Readers sound off on illegal immigration, health care, Missouri veto session
Illegal immigration
Most difficult to understand how or why the Obama administration is taking many worthy individuals to court at great expense to decide their qualifications for citizenship while allowing hordes of non-productive individuals to cross the border and settle into government-supported existence at greater expense to taxpayers.
William H. Finnegan
Independence
Maintaining property
I frequently take out-of-town visitors to the Kansas City Zoo. To do so from my home in Raytown, we travel west on 63rd Street and pass beneath a 1,000-foot railroad trestle.
This railroad trestle has needed paint for 11 years. I would think that a railroad that carries this great city’s name would be a better citizen and keep its property in good condition.
Larry Gieringer
Raytown
Health-care tab
Pleading health-care freedom, recent letters to The Star claim the government (that is you and me) should pay for birth control. Why?
Birth control is a social, not a medical, issue. Anyone in this country wanting to adopt contraception methods is at liberty to do so.
I happen to enjoy driving a car for social reasons, but I don’t go around hollering that the government should pay for my driving lessons.
Ben Nicks
Shawnee
Circus comes to KC
The circus is coming to town with its flying trapeze, clowns and cotton candy. Let us not forget that with the circus comes animal abuse, too.
I ask that you empathize with the animals that are forced to perform. Taken from their natural habitats, their young spirits are broken by mental and physical abuse.
They are trained using pain and fear to perform unnatural acts. Theirs is a lifetime of suffering for your few moments of entertainment.
Attend only animal-free circuses. Join groups that are working to preserve natural habitats of elephants and tigers from poachers, trophy hunters and human sprawl.
Animal suffering ends when your compassion begins. Please don’t attend the circus — the cruelest show on earth.
Ricky Setticase
Gardner
Road to prosperity
Missouri citizens clearly recognize the serious need for fixing our highway infrastructure. Voters wisely decided that financing with a regressive sales tax is not the way to do it.
Ever since President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act, Kansas has capitalized on it with reasonable fuel taxes and toll roads. Missouri has preferred cheap taxes, no tolls and inferior roads.
Recently, The Star’s “Century of Striving” reported on Kansas City’s world-class engineering firms—11 of the world’s largest. We have in our midst the talent and know-how for Missouri to build and own the nation’s finest highway system.
Johnson County built a great school system and infrastructure while having the highest taxes in the region. People and businesses flocked to the area because of its outstanding amenities and quality of life. Missouri has consistently fallen short of realizing its potential by scrimping on essential services.
Perpetuating the border war, Gov. Sam Brownback is undercutting Missouri’s low income tax. Great cities and states cannot be built without adequate funding.
Our GOP Legislature should recognize this and sustain Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto. Get realistic about rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.
Raise necessary taxes and let our great Show-Me State show the road to prosperity.
Ed Fleetwood
Belton
Royals ballgame
Congratulations to the home team, the Kansas City Royals, on an exciting, competitive season.
My only complaint is the high costs that keep me away. Parking is $11.
The Royals will happily sell a small soft drink for $5.50, but I am already priced out of the market.
Jim Dingwerth
Olathe
Focus on best in KC
Let’s refocus on what we want Kansas City to represent to the world.
It’s not streetcars. It’s not a single-terminal Kansas City International Airport. It’s not what we do with the Kemper Arena white elephant.
We should focus on what made Kansas City a destination in the early years — affordable housing, great boulevards, friendly neighbors, parks and fountains, the Country Club Plaza, access to professional and college teams, great restaurants, Union Station and the Liberty Memorial, and our solid and diverse economy.
Focus on supporting the people and institutions that help make Kansas City one of the great cities in the world, be open to new ideas but don’t forget why we are what we are.
Edward “Gomer“ Moody
Kansas City
Hearing all prayers
Believe it or not, God and I appear to have more in common than just the fact that we are both male authority figures. Based on the fact that quite often God doesn’t answer my prayers, I am compelled to assume that sometimes he can’t hear me.
That fact has compelled me to ponder and have empathy for my wife because quite often I can’t hear her clearly because of my impaired hearing caused by loud noises such as tractor and truck engines, machine gun, rifle and pistol fire, and other loud explosions over the decades. In other words, loud noises have cost me a lot of my hearing ability.
As I pondered the fact that quite often God doesn’t answer my prayers, I was compelled to assume that perhaps he also suffers loud-noise-triggered hearing impairment, which prevents him from hearing and answering all prayers.
That, of course, raises the question of whether God was wearing earplugs when he set off the big bang that created the universe.
Ivan L. Fail
Sparta, Mo.
Joint streetcar plan
Both light-rail promoter Clay Chastain and Kansas City Mayor Sly James have put a lot of work into the Kansas City streetcar concept. And I think it could be doable if the two changed direction.
If their joint plan were to go north to Kansas City International Airport, the city would see tourist commuter dollars, local commuter dollars, support for the streetcar-to-nowhere plan and help to support our downtown merchants.
Can you say winner? Go after the federal dollars and get it built.
We and the people coming to our city would love it and ride it.
Bill Mason
Kansas City
Faux streetcar run
If I had had a vote in the streetcar-expansion election, I, too, would have voted no. But I can tell the supporters of expansion how to proceed now.
First, buy buses that look exactly like the streetcars — same streamlined look, expansive glass, easy on and off, Wi-Fi, etc. Second, run them on the routes where you wanted to expand.
Third, save the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in construction costs and time. Fourth, take a bow.
You’re welcome.
Herb Shanks
Mission
New bus leader
Mark Huffer should be proud and respected for his successful 14-year tenure at the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, but a new kind of leader is needed if mass transit is to truly be a metropolitan service.
The new leader needs to be a local political leader who can advocate a compelling case for dedicated transit funding at the county level.
County-level funding allows for each area to modulate the level of service it needs and wants while erasing municipal boundaries. The demand for transit transcends such boundaries.
For all practical purposes, local funding for transit is limited to the city of Kansas City, which has dedicated transit funding. It is no surprise then that Kansas City has most of the area’s service.
If transit is to be a metropolitanwide service, it needs to erase political boundaries, starting in Jackson County. Johnson and Wyandotte counties already approach transit as a countywide service, although neither has dedicated transit funding.
The new leader of the KCATA should be a local political heavyweight who can successfully advocate for countywide funding on both sides of the state line as well as north of the river.
Ted Rieck
Overland Park
This story was originally published September 6, 2014 at 12:00 PM with the headline "Readers sound off on illegal immigration, health care, Missouri veto session."