Freedom Inc., a powerful African-American political organization that runs up large vote margins in the Kansas City wards where it works, voted unanimously tonight to oppose Jackson County’s proposed half-cent sales tax for “translational medical research.”
The development was a bitter blow to the hopes of tax proponents, who, earlier this week dumped another $400,000 into their campaign effort, bringing their campaign committee’s total fund-raising to nearly $1.4 million.
It was also a seminal moment in the history of 51-year-old Freedom Inc., whose slogan is “No permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests.”
With the Committee for Research, Treatments and Cures – the committee working for the tax – dangling a reported $200,000 in front of Freedom to promote the measure leading up to the Nov. 5 election, Freedom’s board stood on principal and turned its back on the money.
Asked about the deciding factor in the decision, State Sen. Kiki Curls, a Freedom board member, said:
“Feedback from the community. We found very few people who supported the tax.”
She added that over the last five years, central city residents have lost, not gained, community services and that if there was to be a tax increase, “it would better be put to use for basic services” than translational medical research.
Curls noted that if Jackson County were to become “a research mecca, it would be an awesome opportunity for the city.” But the financing method needed to be rethought, she said.
State Rep. Gail McCann Beatty and State Rep. Kiki Curls, Freedom Inc. board members, at Freedom headquarters last night. They stood in front of a photo of the late Bruce R. Watkins, a Freedom Inc. founder.
Many opponents of the tax contend that most, if not all, of additional hundreds of millions of dollars for medical research should come from the private sector, such as corporations, foundations and wealthy individuals.
Proponents have acknowledged that 10 Kansas City area institutions, including Children’s Mercy Hospital and the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, already are spending more than $550 million a year on research. The new tax would raise an additional $40 million to $50 million a year for at least 20 years.
Rodney Bland, a Freedom board member, said 36 of 72 dues-paying board members attended the meeting, which was held at Freedom headquarters, 12th Street and Brooklyn Avenue.
Curls led the meeting in the absence of former Freedom president Charles Hazley, who died recently.
Another board member said he had heard that the treatments and cures committee, anticipating Thursday’s board vote, had already begun to put together an African-American rump group, to be called something like African-Americans for Medical Research.
Historically, such groups have made very few inroads against the traditional, powerhouse political organizations.
Freedom’s strength is on the east side of Kansas City, from Independence Avenue all the way to Grandview.
Earlier this week, the Kansas City branch of the NAACP voted to oppose the proposed tax.
The local affiliate of the League of Women Voters was the first major organization to come out against the tax.
Editor’s note: The same story is on the stopabadcure.org website.
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