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Olathe — Johnson County officials on Monday dealt a crippling, and perhaps fatal, blow to a Los Angeles developer's plans for converting the former Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant to a Wonderful World of Oz theme park.

In a 2-2 vote, the Johnson County Commission turned down Robert Kory's request for tax breaks considered crucial to the proposed $860 million development.

Oz Entertainment Co. chairman and CEO Robert Kory, left, and OEC board member Jo Bourjaily show little emotion as the Johnson County Commission voted not to endorse the company's plan for converting the former Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant to a theme park.

Kory insisted the vote was not a death knell.

"We're definitely not giving up," he said, hinting he might take his vision elsewhere. "We have a number of options but I think it's only fair that, over the next couple weeks, we try to consider what can happen here."

Kory, chairman and founder of Oz Entertainment Co., said he and his backers have already spent "well over $25 million" on the 4-year-old project.

The commission voted only to table acting on the Oz proposal.

That's significant because commissioner Johnna Lingle, an outspoken opponent of the project, was defeated in the August primary election. Her successor, Republican Susie Wolf, is unopposed in today's election. Wolf assumes office Jan. 8.

In the past Wolf has declined comment on the Oz proposal, saying she didn't know enough about it. She could not be reached for comment Monday.

If Wolf sides with Oz supporters, a group that includes area chambers of commerce, the vote likely would be 3-1 in favor of the park.

On Monday commission members Doug Wood and George Gross voted to let Oz use some of the proposed park's sales and property tax revenues to pay for its development.

Commissioner Gary Anderson, a bond attorney, did not vote, citing a potential conflict of interest. He did not attend the meeting.

'Cash trap' snares no vote

The tie vote came when Lingle's no vote was joined by that of Commissioner Annabeth Surbaugh.

Surbaugh said she had come to distrust Kory after learning that a portion of the sales tax revenues could be used to pay back investors.

"I didn't object to that money being spent on the project itself, but I wanted it spent right here in Johnson County," she said. "I don't want it going to some private investor in New York."

Surbaugh resented that Kory didn't tell the commission about the so-called "cash trap" until he was asked about it during an Aug. 31 meeting.

"It's like I used to tell my kid: If the teacher gets after you at school, you better come home and tell me," she said. "Don't let the teacher be the first to tell me."

Surbaugh said she didn't know how Kory could assuage her distrust because "I don't know what else is out there that I don't know to ask. I'm uncomfortable with what I don't know."

Surbaugh also said she was bothered by her failed attempts at finding a state legislator who knew about the provision.

"Again, I was uncomfortable," Surbaugh said.

'Never discussed'

Sen. Pat Ranson, R-Wichita, chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Economic Development, is bothered too.

"That was never discussed," she said. "If that's how it's being interpreted, then it's a loophole. That was not our intent."

Monday's vote shelved Oz deliberations at the Kansas Development Finance Authority, which had been asked to sell bonds on behalf of the project.

"(The proposal) doesn't come to us until it's cleared the Johnson-County hurdle," said Rebecca Floyd, the finance authority's vice president and legal counsel. "That's the way the state statute works."

Last week the finance authority notified the news media that it would act on the Oz package during its Dec. 14-15 meeting.

Now that has changed.

"We have no plans to consider it at this time," Floyd said.

Bill Sheldon, president of Taxpayers Opposed To Oz, called Monday's vote a "big victory, but a short-term victory."

Sheldon, who lives three miles southeast of the defunct ammunition plant, said he expects Oz supporters to "rejigger the deal and tray and come back."

But it won't work, he said, because "what we got here is a bunch of guys selling an unknown concept to an audience that doesn't understand it. It's kind of like trying to sell blue Coca-Cola to people who aren't thirsty, and they're saying 'What the heck is this? We don't need blue Coke, we already got brown Coke.'"