Overland Park residents say roads are bad. City will fix them — if it can raise taxes
Overland Park voters this month will decide whether to raise the city’s sales tax to fund road work, a move that officials say would reduce the use of controversial chip seal to resurface roads.
Some argue the city isn’t getting rid of it fast enough.
In early June, voters will receive ballots in the mail for the special election, due by noon June 22. Voters will decide whether to increase an infrastructure sales tax from one-eighth of a cent to three-eighths. The tax would last for 10 years, starting next April.
The one-eighth of a cent tax has been in place for 25 years and has since been approved three more times, city spokeswoman Meg Ralph said.
If residents vote down the ballot measure, the city would have no dedicated sales tax for infrastructure, losing that revenue next spring.
Ralph said that a couple of years ago, a resident advisory committee studied Overland Park’s infrastructure and found that about 170 miles of street need repair. The group recommended the city kick in another $28.5 million for the work each year.
The three-eighth cent sales tax would generate $20.5 million annually. And the city is exploring other ways to fund the remaining $8 million, Ralph said.
The sales tax would go toward improving streets as well as repairing or replacing curbs, gutters, sidewalks, streetlights and storm sewers. That includes reconstructing streets in the older, northern part of the city, Councilman Paul Lyons said.
“Overland Park is a fairly new city, but the truth is as our city gets older, the infrastructure, especially up north, needs to be maintained more. We’ve been treating Overland Park more like a newer city, rather than a city that needs to have more investment in maintaining its infrastructure,” Lyons said.
And with the extra funding, the city is committing to slowing down the use of chip seal, a process where heated liquid asphalt is sprayed on the road, followed by crushed gravel “chips” that stick to the surface. Loose gravel is then swept off the road. The method is used as a cheaper alternative to traditional asphalt replacement.
If the higher sales tax is approved, the city says there would be an immediate 18% reduction in the use of chip seal. And the city would commit to gradually slowing its use over the next decade.
Less chip seal in Overland Park
Chip seal is a pain in the side of many Overland Park drivers and homeowners, who argue the rocks and “black tar” get dislodged and tracked around neighborhoods, damage cars and and cause a hazard to children and cyclists.
“The last chip seal didn’t really take. We all are pulling up tar from where they sealed it,” said Overland Park resident Toni Gelpi. “I think it’s been about three years. One time we were ‘sealed,’ they didn’t come back and sweep. I can’t remember if it was that time that one of the chips became lodged in my brake and cost us $300 to have it fixed.”
The city, Lyons said, would start using traditional asphalt replacement more often, where crews grind off the top layer of asphalt and replace it with a new surface. And he said officials are considering working with developers to set standards that would require new single family housing projects to be built with concrete streets.
Ralph said the public works committee is discussing whether to require new residential streets be built with concrete. With that requirement, combined with the higher sales tax, the city could see a 41% reduction in the use of chip seal over the next 20 years, she said.
Councilman Faris Farassati, who has made eliminating chip seal a campaign priority, argued that “bad fiscal policies” have led the city to its current situation, where “OP now needs to put financial pressure on its residents if anything major needs to be done.”
“While I stay away from recommending a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote, it is important for the residents to know that chip seal elimination is not anywhere close to the highest priority for this sales tax increase program,” Farassati said in an email to The Star. “As a matter of fact, under this program, complete elimination of chip seal will take about half a century! I believe that is another sign of continuation of misplaced priorities since chip seal has been the number one complaint and concern of my constituents.”
Farassati regularly speaks against tax incentives going toward developers, and also argued that as property taxes go up along with home appraisals, more could go toward infrastructure.
Mayor Curt Skoog said last year, as property taxes rose due to higher home appraisals, the city used $6 million of that revenue on street work.
Councilman Logan Heley said residents in his ward, in the older, northern portion of the city, would immediately see several street reconstruction projects with the new funding. And over time, residents would notice less and less chip seal.
“Most people would agree chip seal is not an ideal method, but it makes a lot of practical sense when you really don’t have the funding resources to do the rehabilitation or reconstruction of streets at the proper intervals,” Heley said. “I think chip seal has served a purpose the past decade or more in our city because we really haven’t been funding our infrastructure at the level that’s needed. As we more appropriately fund our infrastructure, hopefully that’s allowing us to transition off of chip seal.”
Gelpi, who lives at 88th Street and Antioch Road in a home built in the late 1960s, said she has regularly emailed City Hall about needed repairs to curbs and sidewalks.
“The city has spent minimal money on our section of town,” she said.
Skoog said by replacing asphalt, rather than chip sealing streets, residents will see more improvements.
“If we go into neighborhoods and do chip seal, we’re not required to do other improvements because it’s a maintenance item,” Skoog said. “If we go in and do mill and overlay (asphalt replacement), we are required to make sure all the curbs are ADA accessible. And so since we’re there, we’ll fix curbs and broken concrete and do the ADA requirements.”
What the tax will pay for
Ralph said by raising the sales tax, the city would improve streets through a “user fee” rather than a property tax increase, meaning everyone who spends money in Overland Park — whether a resident or not — would help fund the work.
“People who use our streets to shop and do business in Overland Park would be funding a major portion of our infrastructure improvements and maintenance, allowing Overland Park to continue to have one of the lowest property tax rates in Johnson County,” she said.
Some of the city’s highest priorities with the sales tax funding include:
▪ Neighborhood street reconstruction, including new curbs, storm sewers, sidewalks and streetlights at Wycliff, southwest of 103rd Street and Antioch, and at Westbrooke South and Moody Hills, east of Switzer Road, between 91st and 95th streets.
▪ Street safety and accessibility improvements, including new turn lanes, medians, sidewalks and traffic lights at: 103rd Street and Antioch, 77th Street and Metcalf Avenue, 82nd Street at Metcalf, College Boulevard and Metcalf, and Metcalf from 83rd Street to the 87th Street pedestrian trail.
▪ Bridge repairs and reconstruction over Indian Creek at 109th Street, 103rd Street and College Boulevard.
▪ Capacity and safety improvements at: 167th Street, Antioch to Metcalf; Quivira Road, 179th to 187th streets; Switzer Road, 167th to 179th; Mission Road, Bell Drive to 159th; Pflumm Road, 175th to 183rd; and State Line Road, 175th to 195th.
Overland Park’s town hall meetings
The city will host town hall meetings this month so residents can learn more about the sales tax vote.
▪ 6:30 p.m. June 1 at the Johnson County Library, Blue Valley branch, 9000 W. 151st St.
▪ A meeting over a conference call will be held at 6 p.m. June 8. Residents can call in to 817-288-4144 and use Meeting ID: 7440.
▪ 6:30 p.m. June 13 at the Matt Ross Community Center, 8101 Marty St.
Officials encourage voters to put their ballots in the mail before June 19 to ensure they are counted in time.
