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DeSoto — Four white water towers loom over land marred by dilapidated military buildings, mounds of rusted scrap metal, miles of steam pipes and roads barely wide enough for a truck.

Yet Robert Kory, president and founder of the Oz Entertainment Co., sees the Yellow Brick Road.

A sign reading "Follow the Road to Safety" marks the entrance off old Kansas Highway 10 to the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant, the site of the proposed Oz theme park development.

The company wants to develop the former 9,065-acre Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant near DeSoto into a small community. The centerpiece of Kory's vision would be The Wonderful World of Oz, an $860.5 million, Disney-style theme park and resort complex in this bedroom community about 25 miles from downtown Kansas City, Mo.

As Oz fans celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of Frank L. Baum's "The Wonderful World of Oz," the five-member Johnson County Board of Commissioners debates whether to allow a theme park to be built in the state where the story was set. Commissioners hope to make a decision today.

Some residents fear the changes Oz could bring to the rural atmosphere that was celebrated in Baum's books and the 1939 MGM Grand musical movie and expect it would lead to a string of motels, gas stations and fast-food shops in an area that is now made up largely of woodland, streams and farms.

"What's going to happen to the peaceful, rural neighborhoods surrounding Sunflower if this deal goes through?" Katie Hopkins, who lives about a half mile east of Sunflower in Olathe, asked commissioners. "What will be the effect of the project on traffic on this part of the county: Population growth, air quality, wildlife, property values?"

Others, including some business groups, believe it would boost the economy in DeSoto, which has seen inactivity at the plant for a decade.

"As to the so-called quality of living, I have a tough time understanding that. It seems to me like that's an elitist statement, because there are people who live around me that don't have all that quality and would like to have some opportunities placed on their doorstep," said Clyde Sanders of DeSoto.

In 1997, the Army announced it would sell Sunflower, which was built during World War II to make smokeless powder and later produced rocket propellant.

Concerned that the Army would sell the land in chunks, creating a zoning and planning nightmare, the state and county entertained the Oz deal.

The proposal calls for the federal government to transfer the land to the state through the Kansas Development Finance Authority, which could issue bonds to pay for the development. The finance authority would transfer the plant to Oz after approval by the county, state and federal government.

Oz would pay $45 million to clean the land and take out $300 million in insurance policies for unexpected costs. It would also turn over 2,828 acres to public agencies after the cleanup. The Army also would spend $29 million to remove explosive contaminants.

"It's one of the best deals we've come across," said Blaine Hastings, project manager for the General Services Administration, which handles land transactions for the federal government.

Many opponents don't trust the Los Angeles-based company or its officers, some of whom were involved in an unrelated company that went bankrupt while operating an outdoor amphitheater in Wyandotte County. They also say they don't believe Oz could lure the 2.5 million visitors needed to maintain the park.

And there is skepticism about a company that convinced nearby Kansas City, Kan., to give $550,000 for research and development before the proposal went south to DeSoto.

"I can't understand why the people of this area need a questionable group of out-of-towners, with a questionable, pie-in-the-sky idea to develop this land giving it to them to develop, for pennies on the dollar," said Joe Karbank of nearby Douglas County.

Kory told county commissioners he has tried to ease public concerns by talking to groups that oppose the project. He says he believes people would come from all over to experience the story of the little Kansas girl swept up by a tornado to the magical land of Oz.

"When Robert Kory recruited me to come and work on this project, he said, really, his vision was not to do a theme park about Oz, which would be a typical, Disneyland-type theme park, or normal theme park, but actually give children the experience of actually going to Oz themselves, just as Dorothy did," said Dan Mapes, the company's chief technology officer.

But many residents including some who accept growth as inevitable believe Oz does not belong in Johnson County.

"We're not against the development of Sunflower," said Therese Jones of Olathe. "We're only against developing it into something that so negatively affects the local community, the local culture or the local environment."

Many residents and some commissioners have questioned Oz's requests for bonds, property tax breaks, new roads and other infrastructure, which company officials say are necessary.

"This is not a charitable organization, Oz isn't. It is a for-profit business," said former Kansas Gov. John Anderson Jr., who lives in Olathe. "Don't tax me to build an Oz building out here. Let them build it themselves."

The commissioners appear divided on the issue. Commissioner Johanna Lingle of Shawnee has said she'll oppose the deal because it's not right for the county, while Commissioner Doug Wood of Olathe has said he'll support it if the company provides some financial assurances in writing. Two commissioners have not decided. The fifth won't vote because of a conflict of interest.

Environmentalists and some Oz opponents favor turning the plant into a nature preserve.

"We believe this is promoting development that's way beyond the urban fringe," said Kansas Sierra Club member Mike Miller of Roeland Park. "It's promoting a leapfrog development that will contribute to urban sprawl."

While the Army is ultimately responsible for the cleanup, Hastings said the Army could take decades to do the job. He also said the Army would clean the site only to industrial standards, and that Oz would clean it to higher residential standards.

Those who support a nature preserve point to the former Joliet Arsenal near Chicago, where 19,000 acres were transferred to the U.S. Forest Service to create the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Illinois EPA will oversee the Army's $88.5 million cleanup of the land.

"It's my position that the Army should own up to its obligations, that we should appropriate enough money at the federal level to get this cleanup done," Miller said.

Betty Swointeck traveled 20 miles from the small, affluent enclave of Mission Woods near the Missouri state line to a DeSoto meeting to express her dissatisfaction with the proposal.

"You know, Dorothy dreamed Oz; Oz was a fantasy. But, when she woke up, she came home. She came home to Kansas, and it wasn't Oz. It was home. There's no place like home. Leave it."

MORE: www.jocoks.com

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