Snow removal pinch

The residents of Kansas City are required to shovel the snow from their sidewalks or perhaps get fined by the city government. At first this seems like a good idea.

After all, the sidewalks should be cleared. But whose sidewalks are they?

If the sidewalks are the city’s, then the city should clear them.

If they are the individual’s, then the city has no business telling people what to do with their own property.

I think the shoe should be on the other foot. If the city does not clear the streets in a reasonable time, then City Hall should credit the homeowners on that street a certain amount of their property taxes. After all, the streets are the city’s responsibility, and the streets should be cleared.

No doubt this would get the mayor’s attention.

Joe Lavender

Lenexa

Clay County progress

My wife and I have been residents of Liberty and Clay County since 1996. Our observations about county non-development have been private.

We have thought that Clay County economic development is lagging.

It is not on par with our metro neighbors.

Clay County development does not look like a growing Platte County and others. Clay County is growing rapidly in population, yet is seemingly stagnated in job growth.

There is welcome news that the Clay County Commission has not renewed its historic contract with the Clay County Economic Development Council. Instead, it has pointed the county onto a bright economic development path for 2013.

The commission has signed a contract with Mr. Greg Martinette. A new organization titled the Economic Development Alliance is launched.

This is a needed venue. Thanks go to commissioners Pam Mason, Luann Ridgeway and Gene Owen for taking a vital step in cranking up Clay’s economic engine.

Robert M. Shettles

Liberty

Nuclear ballot question

In response to the new facility for the National Nuclear Security Administration at Missouri 150 and Botts Road, if this were all about maintaining jobs in Kansas City, are we at all concerned about what kind of jobs our citizens have?

Handling materials in a nuclear weapons plant sounds like one of the worst jobs you could have.

There are many cases of people who worked at the old Bannister Road plant who have died from cancer-causing toxins that they were exposed to.

This number includes only families that have come forward.

Do we not care about our citizens enough to at least provide jobs that are non-toxic?

What is more outrageous is that Kansas City has funded this project using blighted neighborhood bonds.

Vote yes on Question No. 3 on April 2 and prevent Kansas City from funding nuclear weapons in the future.

Joshua Armfield

Kansas City

Cut U.S. aid to Egypt

Congress should stop President Barack Obama from delivering F-16s and Abrams tanks to Egypt.

Congress should also stop all payments to Egypt’s government.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi hates the United States and Israel. Why would President Obama give Morsi weapons?

If Iran in June or July can complete work on an atomic bomb and the Muslim Brotherhood cuts off the Suez Canal, how is the United States going to be able to protect Israel?

I also think Iraq moved its chemical and biological weapons to Syria when Saddam Hussein was in power.

I wonder whether the U.S. could ever prove it.

The Egyptians who wanted democracy and freedom are suffering every day at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood.

All life has value, and it is very sad that the Muslim Brotherhood does not respect all life.

Betty Lusby

Loch Lloyd

Bishop Finn assailed

The attacks on Bishop Robert Finn are endless. Apparently those behind the verbal assaults are totally virtuous and are willing to cast the first stone and then stone after stone.

Those who attack Bishop Finn know that The Star will print their letters because The Star will print anything against the Catholic Church. Certainly our children deserve to be loved and protected against any abuse.

Are we just as concerned when children’s bodies are being mutilated and killed through abortion right up to the time of birth and then discarded as so much garbage or used for experimentation? Many of our leaders promote this kind of abuse.

Are we calling for their resignation?

Mary Crushshon

Kansas City

Nuclear bombs, guns

If nuclear bombs kill people, let’s all gather in a room. We’ll lay a fully armed four-megaton nuclear warhead and detonator on a table.

Let’s all stand back 20 feet and wait.

Let’s see how long it takes to kill anybody.

I am all for responsible gun ownership. But if this is truly the litmus test by which a weapon’s ability to inflict horrendous destruction and sorrow is to be determined, and therefore determine the amount of regulation that it should be subject to, then the inmates really are running the asylum.

Stephen Grimsley

Overland Park

Special dental care

It has been in the news recently that a study proved that redheads need 20 percent more anesthetic to become numb at the dentist’s office.

Any experienced and observant dental hygienist could also tell readers that folks with fair complexions, and especially true redheads, have gums that tend to bleed very easily.

Nurses often call redheads “easy bleeders,” too.

Amy Brown

Registered Dental Hygienist

Leawood

Hope for better America

America is filled with tragedies, presented by unwise, sad and mentally deficient men and women.

It is filled with a crazy nutshell of terrible events, including Newtown, Conn.; Virginia Tech; Columbine High School; and Oklahoma City.

Said tragedies are there for us all to see and to bemoan and to cry for.

We need help in stopping these things.

We need help stopping immoral events, hidden and open. We must “look to the hills,” as King David said, “from whence our help cometh.”

If we will regain our sanity, these events will cease.

Frank Berry

Kansas City

History’s lessons today

The shameful behavior of Congress regarding our nation’s problems is strangely reminiscent of the days before the Civil War.

By reading “Team of Rivals” by Doris Kearns Goodwin, today’s lawmakers would better understand their responsibilities to the republic.

After Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln called his cabinet members to counsel. Stephen Douglas, his fervent debate opponent and presidential rival, offered his solid support to Lincoln, declaring himself ready “to sustain the president in the exercise of his constitutional functions to preserve the Union, and maintain the government.”

He further urged “every man to lay aside his party bias, give up small prejudices and go in, heart and hand, to put down treason and traitors.”

These specific words may not be applicable to some who have reasonable arguments to support their ideology, but they must acknowledge that their intransigence toward compromise is folly.

President Barack Obama must not act like Lincoln aide John Hay did regarding the South and underestimate or express in condescending terms his opponents as an “insubordinate and hungry mob,” although in the humble estimation of this citizen, the 1860 characterization may in fact be similarly accurate.

Rod Yeager

Kansas City

Women in combat

Because modern warfare doesn’t involve much ax-swinging and spar-jabbing, women could be just as effective in combat as men. But the rationale to allow women on the front line is sophistry at its best.

The secretary of defense, feminists and many in the media touted the estimated 250,000 new jobs available to women as a key benefit to putting them into battle. Since when did war become a jobs program?

Would peace constitute an economic downturn or job discrimination aimed at women?

Dennis M. McLaughlin

Lenexa

Helping neighbors

Let me offer a huge thank you to the four men who helped free my car in the snow as I got stuck three times trying to get home last week. Your kindness is immensely appreciated.

Another thank you to my neighbor who shoveled my driveway and helped get my car off the street. You guys are angels.

I will look for opportunities to pay it forward.

Nelda Schaffner

Overland Park