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Council Buys Option On Power And Light Building

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-906867.mp3

Kansas City, MO – Kansas City will pay a $250,000 deposit to take the Power and Light Building and the block around it off the market while studies continue on creating a new convention hotel on the site. But Mayor Funkhouser still thinks it's a bad idea.

The city will lose the quarter of a million it doesn't build a hotel on the property, and the mayor says the "found money" from the restaurant tax could be better spent on neighborhood infrastructure or marketing existing hotels.

That prompted Councilman Russ Johnson to remark that the tax is for convention-related infrastructure or property, adding, "If somebody tells you that the tax money we are appropriating today can be spent on marketing hotels, they are lying."

Twelve council members voted for the appropriation.

The mayor voted no. Later he told reporters the expenditure doesn't make sense, and is badly timed considering the city's financial condition.

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