LJWorld.com

• Email
• iPod-friendly
• Print

Business groups came out in force Tuesday night to counter grass-roots opposition to the proposed theme park at the former Sunflower Army Ammunition Base near DeSoto.

At a work session of the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners, 10 taxpayer and environmental groups asked the board to reject the Oz Entertainment Company's development proposal for the site.

Nearly as many technology and business organizations encouraged the board to push the Wonderful World of Oz project a step toward breaking ground.

In an auditorium at Johnson County Community College, more than 150 people listened to the alternating points of view. Oz supporters, including the DeSoto, Greater Kansas City and Olathe Area chambers of commerce, lauded the potential development of the DeSoto and county tax bases and the technology in the Kansas Highway 10 corridor.

"With 15 percent growth in the USD 232 school district this year, getting the acres at the Sunflower plant back on the tax roll is of the utmost importance," DeSoto Chamber of Commerce President Pat Atchison said. "Can you envision Sunflower, in your district, in good conscience, staying off the tax rolls for another 50 years? You have the guaranteed opportunity to clean it up."

Dalton Hermes of the Emerald City Advisory Committee, which is not affiliated with Oz, supports the technological base that Oz promises its high-scale industrial park will produce.

"The heart of the Oz Entertainment Company is business technology," Hermes said. "This is a new economy. It will be a catalyst to attract great artists, great designers and great computer people. I think it will be a resource for the community in terms of children, businesses and internships."

Opponents of the Oz project lambasted discrepancies in attendance projections, the confusion about who will fund a needed interchange on K-10 and the handling of cleaning the hazardous waste on the site.

Greg Wilson of Taxpayers Opposed to Oz determined that a park in DeSoto could lure one million fewer visitors than the company would need.

"If they've used a potential 12.7 million visitors (to the area) that they can capture, they stated a capture rate of 22 percent," he said. "I've gone and looked at the average capture rate of the 19 theme parks they used in their studies, and that average capture rate was 14 percent."

He also disputed the ability of the company to operate the park, casting doubt on the Oz management's ability to pay off its public and private debts.

"The numbers are driving their decisions," he said. "They look at what their debt services are, and they back into the numbers required."

Johnson County District 4 Commissioner George Gross, however, questioned Wilson's concern over the possibility of Oz defaulting on its debt.

"If in fact those instruments (of financing) are used and sold exclusively to private sector, and the Oz company should default on those bonds, why should I concern myself with that?" Gross asked.

"In the long run, all of us are on the hook for future projects," Wilson said.

The board will hold two meetings to accept public comment on the project. The first will be at 7 p.m. Monday at DeSoto High School. The second will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 24, at Shawnee Mission South High School.