Holsman decides against Kansas City council bid

The depleted ranks of Democrats in the Missouri Legislature will not take another hit.

Jason Holsman, who won re-election to Kansas City's 45th House District last week by a 3-to-2 margin, announced that he will remain in Jefferson City rather than run for Kansas City's city council. In an e-mail to supporters, Holsman admitted that he had seriously considered running for the council seat being vacated by Cathy Jolly.

"I made a pledge to the voters of the 45^th district that I would continue to represent them in Jefferson City and that is exactly what I intend to do," Holsman wrote. "I look forward to returning to the General Assembly and working on legislation that benefits the residents of the 45th district and moves Missouri forward."

In commenting about the decision to not run for Kansas City's 6th district at-large, Holsman added that a need for common-sense leadership was needed at the city level.

Holsman's accomplishments in the last session of the General Assembly include House Bill 1848, establishing a task force that will look into the feasibility of building vertical urban farms, and inserting language into House Bill 2178 that allows cities to establish programs encouraging homeowners to make improvements to their homes that increase energy efficiency or generate energy.

Jolly announced in September that she would not seek a second four-year term to the city council. She spent three terms in the Missouri House representing the district that Holsman now represents.

Had Holsman opted instead to run for city council, his departure would have been the second among Democrats from Kansas City. Yvonne Wilson, senator from the 9th District that covers the historic Northeast, announced last week her plans to step down with two years remaining in her final term. Governor Jay Nixon has yet to set a date for a special election to fill the seat. Wilson, 81, said she plans to spend more time with her husband of 58 years, among others in her family.

Following last week's election, Republicans have a 26-8 majority in the Senate and 106-57 in the House, three shy of veto-proof majorities.

Task force proposal could put grapevines on 18th & Vine

A bill with wide-ranging support in the Missouri House of Representatives would establish a task force that would explore the possibility of building vertical urban farms in Missouri's major cities.

House Bill 1848, introduced by Democrat Jason Holsman of Kansas City, aims to explore the viability of vertical urban farms in Missouri by way of establishing a 15-member task force.

“It’s really designed to take what we believe is going to be a very positive impact for the community and do the research and gather the information necessary so that way we’re not just saying that it’s going to have an impact,” Holsman said in an interview Tuesday.

The 15-member task force would include among its members the director of agriculture, agriculture committee chairmen from both the House and Senate, a representative from the University of Missouri extension service, and people who are actively involved in sustainable communities. This task force would meet over the course of two years to determine whether such farms could appear on the streets of Kansas City and St. Louis.

“We know this technology exists. We’ve seen the conceptual designs of what’s possible. We know the potential and the benefits associated with that potential,” Holsman said. “But what we don’t know is if we were to subsidize this, if we were to incentivize it, what is the impact to rural agriculture? What does it do to the locations around where we would put an urban farm?”

Holsman said he became interested in urban farms through two chance encounters. First, he received from a constituent a copy of an article in Popular Science magazine describing the technological advances and potential benefits of urban farms. More recently, Holsman and his family explored a conceptual urban farm when visiting Disney's EPCOT Center in Florida.

The 2008 Popular Science article reports that vertical urban farms can run on electricity generated from solar, wind, and sewage. Various fruits, vegetables, and even small animals such as chickens can be grown and harvested in such a strictly climate-controlled facility.

Smaller versions of urban farms already exist in inner cities and can include farmers’ markets and organic and horizontal farms. Holsman said that an urban farm could feed 50,000 people in a metropolitan area.

“The majority of food that’s consumed in Kansas City travels from the coasts. That’s 1400 miles of transit that your peas have to go through,” Holsman said. “They have to be preserved, they have to be put on a frozen truck, they have to be pre-packaged. There’s all sorts of carbon footprint associated with each step of that process to get that food to our table.”

For produce to be consumed locally, it would need to be sold locally.

Ruth Comer, assistant vice president for media relations with Hy-Vee Food Stores, said that each of their stores is granted leeway to stock shelves with local produce, as it is the Iowa company’s goal to source as much from local producers as possible.

She says urban farms would be something Hy-Vee would take a look at, but it would need to meet two criteria.

“The challenges that we run into for a company of our size is first, quantity and consistency of supply from local growers,” Comer said. “Do they on a large enough scale that they can meet our demands and do that on a consistent basis? The second is food safety assurances, just making sure that they have the protocol in place and the record-keeping that they can assure the safety of the food as it passes along the food chain.”

Comer said they are very interested in working with local growers that meet those two criteria.

Holsman adds that building urban farms would not only reduce environmental impact from transportation, but also reduce the use of pesticides and develop self-sustainable energy sources for the facility.

He said this also would create jobs in the inner city that can’t be outsourced.

“If you build a 12-story vertical farm, you're creating inner city jobs that don’t currently exist,” Holsman said. “You’re improving the property values around this farm because now it’s turning a blighted area, a vacant building that was sitting without any revenue in it at all, and now you’re producing food out of it, you’re creating jobs and you’re helping the surrounding areas around it.”

HB1848, which features 48 co-sponsors, has yet to be assigned to a committee. However, Holsman said he has verbal assurances from House Speaker Ron Richard (R-Joplin) that it will be assigned and from Majority Floor Leader Steve Tilley (R-Perryville) that should the bill pass through committee, it will receive time on the floor for debate.

Holsman says he looks forward to fighting hard for the bill and believes urban farms are the future of food production.

“The more we can learn about what that future looks like, the better prepared we are as decision makers to help create that future and make sure it goes in a direction that’s going to be beneficial for the environment, that’s going to be beneficial for the economy, and that’s going to be beneficial for the constituents we represent,” Holsman said. “Producing our own food and doing it in an energy efficient way is the right direction.”

Tax-Subsidized TV Blackouts Targeted

If you want state funds, don’t get blacked out.

That’s the message Jason Holsman, (pictured at right) Democrat state representative from Kansas City, wants to send to professional sports teams across Missouri with House Bill 1986.

Holsman’s bill, which he proposed last week, would prohibit teams such as the NFL’s Chiefs or Rams from receiving state funds in future deals with the state in the event their home games are blacked out by the league’s TV policy.

Holsman, who described himself Tuesday as a die-hard Chiefs fan in a phone interview with The Missouri Expatriate, explains in this three-minute clip about how this bill targets the National Football League's blackout policy:

Rep. Holsman discusses the negative impact of TV blackout policies on state tax revenues

In 2006, Jackson County voters approved a new three-eighth cent sales tax to fund renovations to Arrowhead Stadium and neighboring Kauffman Stadium, the home of baseball's Royals. Holsman says that even as the Chiefs have only mustered nine wins in the last three seasons, ticket price increases and the recessed economy have priced many of his constituents out.

During this interview, Holsman referenced the Royals' increased revenue as a result of an expanded TV broadcast schedule as another reason why the NFL's policy is out of date. The Royals, as well as St. Louis' Cardinals and hockey Blues, are allowed by their respective leagues to pursue individual broadcast contracts for TV. While Major League Baseball prohibit broadcasts of games that conflict with national broadcasts on with Fox and ESPN, the National Hockey League only restrict Canadian broadcasters from interfering with CBC's iconic "Hockey Night in Canada" broadcasts on Saturday Nights.

Holsman's bill would only impact future deals between professional sports teams with the State of Missouri. Current deals, such as $25 million in tax credits for the Chiefs' new training camp facility on the campus of Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, would not be affected. Holsman hopes that future deals, including sales tax initiatives, will address the issue of TV blackouts.

HB1986 has not yet been assigned to committee. Response to the bill has been generally positive by a nine-to-one margin, Holsman says, with those commenting in the negative suggesting that lawmakers focus more on pressing issues such as job creation.

The Missouri Expatriate did interview Holsman about another bill he's sponsoring, HB1848. That bill would establish a task force that would explore the viability of converting vacant buildings in Kansas City and St. Louis into vertical urban farms. That interview will appear here early next week.