(The Kansas City Star posted the following article by Brad Cooper on its website on October 6.)
GARNDER, Kan. — Opponents of a proposed freight yard outside Gardner are counting on a Nov. 7 vote to send a loud signal that they don’t want the project in southwest Johnson County.
They are hoping to keep the city from annexing the 1,300-acre site on the city’s western edge and then gambling on Johnson County to deny any zoning the project needs.
With most of the Johnson County commissioners promising to keep their minds open, there’s no guarantee that the opponents are placing a winning bet.
“I don’t believe for a minute that the county is going to come out here on our doorstep and basically overrule a zoning change that we just said we don’t want,” said project opponent Claud Hobby, who lives just outside Gardner and about a mile from the project.
But as voters cast their ballots, they won’t know for sure whether the county really would — or could — halt the project. Many commissioners won’t commit either way, and some see merit in the proposed freight center.
“This is a project that’s extremely important to the greater Kansas City area and Johnson County in particular,” said County Commissioner Doug Wood, who is withholding his “final opinion” on the matter.
Wood said he hopes that Gardner voters decide to annex the property because the railroad probably would proceed with the project anyway and the city stands to lose out on taxes it could bring.
Other commissioners say they have no basis right now for rejecting the project outright.
“I wouldn’t have any good reason for saying we don’t want it other than saying it changes the way we are,” said Commissioner Delores Furtado, who said she needs more specifics before making up her mind.
Commissioner John Toplikar, who represents the area, said he’s opposed to the rail hub. He said he’s heard almost every argument against the project that’s imaginable, including chemical containers exploding and poisoning the air over the local high school.
For the record: BNSF Railway says it doesn’t plan to ship chlorine and ammonia though Gardner. The company says the goods that will be loaded and unloaded in Gardner include consumer products such as household cleaning chemicals, televisions, paint, batteries and computers.
But Toplikar said many residents moved to Gardner for the small-town ambience.
“If that was in a different place I wouldn’t have a problem with their operation,” he said.
County legal advisers think there is little, if anything, the county could do to stop BNSF if it wants to build a rail yard on 350 acres for loading and unloading containers coming in on West Coast trains.
The railroad has broad power under federal law to override zoning laws that restrict interstate commerce.
But county lawyers think zoning laws could be used to stop BNSF from developing an adjoining warehouse and distribution center on land that’s now zoned for agricultural use and large-lot estates.
Opponents think that by stopping the warehouse portion of the project, they can upset BNSF’s plans and send the railroad looking elsewhere.
BNSF officials call that argument “misguided.” They suggest that if the warehouses aren’t built next to the rail yard, they will move to other cities throughout the region.
“Not building the warehouses next to the intermodal facility has the same effect as deciding not to annex,” BNSF spokesman Steve Forsberg wrote in an e-mail response to a reporter’s question.
“The development still occurs, but the tax and influence benefits go to other jurisdictions.”
Some county commissioners see that as a strong possibility, which would increase truck traffic on roads elsewhere in the region.
“It will be scattered throughout the county,” Wood said. “Is that what people want?”
The importance of an expanded intermodal hub is not lost on some members of the Johnson County Commission.
Commissioner John Segale, who said he is keeping an open mind on the issue, said transportation-related industries like the proposed freight center provide a lot of jobs in the metropolitan area. This one is projected to create 12,000 new jobs in Johnson County over 20 years.
Segale said a lot depends on how much BNSF is willing to address the road improvements that will be necessitated by the project and what it will do to mitigate negative effects for area residents.