How do people feel about spending on stadiums?

For the best recent illustration, let’s look to the Show Me State.

However, local politicians — Republicans and Democrats both — might not like what they see.

Last week, voters in Kansas City and Jackson County rejected a proposal to fund new stadiums for the NFL Chiefs (the flagship franchise of the league) and the MLB Royals (not so much of a flagship).

The vote?

Well, it wasn’t close.

Fifty-eight percent of those casting a ballot voted against the plan to impose a 40-year sales tax on locals, extending a current stadium maintenance tax — a buy now, pay later scheme reminiscent of Lenny Curry’s pension reform push that will see people in the 2050s paying for legacy pension debt from plans closed to new entrants in the middle of last decade. 

Voters rejected that play despite the Chiefs and Royals both saying that hooking taxpayers through 2064 was necessary to keep them playing locally. 

And those taxpayers — present and future — would have been shouldering more than half the burden. Roughly a billion dollars for the baseball team, and roughly $500 million for the gridiron gang. 

Sound familiar?

The 50/50 split is what has been advanced by the Jaguars in the term sheet that surfaced around the time Lenny Curry was leaving office. They envisioned up to a billion dollars in taxpayer money, though indications are that could be pared down, given uncertainty regarding the “entertainment district” component of the scheme.

Mayor Donna Deegan’s administration suggests we will see whatever refined proposal emerges in time for the May 14 City Council meeting, and thus far we know more about the creative financing possibilities — such as borrowing from pension assets — than we do about what the total taxpayer obligation for the project will be.

Indeed, this deal is moving forward without any inkling of public input, with the same politicians who hurl invective at each other over piddly issues like personnel choices and lobbying hires choosing to move as one.

Last month, the City Council allocated $10 million in taxpayer funds for “preconstruction design and engineering services.” The vote was unanimous – which you should keep in mind when your favorite Republican tax cutters get on social media and blather about fiscal discipline.

People may not be willing to formally commit to the total project cost yet, but how many outliers will there be in the end, after the Khans sail the Kismet to the Northbank and host Council members for a few minutes? (It’s inevitable.)

With few exceptions, Council members will recognize that the Khans represent a ticket to a political future, just as their predecessors did, and just as former Mayors Lenny Curry and Alvin Brown did ahead of their re-election campaigns.

Politicians come and go, but their preoccupation with yoking civic identity at almost any cost to one of the least successful professional sports franchises of the 21st century remains. The only time we saw significant pushback was the Lot J deal a couple of years back, and that would have passed if it hadn’t required a supermajority vote.

Referendums are not without their flaws, as those who took the bait of voting for a half-penny sales tax to improve school district infrastructure a few years back can tell you.

The new School Board and the temporary superintendent appear poised to renege on capital commitments in many neighborhoods, with a number of elementary schools on the potential chopping block — even really good ones. 

It’s ultimately their prerogative, of course, and it will make school board elections interesting.

Yet, in a time when many of this column’s readers suggest that Tallahassee represents the absolute nadir of transactional politics, it’s notable that a Supreme Court effectively molded by Gov. Ron DeSantis just greenlighted referendums on amendments that would legalize personal possession of cannabis up to 3 ounces and restore reproductive rights to women, who, very soon, will be forced to contend with a ban on abortion after six weeks of gestation — a point when many still don’t know they are even pregnant. 

Sure, those amendments require 60% support to pass. But there is a pathway. And it’s one that could have ramifications elsewhere on the ballot this year. 

Why can’t Jacksonville taxpayers weigh in similarly on the biggest capital obligation in local history?

It’s not as if there aren’t competing needs.

The city still needs a new jail.

Police officers want a raise.

Septic tank phaseout? Remember that promise from decades back? 

And have you seen the sidewalks lately? The ones I walk down look like abstract art in places, and even 30 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act, they are nightmare fuel for wheelchair users.

We see emergency bill introductions for any number of picayune issues from Council members intent on manufacturing a news cycle.

How about addressing a real emergency?

Taxpayers are about to get their pockets picked by City Hall and a family worth $12 billion that pours its fortune into pursuits like a wrestling company that has among the worst financials of any in the history of that grifter industry. 

Those same taxpayers may not get to have a say about how the Khan Game is played, except in the sad pastiche that passes for public comment these days.

That is, unless one brave soul is willing to buck the consensus and fight for the people’s right to have a say about this project like the good folks of Kansas City did. 

It’s not looking likely, though. 

Consider what one of the strongest allies of the mayor said in recent days.

“I believe that the people elected city council members and the mayor to make these kinds of decisions. I don’t think putting it on a referendum is a good idea,” said Republican Matt Carlucci.

Since when is popular input a bad idea, though? 

That’s the question those who would stifle the voice of the people dare not answer.