codes surveyed (66207 and 66208 also cover cities like Overland Park and Mission Hills).
Dave Trabert, chief executive officer of the Kansas Policy Institute, told the Post that the think tank doesn’t choose the ZIP codes itself but felt comfortable saying that an “overwhelming” amount of residents want to vote on the municipal complex issue given that 88% and 86% of respondents in the two Prairie Village ZIP codes said “yes,” respectively.
This comes as some residents, including the group PV United and a newer dark money group Preserve Prairie Village, have pushed back on the city’s plan to build a new city hall to renovate and expand the existing police department.
The municipal complex project is years in the making, with current plans to build a new city hall at 7820 Mission Road and then renovate and expand the existing police department. The city says both the current city hall and police department are overcrowded, with some staff in both parts of the building working out of storage closets.
The Prairie Village City Council maintains the authority to issue bonds for the project and other projects — and city officials say calls to revoke that authority wouldn’t result in a bond issue ballot measure in 2025 anyway.
In a text to the Post on Wednesday, Mayor Eric Mikkelson called into question the ZIP codes included in the survey saying that the “sloppy push poll effort failed to accurately survey our residents.”
“Such misguided methodology is doomed when compounded by misleading questions, small samples, and other errors undermining validity,” Mikkelson said.
Survey asked whether the city should hold an election
Trabert told the Post that the recent public vote over the sale of a park in another Johnson County suburb, Westwood, sparked an interest in gauging whether Prairie Village residents are interested in voting on a bond issue, too.
KPI is based in Wichita, but the conservative think-tank has also had an Overland Park office since 2012, Trabert said. No matter where an office is at, Trabert said because KPI has donors statewide, KPI works “on issues all over the state.”
On behalf of KPI, Survey USA conducted the survey from May 18 to May 29, polling 435 adults in the following ZIP codes: 66202, 66203, 66204, 66205, 66207 and 66208.
Only 66207 and 66208 cover areas of Prairie Village, according to the United States Postal Service’s website. A third ZIP code covering Prairie Village, 66206, was omitted from the survey.
Trabert told the Post that KPI had no control over which ZIP codes were surveyed, but he knows — from other surveys the think tank has sponsored — that SurveyUSA “had to bring in surrounding ZIP codes to get a sufficient response.”
He added that SurveyUSA then looks at whether there is a significant variance between the ZIP codes to determine whether they have a good sample.
Of the 435 adults polled, 35% were surveyed via smartphone or tablet. The remaining 65% were polled via telephone, according to the survey.
The first two survey questions ask whether residents have heard of the municipal complex project and if they want to vote on whether the city can spend the money to pay for it.
Question 1 reads, “The City of Prairie Village wants to spend $30 million to build a city hall. Before today, how much had you heard about this?”
And Question 2 asks, “Should Prairie Village hold an election so residents can vote on whether or not to spend $30 million on the project?”
The remaining two questions focused on property taxes, as home valuations have skyrocketed in Prairie Village and Johnson County more broadly. The city is planning to issue municipal bonds and tap into other revenue streams in order to pay for the $30 million project.
City officials have repeatedly said there are no plans to raise the city’s property taxes to pay for the municipal complex project. Still, with rising property taxes, it’s likely the real property taxes residents pay will continue to rise, regardless of whether the city moves the project forward.
The survey’s third question combines these two issues and falsely implies that property owners would pay higher property taxes specifically because of the municipal complex project:
“The city website says funding the new city hall will likely not require an increase in the mill levy. However, even if the mill rate does not change, you would pay more property tax when the appraised value of your property rises. Are you willing to pay higher property taxes for the $30 million city hall project? (Property values in Prairie Village have steadily increased since at least 2018, according to the Johnson County Appraiser’s Office.)”
The fourth question focuses solely on property taxes:
“Right now, would you say your property tax is too high? Too low? Or just about right?”
In response to whether the city should hold an election on the $30 million project, 88% of respondents from 66207 agreed and 86% of respondents from 66208 agreed. Similarly, 85% of all respondents agreed that Prairie Village should hold an election.
- In response to question #1, 46% of all respondents said they had heard “nothing at all” about the $30 million project. For the Prairie Village ZIP codes, 32% of respondents in 66207 and 34% of respondents in 66208 said they had heard “nothing at all.”
- In response to question #3, 68% of all respondents said they are not willing to pay higher property taxes for the $30 million project. That’s a bit higher in the Prairie Village ZIP codes, with 73% in 66207 and 75% in 66208 saying they are unwilling to pay higher property taxes for the project.
- In response to question #4, 65% of all respondents said their property taxes are too high. Similarly, 69% of respondents in 66207 and 60% of respondents in 66208 said their property taxes were too high.
Trabert said there is no breakdown of how many of the respondents from 66207 and 66208 live in Prairie Village.
“What it looks like is, there is a really strong desire for people to have input on these major issues because … in every ZIP code, it was either high 70s or mid 80s percent of people saying yes, people should be able to vote on this,” Trabert said.
“We knew that we were going to have to be going into different ZIP codes but kept it real tight, is what they said they did, and when we see that the results don’t really differ from one ZIP code to another, we feel pretty comfortable that the overwhelming majority of people in Prairie Village would like to vote on it,” he added.
“I don’t take that seriously”
During a city council discussion about the municipal complex project on June 2, two councilmembers referenced the KPI-backed survey, including Councilmember Lori Sharp.
“I’ve heard it over and over again, and then based on that recent survey, nine out of 10 residents, regardless of political affiliation or age or renting or owning a home, they are wanting to vote on this issue,” Sharp said.
Councilmember Ian Graves responded, saying when it comes to the KPI survey about Prairie Village, “I don’t take that seriously.”
Graves, like Mikkelson, said that based on the survey’s methodology, two-thirds of respondents are not Prairie Village residents. He questioned the survey’s validity, noting an uncertainty as to whether the Prairie Village residents who were surveyed were a representative sample.
“In all actuality, what this really boils down to is something like maybe 95 Prairie Village residents were sampled in that survey,” Graves said, adding that the survey also comes from a “source that has a history of publishing that sort of thing.”
How we got here
For years, the city of Prairie Village has been working on plans to upgrade its aging municipal complex through either a renovation or a full rebuild.
After mulling several options — a total of 18 studied by city staff — and buying a nearby church, the city council ultimately chose to move forward with a plan to build a new city hall at 7820 Mission Road in order to renovate and expand the existing police department. In total, this is a $30 million project that the city plans to borrow money to construct.
But in recent weeks, that plan has caught the attention of resident groups like PV United — the group that spearheaded pushback to housing efforts over the past few years — and a new dark money group called Preserve Prairie Village has been voicing opposition to the new city hall building.
Those groups are calling for the city to let residents vote on the $30 million bond issue, with new PV United yard signs sprinkled across the city signaling support for the police renovations and opposition to the new city hall building.
Still, some residents support the municipal complex project outright. Some of those residents have voiced their support in city council meetings, including their support for the city’s plan to build the new city hall to environmental design standards known as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
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