Letters: Helicopter noise on the Plaza, government waste and electric cars

Invasive noise

We live in the West Plaza area and have just about had it with helicopter tours at all hours on the weekend. It is extremely invasive, even inside the house.

Today while sitting on my deck, I counted at least 13 noisy copters between 4 and 5 p.m. It is now 10 p.m. and they are still flying overhead.

Stephanie A. Henry

Kansas City

Wasteful spending

I am retired from making a lower-middle-class level income. I firmly believe that in the 40 years of my working life I paid more taxes (happily, in exchange for the public services I received) than many of the people now in positions of power.

I am furious that working people today have to fund the enormous expenses (likely already greater than the vacations of President Barack Obama) of frequent Air Force One trips, three executive living spaces and security for adult children of a billionaire.

Besides, I thought one of the ideas of people who supported the election of this person was his promise to stop wasteful government spending. Let him use his own money.

Jim Semadeni

Kansas City

Electric cars

National Public Radio recently offered Kansas City publicity that many people missed: We are a hotbed of electric vehicle activity.

We don’t have an extraordinary number of EVs, but we do have an extraordinary level of infrastructure for EVs in the form of charging stations. Kansas City Power & Light recently added about 1,000 EV charging stations to the Kansas City area, installed and maintained by locally owned LilyPad EV. This project will promote the electrification of local transportation, which will reduce carbon emissions and improve the environment for everyone.

Coincidentally, Nissan is offering KCP&L customers a special price on new Leaf EVs, with a $10,000 rebate, plus the federal tax credit of $7,500. These discounts can amount to more than half the cost. In addition, operating the car is much less expensive than a typical gasoline-powered car, and the electricity is free for now at KCP&L charging stations.

Stephen Werts

Prairie Village

HOPE Act

Kansas’ new approach to welfare programs, by encouraging work, has broken the cycle of poverty for thousands of Kansans. Unfortunately, these successful efforts are under attack in the Kansas Legislature.

The Kansas HOPE Act incentivizes work and prevents fraud. Since 2012, 13,000 fewer Kansas kids are living in poverty. From 2007 to 2016, there was a 227 percent increase in the work participation rate for Kansans on welfare. Meanwhile, more than 40,000 new employments among welfare recipients were reported from January 2011 through 2016. Within a year of work requirements being implemented, the wages of those receiving food assistance more than doubled, increasing by 127 percent on average.

The same week the Legislature voted to raise income taxes for Kansas families, our representatives also were debating how much to weaken work requirements for welfare recipients.

The proposed SOAR Act expects taxpayers to pay for able-bodied adults without dependent children to receive free food assistance with no obligation to work, attend school or receive work training.

Keeping low-income families locked in lives of poverty and government dependence is not an option. We must keep HOPE alive and encourage lawmakers to support prosperity over poverty.

Phyllis Gilmore

Secretary

Department for

Children and Families

Olathe

Bathrooms

I was in a Starbucks recently. I think it has the restroom issue right.

The restroom doors are no longer marked for men or women. All doors are marked “family.”

The signs on the doors were changed to show symbols for men, women, children and the disabled.

You go in the door, lock it, and the facility is all yours to do as you need, without regard to gender. It’s just like we have at home.

Richard Blaisdell

Kansas City

Our legislators need to ask themselves one simple question: What would be more disruptive in schools — a biological male who presents as female walking into the boys’ restroom or a biological male who presents as female walking into the girls’ restroom?

Maybe we should move on to some more pressing issues.

Gerry Leonard

Parkville

This story was originally published February 25, 2017 at 8:30 PM with the headline "Letters: Helicopter noise on the Plaza, government waste and electric cars."