Commuter rail, upgrading trails a priority for county executive

Take your pick: walking, bicycling or watching the world go by from the seat of a commuter rail car. Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders wants new or expanded opportunities for each and says they represent needed areas of regional cooperation.

“The Kansas City metropolitan area is at a crossroads,” Sanders said Tuesday. “That is why I speak today with great determination as I say that it is time for a new direction in how we live, how we work and how we move.”

Sanders again stressed the importance of his plan for a 114-mile commuter rail system that would serve most of the area, plans that got a boost last month when the federal government said the area was getting $1.8 million for continued study of the plan, a key step toward eventual funding to build it. That “would bring immense competitive and economic benefits regionwide,” Sanders said.

Sanders had repeatedly stressed that Kansas City is competing with – often losing to – to cities such as Indianapolis, Denver, Omaha and Oklahoma City for conventions, corporate expansion and other economic drivers. Much of that, he contends, is because the metro lacks modern, efficient mass transit.

It’s important, he said, to remember that the focus is on individuals.

“It’s really about moving people to their jobs and where they need to go,” he said.

Shortly after the federal funds were announced in December, he said, he was at an Independence grocery store and eight people stopped him to express their support for the idea. He said two told him basically the same thing: “If you build it tomorrow, I’d be riding it the next day.”

Sanders also wants to continue upgrading the Little Blue Trace Trail, tying it into the cross-state Katy Trail. The Little Blue Trail runs along the river from Blue Mills Road south to the commercial area at Interstate 70 and Missouri 291, but it’s currently being extended to the southwest – farther upstream – to Lee’s Summit Road. Sanders wants to run it all the way to the Longview Lake area, hooking into the old unused Rock Island line that also would be part of the commuter rail system as well as part of the Katy.

“It is time to transform the Little Blue Trace into a world-class 27-mile trail stretching from the northern to the southern boundaries of our county,” he said.

The 225-mile Katy Trail runs from Clinton, Mo., to St. Charles, Mo., but an extension from Windsor – on the Rock Island line – is in the works, coming up into Lee’s Summit. Someday, planners hope, it might go to the Liberty Memorial. Sanders wants the Little Blue Trace Trail to connect with that – Sibley to St. Louis, he said – part of what he called a world-class trail system.

New leaders from EJC

Although county legislators have not yet set the 2011 levy or adopted a budget, Sanders said raises are back for county workers after a one-year hiatus. The county will have a pool of money – 3 percent on top of current salaries – from which to award merit raises.

“What you really do is reward your highest performers,” he said.

Legislators take up Sanders proposed budget later this week. For the first time in four years, Sanders said, it looks as if revenues will not fall. “It looks like it’s going to be flat,” he said.

Also Tuesday, two legislators from Eastern Jackson County were elected to chairman and vice chairman of the Legislature for 2011.

Dennis Waits, D-Independence, was elected chairman by acclamation. Waits was sworn in for a seventh four-year term in Tuesday, and he thanked his colleagues for their support.

“I hope everybody feels like they are included in the process,” Waits said.

Greg Grounds, R-Blue Springs, was elected vice chairman. He began his second term in office Tuesday.

Grounds is one of only two Republicans in the nine-member Legislature, but he agreed that Republican-Democratic differences matter less in county government than in some other settings.

“People are lot less concerned with party than results,” he said.