After months of divisive deliberation, the Topeka City Council on Tuesday voted against a resolution that would have allowed the city to proceed with its purchase of the financially troubled Heartland Park Topeka racetrack.
The council’s governing body of nine members and Mayor Larry Wolgast voted 6-4 against the resolution, which required a six-vote majority for approval, during a three-hour city council meeting.
The measure would have allowed city manager Jim Colson “to proceed with the implementation of the Heartland Park Redevelopment Project Plan including, but not limited to, the sale of additional STAR Bonds estimated to be between $4.8 and $5.5 million.”
Wolgast voted in favor of the measure, along with council members Michelle De La Isla, Brendan Jensen and Karen Hiller.
“I believe that this proposal has the best chance of protecting the pocketbooks of Topeka taxpayers while giving Heartland Park Topeka an opportunity to prove it can return to contributing to our city’s economy,” the mayor said.
Council members Sandra Clear, Sylvia Ortiz, Jonathan Schumm, Elaine Schwartz, Jeff Coen and Richard Harmon opposed the measure.
Schwartz asked city leaders, including Colson, a litany of questions, saying she has been misled by them.
“I’m going to vote against this,” Schwartz said. “I polled my own district and it came back three-to-one against.”
Clear, of District 2, and Schumm, of District 4, said their constituents are also opposed to the purchase, and they would vote against it for that reason.
“I want a racetrack in Topeka,” Schumm said. “I simply do not want a racetrack owned by Topeka.”
District 8 Councilman Coen criticized ambiguities with the Heartland Park purchase before telling those in attendance he would vote against.
“Business deals need to be airtight but should also be easy to understand,” Coen said.
Wolgast acknowledged that the city could have handled the Heartland Park matter better but said past failures informing the public shouldn’t justify voting against the measure.
“The handling of this process could have been done better,” Wolgast said. “We could have engaged the community from the beginning better and shared complete information on a more timely basis.”
Nine people lined up to speak before the council made its vote, eight of whom were in favor of the motion. They included Topeka residents and nonresidents, including many who conduct business at the track.
“The doors are open. You have motor sports, you have that money coming to your community,” said Brian Cohn with the National Auto Sport Association. “Vote for and you get my 15,000 drivers to spend their money here.”
Before the governing body voted on the motion, they voted down a measure by Ortiz to defer the vote for six months. The amendment was defeated by a 9-1 vote, with Ortiz dissenting.
Topeka city officials have said they will need about $5 million in reissued STAR Bonds to purchase the track, but the proposal before council members Tuesday night granted Colson flexibility to seek up to $5.5 million in bonds for the purchase.
Colson had suggested the city government contract with Shelby LLC, a company recently formed by Missouri real estate developer Chris Payne, to lease and operate Heartland Park. Ortiz said last month she wouldn’t vote in favor of the deal if she didn’t have a signed operating agreement with Shelby in front of her before Tuesday’s vote. Colson said April 29 that wasn’t feasible.
Tuesday’s vote followed two public meetings on the matter late last month. At the first, held at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library on April 28, Shelby LLC attorney Wes Carrillo said the company plans to release Heartland Park’s financials for each of the first three years Shelby would operate it, so people will know how much money it has made or lost.
The Topeka City Council voted in 2006 to issue $10.46 million in STAR bonds to finance improvements at Heartland Park. Though plans called for those bonds to be paid off using sales tax revenue from the area near the track, revenue consistently has come up short.
Colson said last June that about $10.8 million in principal and interest remained to be paid on the STAR bonds, and the city was on track to be forced to pay $8.9 million in subsidies toward those bonds during the next 12 years.
On Aug. 8, 2014, the council voted 9-1 to buy the Heartland Park Topeka racing facility and expand its redevelopment district. Councilman Chad Manspeaker cast the lone dissenting vote, saying he wasn’t certain the moves were “the best deal for the citizens of Topeka.”
Council members then approved every measure put before them to advance the purchase between Aug. 12 and Tuesday night.
Public wariness of the city’s proposed purchase overshadowed the April 7 city council election, which saw the ouster of both incumbent candidates, District 2 Councilman TJ Brown and District 8 Councilman Nathan Schmidt. Brown and Schmidt had cast votes in favor of the purchase and each cited their tentative support of the deal as factors in their defeat.
Two other incumbents — District 4’s Denise Everhart and District 6’s Manspeaker — didn’t seek re-election. The result was a nine-member council with four new members being sworn in weeks before deciding one of the most heated issues facing the city.
The Heartland Park purchase has been delayed and nearly stymied by a petition effort launched after the August vote by Chris Imming. Imming’s petition drive gained more than the required number of signatures needed to put the city’s purchase of Heartland Park on a ballot for a citywide election, but the city filed a lawsuit challenging its legality. In November, Shawnee County District Court Judge Larry Hendricks sided with the city, ruling the petition invalid and prompting a number of appeals and challenges by Imming and his attorney, R.E. “Tuck” Duncan.
Some questions arose Tuesday night over the National Hot Rod Association’s annual Kansas Nationals at Heartland Park from May 22 to 24. NHRA media relations director Anthony Vestal told The Topeka Capital-Journal on April 29 that the NHRA was proceeding with plans to put on that event. Those plans don’t include Raymond Irwin, whose Jayhawk Racing LLC currently owns Heartland Park, according to Colson.
Sublet acknowledged that the city’s contract with the NHRA was terminated Monday.
“There is no contract between the city and NHRA,” Sublet said. “NHRA has been a willing participant with Heartland Park and the city for some time.”
