KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser introduced his recent appointments to the Tax Increment Financing Commission at a press conference on Wednesday. The TIF Commission recommends tax subsidies for development in Kansas City.
The mayor faced some skepticism about his two most recent appointments - Jeff Rumaner, an artist-businessman, and Mary Lindsay, an advocate for the city's low-income neighborhoods - but the mayor said the commission needed a change.
“If you look at the track record of what the TIF Commission has done over the past several years, I don't want to replicate that,” Funkhouser said. “I think we can do something better.”
Rumaner, known as “STRETCH,” is a graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute and completed his Master’s at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. He has worked with numerous artists on public commissions around the world.
Mary Lindsay is a graduate of Kansas State University and received her M.S.W. from the University of Kansas. Lindsay was instrumental in commissioning the University Of Missouri – Kansas City to conduct an economic study of tax increment financing in Kansas City.
All six TIF Commission members are now appointees of Funkhouser.
