The Maverik deal on Fairlawn should have been a no-brainer.
A private company wanted to take a long-dead, blighted hole at the old Holidome site and put a real business on it. A convenience store and fueling station that would have generated sales tax every single day, real estate taxes for the city, and actual economic activity on land that had been sitting empty and rotting for years. It was the right project, in the right location, for the right reasons.
It would have helped Topeka. Not in some abstract “vision” way. In the concrete way that matters: money coming into the city’s coffers from people buying gas, food, and supplies. Property taxes from a developed site instead of a vacant eyesore. Private capital doing what private capital is supposed to do.
And where was Go Topeka?
Nowhere.
The organization whose entire existence is justified by attracting and supporting new businesses sat on its hands. They should have been down there fighting for it. They should have been the loudest voice in the room explaining why this project belonged in Topeka. They should have been pushing back against the noise, the special interests, and the neighborhood pressure that ultimately killed it. That’s literally their job.
Instead, the City Council buried it 9-1. Only David Banks had the courage to vote for it. Everyone else folded. And Go Topeka? Missing in action. Silent when it mattered. Absent when a sales-tax-generating project needed a champion.
This is not economic development. This is selective advocacy dressed up as economic development. When the right people don’t want something, Go Topeka disappears. When the project is convenient for the connected, they suddenly find their voice. The Maverik deal exposed the pattern in the clearest possible terms.
Their job is not to manage the feelings of the loudest special interests. Their job is not to let the mob rule. Their job is to bring businesses to this community that create real tax base and real activity. On Fairlawn, they failed that test completely.
This is exactly why their public funding needs to end. No more blank checks. No more institutional capture. Let every project stand on its own merit and come to the city and county on an arm’s-length basis. If a deal is good for taxpayers, it should win on the numbers and the facts — not on whether Go Topeka decides to show up that day.
And while we’re at it, every acre of land sitting in Go Topeka’s name needs to be transferred out of their control. Those assets belong to the public. They should not be held by an organization that has proven it will protect its own interests and relationships over the clear economic interest of the community.
The Maverik deal was the test. Go Topeka failed it. They weren’t there when a straightforward, tax-generating private project needed a champion. That failure is not a one-off. It is the logical result of how this organization has evolved — more concerned with managing influence than delivering results for the people who actually fund it.
Enough.
