Last week Wichita businessman Craig Gabel created a survey for citizens to express their input to the Wichita City Council. Here are the results that Gabel sent me:
We had literally hundreds of people that took the time to take our survey about downtown development and the Water Walk hotel. Once again our City Council chose to ignore what taxpayers want and side with rich developers.
Here are the results from the survey:
Question 2: The City of Wichita has proposed giving $2.5 million to 4G LLC to build a Fairfield Hotel at Kellogg & Main. Do you agree with this action?
Yes: 5% No: 95%Question 3: Assuming the City is going to provide funding for a downtown hotel would you rather have a:
Fairfield Hotel: 5%
A hotel similar to a Great Wolf Lodge: 80%
Neither: 15%Question 4: Do you think that any proposed project asking for City of Wichita funding, or tax incentives should be let for bid?
Yes: 60%
No: 30%Question 5: Would you support a 1% sales tax at the City and County level to reduce your property taxes by approximately 50%?
Yes: 95%
No: 5%Question 6: Having spent approximately $390 million on downtown redevelopment, would you support a 1% sales tax for additional redevelopment?
Yes: 10%
No: 90%
Update: Question 1 asked whether the respondent is a registered voter. I don’t have the results for that question at this time. Also, I should have noted that this is not a scientific survey. It represents the opinions of those selected to participate and those who decided to participate. This may or may not be representative of Wichita.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
What was Question No. 1?
Started out with a big wrongful assertion. The city didn’t propose giving $2.5 million. They proposed allowing them to keep the future bed tax that we aren’t getting anyway without the hotel.
Great Wolf Lodge-Average Daily Rate = $250 per night!
Average cost=$120mm.
Time to Develop=1 to 3 years and then another 18 months to build.
Of the 12 properties open, the smallest sits on 12 acres.
Average number of suites = 414
Conference facilities from 10,000 to 40,000 s.f. (Might they compete with the Hyatt?)
Company is not profitable. (Why would you suggest we consider an unprofitable operation?)
Have they ever expressed interest in Wichita?
This information was publicly available.
Gabel, do your homework before suggesting something of which you know nothing about.
Ideology does not include factual debate.
Hi
Y’all can jump your smart butts down off your high horse anytime now. He didn’t ask a CONSULTANT what was smart, he didn’t ask an accountant what we could afford, he asked VOTERS what they wanted. They want something cool, and they’re not about to pay for it.
I am amazed that the voter’s want to subsidize “any proposal” per question 4.
Later
Mike