In the last few weeks, information provided by Michael Meadors, Director, Johnson County Parks and Recreation, to the public has been documented as wrong by NeighborhoodNet, The Kansas City Star, and The Olathe Daily. Meadors has misled (to put it mildly) the public with inaccurate information on:

1. The number of soccer playing youths - as he later corrected it, "The actual number of individuals could, in fact, be reduced by an estimated 40%", which is another way of saying the number Parks and Rec provided was inflated by an estimated 66%; [See related NeighborhoodNet article for more detail]

2. The amount of revenue from the fields - that dropped from $36 million to $24 million, which means that number was inflated by 50%; [See related NeighborhoodNet article for more detail]

3. The size of the Olathe site - he said 62 acres, when it was actually 148 acres, so his number needed to be multiplied by almost 240% to get the accurate figure; [See related article by the Olathe News for more detail]

4. The costs of the Olathe site - this one was simply very misleading, as opposed to the others. He told the The Star the Overland Park land cost less, and it does cost a bit less, 4.5% per acre less. What he neglected to point out was that the Olathe site had all the infrastructure in place that would save tax payers a bundle because they would not have to pay for it. That new infrastructure is estimated to cost up to $250 million. [See related article by the Olathe News for more detail]

Just why does Meadors provide so much misleading and wrong information to the public in advocating this project? What else is wrong that has been advertised in support?

This no longer looks like isolated incidents. It looks like a pattern, a campaign of misinformation.

Return to NeighborhoodNet^tm home page.