Anti-nuke activists turned out to protest this morning's meeting of the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority, whose board voted unanimously to approve a development agreement to build a new weapons facility at Highway 150 and Botts Road. The National Nuclear Security Administration Campus will replace Honeywell's 60-year-old factory on Bannister Road, which manufactures 85 percent of the non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons under a contract with the U.S. government.
During the public comments period, representatives from several peace organizations, including Physicians for Social Responsibility and PeaceWorks KC, voiced their disapproval. Ron Faust, a minister with the Disciples of Christ, read a poem he'd written. Then, Theodore "Priest" Hughes and Desmond "337" Jones, a pair of spoken-word artists who call themselves The Recipe, performed a piece called "Self-Destruction." I found a video of the duo performing the same piece at another event; try to imagine this happening in the stodgy context of a board meeting:
Representatives for the NNSA campus' developer, Centerpoint-Zimmer LLC,
acknowledged that they hadn't included a single minority-owned
construction or development firm in the project so far, though the
project will receive $41 million in tax abatements and incentives under
the PIEA agreement. The entire project cost is estimated at $673
million.
The site of the future NNSA campus currently functions as a
soybean farm.The tax incentives proposed by the PIEA for the agreement
must be used on land that is deemed "blighted, unsanitary or
undeveloped," and for a project which benefits "the public health,
safety, morals or welfare" of the city's residents. Jane Stoever, a PeaceWorks Kansas City member who addressed the board wearing a black veil, asked, "Isn't it healthy to grow soybeans?"
Stoever also pointed out the project's confusing tangle of
property ownership described in the agreement. "To have the project
area for making parts for nuclear weapons go from Centerpoint-Zimmer to
the PIEA, which leases it back to Zimmer, which subleases it to the
GSA, which subleases it to NNSA, but after 20 years returns it to
Zimmer -- it's a maze! Why will the PIEA hold the title to property for
a nuclear weapons plant?"
An attorney for Centerpoint-Zimmer
called the leasing agreement the most common incentive for
manufacturing developments and said it was "the only way to pay for the
basic infrastructure" of the project. He added that the annual property
taxes collected for the Grandview school district from the site will go
from $650 dollars to $1.56 million.
The developers had posited in earlier PIEA meetings
that if the new campus construction was opposed in Kansas City, the
government would simply move its 2,800 jobs elsewhere -- New Mexico,
perhaps. Works every time. As PIEA member Charles Erickson said
in his comments before moving to approve the development, "If we don't
do it, someone else is going to do it someplace else."
The project still requires approval from the City Council.
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The Recipe
Please replace the video that you have now, with this one.
http://www.youtube.com/lutherj...
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