Print edition: 
Don’t delay new downtown library
The Wichita City Council may delay the new downtown library project for another year (Jan. 25 Eagle). Don’t do it.
The current downtown library needs major repairs and is running out of space for more computers, teen reading and activities, lectures and small meetings, and for the core collection. Remodeling the current building actually would cost more than building a new one. The ground for the new library is already paid for, and $30 million is set aside for the new building. That won’t cover the entire cost, but it’s a start.
Libraries get more use during economic downturns. More people are using the Internet to look for and secure employment. More people are using the library to meet recreational needs – story times, music, DVDs and books and e-books for pleasure reading. All of these can help raise the spirit of the community, which has been dealt an emotional as well as economic blow by Boeing’s plan to pull out of Wichita.
Yes, we are in a recession, but what better way to raise the spirit of the community than by showing faith, courage and thinking beyond the monetary investment to the psychological investment of a new library.
Wichita needs a new library – now.
JONELL DAVIES
School Library Advocacy Group of Wichita
Wichita
Bounty rampage
I was appalled to read about what bounty hunters reportedly did in Planeview (“Events prompt call to regulate bounty hunters,” Feb. 9 Eagle). These bounty hunters seemed to have been on a rampage, not caring who got in the way or who got hurt.
Things could get really bad when someone comes into contact with a bounty hunter full of machismo and ammo. We don’t need these people scaring and threatening law-abiding citizens to look for relatives who may or may not live in the same house.
What happened to that family in Planeview should not have happened to any family, and it should show Wichitans that we don’t need this type of justice here. When bounty hunters cause such problems, they are not helping; they are hurting. And if things are not taken care of quickly, it could get a lot worse.
REGINALD S. NULAN
Wichita
Many contradictions
We are a country of contradictions. We want to ban smoking in public buildings and parks, but we allow people to carry concealed weapons to these same spaces.
We want the government to stay out of our personal lives until we want it to legislate what women can do with their bodies.
We don’t want women working in religiously based institutions to have access to health care coverage and preventive care services such as contraception, but we allow coverage for men and their Viagra.
We read and know that there are children who go to school and bed hungry every day of the year, and we spend $1 billion one day of the year for Super Bowl parties.
ELMA BROADFOOT
Wichita
Shariah law?
Is the Kansas Legislature considering anti-Shariah-law legislation? I couldn’t find anything on Kansas.com, but that is what House Bill 2087 appears to be.
The bill, of course, cannot name Shariah directly, but it seems to be endorsed as an anti-Shariah bill on the Internet. Based on my admittedly quick and unlawyerly scanning of the bill and a precis of it elsewhere on the Web, the bill seems both unenforceably broad (banning any laws that include a part of any foreign law) and ridiculously redundant and supererogatory (voiding laws conflicting with the Constitution).
The threat of Shariah law in Kansas is, of course, nil. I do wonder whether the tax-averse Legislature thinks this is really a productive use of our tax dollars.
THOMAS MOORE
Wichita
Deal with thugs
I agreed 100 percent with “Parking ticket thugs” (Feb. 9 Letters to the Editor). Congratulations to Mary Somrak and her attorney for successfully fighting the parking ticket.
I spent 20 years in the Air Force and was deployed several times. Thankfully, my family’s contact with the local police force was all positive. At times money was pretty short, and getting hit with $55 parking tickets in a private parking lot is something that shouldn’t happen.
This should be corrected by the local authorities. But if they can’t do their job, I agree that the state attorney general should get involved.
DEAN WHITTEMORE
Derby
Deduct interest?
President Obama wants to spend another $5 billion to $10 billion to help homeowners refinance the mortgages that they should have thought twice about when former President Clinton forced banks to extend those mortgages. Given that it’s my tax dollars that are going to bail out these folks, do I get to take the interest deduction on my income taxes? There are also 535 members of Congress who depend on my taxes to pay their salaries. Do I get to claim them as dependents?
The Founding Fathers knew that being a member of Congress was a job and not a career. They served as a service to the new country and were not paid. Isn’t it time to go back to the way the founders envisioned?
RICH BACH
Wichita
