Missed it in print? Here's the skinny on the JoCo Triangle tax

Tax supporters promise new clinical trials to fight cancer.Johnson County voters are facing a choice that could shape their economic future at a time of heightened economic uncertainty.

They are to decide whether now is the time to invest $15 million a year toward strengthening the region as an engineering, animal health and cancer research hub.

Voter support on Nov. 4 would boost the sales tax by one-eighth of a cent, providing money for substantial expansion of the University of Kansas Cancer Center, engineering and science programs at KU’s Edwards Campus, and a food safety and animal health institute at the new Olathe campus of Kansas State University.

"It’s a challenging environment to bring a tax measure forward," said Fred Logan, a longtime civic leader guiding the Johnson County Education and Research Triangle initiative. "But this is about the future."

Researchers, former cancer patients, business leaders and others are lining up behind a proposal that they say will improve the health of individuals and the regional economy.

A consultant pegged the impact at $1.4 billion over the next 20 years. Hundreds of new jobs, additional spending and other benefits are expected with the proposed expansion.

On the other side are those who are anxious about squeezing already cash-strapped consumers in a rocky economy. They also are leery of local taxpayers taking such hefty responsibility for higher education, a role once embraced more heartily by the state.

AzeltineAnother sales tax measure is worrisome "when our country is facing the worst financial crisis in decades," said James Azeltine, a Leawood City Council member and chairman of the Johnson County Park and Recreation District.

Voters approved a quarter-cent sales tax measure in August for public safety. Like that one, the research and education measure does not have a sunset provision.

"If our county leaders continue to place forever sales tax issues on the ballot, it will have a very detrimental effect on our ability to compete with neighboring counties, especially when the economy is soft," Azeltine said.

Still others are accusing supporters of hyperbole, questioning whether the ultimate impact will match the claims.

Thomas"This is some puny, little, pathetic deal that is not going to accomplish the goals they are promising the voters," said Tracy Thomas, a former Shawnee City Council member.

Indeed, a key question is whether this would advance the area’s biosciences assets and aspirations.

Draw a line on a map from the projects in Overland Park, Olathe and Fairway and it does form a triangle. Yet supporters were drawing on allusions to geography more than geometry -- specifically the famed Research Triangle region of North Carolina.

With three powerhouse research universities anchoring its points, the North Carolina triangle sets a standard for aspiring life-sciences centers. It is home to more than 500 life-science companies, some 29,000 jobs and an annual economic impact topping $5 billion, according to one recent analysis.

The North Carolina cluster did not form overnight, but over decades. Kansas City area efforts are much younger and at least for now more modest in size.

BrownleeBut don’t underestimate the impact of what’s here now and how much it can expand, said Sen. Karin Brownlee, an Olathe Republican.

Johnson County now is home to nearly 90 life-sciences companies employing more than 5,900 workers, according to the latest census commissioned by the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute. Plus, with the headquarters of companies such as Burns & McDonnell and Black & Veatch, the area is a national hub of engineering, with thousands of additional jobs.

"Kansas is on the map around the country when it comes to the biosciences," Brownlee said. "This is going to add to something that already is growing."

Like a fashion-crazed consumer pursuing the latest must-have style, many regions desiring high-paying jobs of the future have chased industries that happened to be hot at the moment. That is not how the Johnson County campaign originated, said Logan, a lawyer in Prairie Village.

Each component of the triangle, Logan said, will bolster an increasingly important part of the region’s economic future.

The KU Edwards campus, for example, will meet the growing demand for trained workers at area engineering firms and other high-tech companies.

New space and new degree programs will allow KU’s Overland Park offshoot to ramp up substantially and double its 400 annual graduates within about five years.

Research shows 1,500 business, science, engineering and technology jobs a week are open in the Johnson County region, Vice Chancellor Robert Clark said.

Laurie Minard, vice president for human resources at Garmin International Inc. in Olathe, knows this all too well.

"We have openings right now in our engineering department for 200 people," she said. "We never have enough to meet our demands."

Fort Dodge Animal Health and similar companies are guiding the development of the triangle program in Olathe.

Kansas State will provide training and research in such areas as food safety and other fields deemed important by the dozens of companies in the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor.

"We will address the needs of industry, and we will establish new programs," said Dan Richardson, CEO of the university’s Olathe campus.

The project forming the third point of the triangle is intended to advance KU’s quest to become one of the nation’s top cancer-fighting centers.

Its sales tax money will help renovate an office building in Fairway.

The Hall Family Foundation has purchased the building and intends to donate it to the cancer center if the Nov. 4 measure passes.

The plan is to create a clinic and office complex for developing new drugs and making more cutting-edge treatments available locally, said Roy Jensen, director of the cancer center. It is part of a larger effort to gain designation by the National Cancer Institute as an elite cancer center.

It is not relying solely on local financial support. Cancer center leaders have been attracting increased backing from the state, federal grants, charitable contributions and other resources, Jensen said.

KonecznyWhen doctors told Lorianne Fisher Koneczny in 2005 that she had pancreatic cancer, they said her best hopes were a plane ride away. Think about going to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Texas or Johns Hopkins in Maryland, they said.

"When I was diagnosed, I was disappointed to find out I could not receive the services I needed to give me the best shot at survival in my hometown," said the 44-year-old Overland Park resident.

Koneczny now travels regularly to Mayo and sometimes to Johns Hopkins. She juggles treatment with her pursuit of an associate degree in biotechnology at Johnson County Community College and a bachelor’s degree in molecular biosciences at KU.

In about a year, she will take the entrance exams that Koneczny hopes will earn her a spot in medical school.

"I intend to be one of the future research doctors that put this area on the radar in our nation for excellence in biosciences," she said.