Readers react to Missouri, caucuses and daylight savings time

Missouri’s cars

FCA U.S., Ford and General Motors recently showcased their vehicles at the Kansas City Auto Show, displaying iconic brands such as Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, GMC, Ford and Lincoln.

Missouri is an auto state, and it was an honor to lead our great state as governor. FCA U.S., Ford and General Motors’ 265 dealerships employ 15,900 Missourians. The companies’ three facilities employ an additional 10,898 workers. The three companies’ 210 dealerships employ more than 10,400 Kansans. At the three Kansas City facilities, they employ almost 4,000 autoworkers.

Across the country, more than 230,000 employees work at more than 226 assembly plants, factories, research labs, distribution centers and other facilities in 32 states. And the three companies employ two of three American autoworkers.

Our automakers and the American workers they employ will continue to deliver high-quality, fuel-efficient and high-tech vehicles for Missouri families. The production and sales of these cars and trucks will also continue to support jobs for Missouri’s growing economy.

Matt Blunt

Former governor

Missouri

Middleburg, Va.

Caucus circus

Here’s what people missed at the Monticello caucus: leaving home at 1:30 p.m. and parking the car 100 yards from the school entrance at 2 p.m.

We then walked to the school entrance and stood in congested lines for 20 minutes to register, only to find that our names were not on the official rolls, even though we had our registration cards.

We waited in the cafeteria for 10 minutes, entered the gymnasium and stood in rows in order to be counted and recounted, over and over, while listening to speakers who could not be seen. We left the gym and all our new friends at 4:45 p.m., and then we walked the 100 yards back to our car.

In summary, you missed standing on your feet for almost three hours. Is it not time for a change to a 30-minute ballot?

Judy and Bob

Kirkpatrick

Shawnee

Daylight savings

The Missouri legislature is considering a proposal to make daylight-saving time year-round, thus altering the state’s historic Central Time Zone status. About 150 countries, including China, observe no daylight-saving time.

A change would put Missouri in a hybrid zone. Consider that on Sunday we will begin Central Daylight Time, an hour behind Eastern Daylight Time. But in November 2016, the eastern zone will revert to Eastern Standard Time, while Missouri would remain at Central Daylight Time under the proposed legislation.

So, we would watch New York’s Times Square celebration in real time instead of an hour later. In effect, we would be on Eastern time during our winter months.

Such breaks with established norms belong on a national agenda, although even there the urge to tinker is endless.

It makes you wonder whether the Capitol library has an Encyclopedia of Bad Ideas. Other meddlesome ideas: calling for a U.S. constitutional convention to reign in the federal government, micro-managing the university system, ignoring women’s rights to abortions, forbidding cities from instituting taxes and abridging the privilege of voting in elections. Ad infinitum.

Temp Sparkman

Kansas City

Flint’s lead water

Black-on-black crime is reaching epidemic proportions. News of cops shooting and killing unarmed black males in cities across the nation appears seemingly on a weekly basis.

And now the topper. An entire city, Flint, Mich., has high levels of lead in its drinking water because of alleged greed, mismanagement and total indifference for the lives of the city’s mostly black residents.

As a concerned black male, I wonder whether, at this rate, it’s not so far-fetched to question whether we blacks, as a race, may eventually be on the verge of extinction.

Eddie L. Clay

Grandview

Banking on speed

The Kansas City Police Department has a new gold mine. The intersection at Blue Parkway and Eastwood Trafficway is being redone.

Speed limits have gone from 45 mph to 20 mph. I see from two to as many as five police giving tickets both ways all day long.

Twenty mph is hard for drivers to maintain, especially with no equipment or workers near the street. But it is good for the city’s bank account.

Mike Neenan

Kansas City

This story was originally published March 8, 2016 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Readers react to Missouri, caucuses and daylight savings time."