A proposed Jackson County Chiefs-only stadium tax is dead, won’t be on November ballot

There will be no vote this fall on a Chiefs-only sales tax measure.

By a vote of 5 to 4, Jackson County legislators on Monday defeated an ordinance that would have put a quarter-cent sales tax measure on the November general election ballot. Legislature Manny Abarca sponsored the ordinance that called for a tax that would last 20 years and benefit the Chiefs alone.

The proposal had been on the agenda for weeks in various forms and was never the subject of hearing or wide-ranging discussion on its implications. The Chiefs did not support it.

Tuesday is the deadline for putting things on the fall ballot. Had it been approved, County Executive Frank White Jr. could have blocked it by refusing to sign it into law before that deadline.

Jackson County voters rejected a 3/8th-cent stadiums sales tax in April that would have helped pay for renovations to Arrowhead Stadiums for the Chiefs and pay for a portion of the cost of building a new Royals stadium in the Crossroads district near downtown Kansas City.