Hey Voters: In Election Central, we've posted for your reading pleasure an outstanding voters guide put together by four neighborhood organizations in Northeast KC: Indian Mound, Scarritt Renaissance, Pendleton Heights and Sheffield.
The guide was developed for a candidate forum held June 29. The associations asked candidates in several races to answer questions on a remarkably wide range of issues important to the Northeast. But the candidates' answers are valuable to voters throughout Missouri, particularly in Jackson County. The pols weigh in on issues ranging from vouchers for private school tuition to Medicaid cuts to KC parks & recreation programs to crime to rising property taxes to their own qualifications for office. And it's all in their own words.
The candidates include those running for Jackson County executive; the Missouri Senate's 10th District; the Missouri House's 40th District and the Jackson County Legislature's 1st District.
This guide provides insight into candidates' knowledge of problems facing the state and the county and provides hints about how those candidates might approach issues that arise in the future.
There are some glitches. For example, one question states that "since 2000 the amount of the Missouri budget devoted to elementary and secondary education has gone down dramatically." Actually, state funds appropriated for public schools have risen from $2.25 billion in fiscal year 2000 to $2.74 billion in fiscal year 2006, which ended June 30. Total state funding for schools now tops $5 billion, up nearly a third since 2000.
For the most part, however, the guide provides an excellent glimpse at the candidates. So check it out.
(A tip o' the hat to Scott Wagner of Wagner Marketing who designed the printed version of the voters' guide and provided an electronic version for KC Buzz Blog.)
Posted by Kit Wagar
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