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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tA plan to get a public vote on a new Royals ballpark at Washington Square Park is currently in the discussion phase.On Thursday, the Kansas City City Council took the first step towards investing $600 million to pay for part of the new ballpark. Kansas City Councilman Johnathan Duncan points to a public vote two years ago to extend a sales tax for 40 years, in part, to build the Royals a new ballpark in the Crossroads area of the city.”The voters overwhelmingly stated what their position was on public dollars for a billionaire’s ballpark,” Duncan said.He’s speaking to groups about a petition drive to get the new ballpark plan on the ballot.”I think the threshold is around 2200 signatures that we would need for a petition to bring this to a vote of the people,” Duncan said.”It is significant time and energy to try to get a referendum or an initiative on the ballot,” said Rachel Gonzalez.Gonzalez helped lead a petition drive to have a public vote on the massive Independence data center.Ultimately, a judge tossed it out. But Gonzalez said the effort was worth it.More coverage: Petition effort discussed for proposed downtown Royals ballpark at Washington Square ParkEXCLUSIVE: KMBC 9 News sits down with Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas to talk downtown baseballFans share thoughts on Royals’ potential move to downtown Kansas CityElected officials raise transparency concerns, push for public vote on Royals plan”At the very least, we were out there, really informing people about our data center project,” she said.Gonzalez also believes the petition drive helped elect Kevin King mayor of Independence.”I think it definitely inspired a lot of people in our city to get out and vote, some of them for the first time,” she said.”We’ll be able to enter into some strong contracts soon and be able to build the project that we need to for the future of Kansas City,” said Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, who didn’t express concern about a referendum petition drive.”I think it’s unfortunate that the mayor and my colleagues who are supporting this measure are doing it behind closed doors without a vote of the people,” Duncan said.So far, Duncan has given no indication that a petition drive has started.The plan will go to the city council’s finance committee on Tuesday morning.The board of parks and recreation commissioners will review the plan on Tuesday.That board will have to approve any change of use to Washington Square Park.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
A plan to get a public vote on a new Royals ballpark at Washington Square Park is currently in the discussion phase.<\/p>\n