Letters: KC readers discuss gun thefts from cars, Fidelity Security perks, job skills
Campus guns
A headline in The Star on Thursday read, “613 guns stolen from Kansas City vehicles this year.” (4A) Demonstrating their civic spirit, the members of the University of Missouri’s Board of Curators have just adopted a policy that should reduce the incidence of auto break-ins throughout the area.
Following the leadership of Missouri’s esteemed governor, the board voted overwhelmingly to allow people parking on campus to leave guns, loaded or unloaded, in their cars, with no requirement to lock the vehicles, and apparently without having to hide the weapons. (Dec. 12, KansasCity.com, “Guns now allowed in cars on University of Missouri campuses”)
Now, gun thieves no longer have to waste fuel driving to search for targets. That should reduce air pollution. They can simply go to a central location: campus parking lots. There, they can harvest guns without having to break into automobiles. This should cause less damage. It also should result in more high-quality guns available for sale to thugs, possibly helping the economy.
The curators’ new policy also should relieve those who come to campus with evil intent from having to bring their own arsenals. Thus, won’t everyone benefit?
- Max J. Skidmore, Overland Park
Wrong rewards
My wife and I are senior citizens and very aware of the risks of COVID-19 in our society. We patiently waited for the opportunity to get our vaccinations. As we waited for the second dose, I couldn’t help but become interested in state and local attempts to generate interest in people to get vaccines.
As a supporter of the vaccine, I found it insulting to those of us who followed all the rules and recommendations and got nothing for our efforts as we finally got our second and our booster shots. I now hear these incentive programs are still in place to encourage people to get the first vaccinations.
If leaders are really interested in a program that will show results, try this: Offer a substantial stipend for getting the booster shot. This would give people incentive to get their first and second shots. Then if they produce their cards showing they had the booster, give them the reward.
A cash award or a gift card to get the first shot is tempting but no incentive to continue. Award the prize money for the final lap, not the first.
- Terry Melius, Nixa, Missouri
Closer to home
While we’re waiting for our new winter apparel and Christmas goodies to be offloaded from Asian shipping containers, maybe we should puzzle over why more “American” goods aren’t manufactured closer to home.
Apparently, Central America and South America have an abundance of underemployed personnel resources, and shipping from there might cost less than the $20,000 per container that shipments from China are commanding. Expanding entry ports for overland shipping might be faster and less expensive than improving those for ocean freight.
China has gotten enough Walmart dollars.
- Joe Blackburn, Concordia, Missouri
Seniors, you’ll pay
Kansas City residential property owners whose real property taxes are due at the end of this month can look forward to subsidizing Fidelity Security Life Insurance’s relocation of less than a mile to the tune of $10.5 million worth of incentives over the next 15 years. (Dec. 11, 1A, “Kansas City OKs millions in incentives for firm’s one-mile relocation”) This move will be paid by increased sales taxes and/or diversion of real property revenue from other budgetary items such as the library.
The old chestnut trotted out for every handout meeting by developers, suggesting that a little tax paid now is better than none if their proposal is not publicly subsidized, is misspoken. Someone else with deeper pockets will come along and do something — and probably well within the 15-year tax abatement time period giveaway.
With the above in mind, senior citizens on fixed incomes who own their homes as their primary residences can also look forward to those properties being assessed at full-market value in 2025. As you are very likely to be undervalued now, write your state senators and representatives in Jefferson City for senior tax relief and contact your home associations for them to do the same for seniors.
- H. Jonathan Pratt, Kansas City
Fond wishes
My impossible hopes for 2022 are that the U.S. Congress would learn to value compromise, that our elected representatives would begin to consider the welfare of the people they represent, that they would learn to respect and listen to each other, and that we all would begin to heal the divisions in our country.
And I’m hoping the naysayers will step up and get their shots in the arm for COVID-19. How ridiculous it is to deny modern medical miracles.
- Rosemary Anderson, Overland Park
Yes, skilled
It drives me up the wall to see people call jobs such as cooking, waiting tables, dishwashing, housekeeping, cleaning, assembly line and retail “unskilled” or “low skilled.” All jobs are skilled by definition — even if the major skill required is to avoid blowing up at people who think and act as if your vocation makes you dirt under their feet.
- Elaine Hines, Kansas City, Kansas
A microcosm
I enjoyed your Dec. 12 editorial on Eric Greitens, (20A, “Conservative radio show host begs Trump not to endorse Greitens”) until you voiced confidence in the intelligence and wisdom of the voters. These are the people who elected politicians such as Sen. Josh Hawley.
I don’t mean to imply your voters are any worse than the rest of America. You’re just a great example of the ignorance befallen our country.
- Pat O’Brien, Denver