Letters to the Editor (Aug. 2)

Committing to the arts in Wichita

Governing, it has been said, is like trying to paint the Mona Lisa with a four-inch house brush. Every stroke taken falls on the just and the unjust. The 2019 city budget is more than numbers on a spreadsheet. Those numbers represent the nurturing sustenance of much of what makes up the complex physical, social, educational and cultural ecosystem that is Wichita.

Mayor Jeff Longwell has made an excellent start by pledging to restore funding to a number of things that were on the block. But this is only a temporary fix.

I make this plea because we so desperately need the arts and artists in this community. CityArts is a cornerstone of the Wichita ecosystem. It not only serves as a “watering hole” for artists in the region to gather, it is a crucial cog in the arts education that this city provides to people of all ages.

Chopping it down will severely damage that system, making the exodus from our community of all those professionals the Chung Report warned us about, all the more likely, and the need for yet more police in the future a dead certainty.

Caring for Wichita baseball

The Wichita Wingnuts are a competitive baseball team in the American Association, yet our newspaper gives virtually no coverage of the team. Our local TV media gives very little coverage, too.

Wichita is trying to attract a minor-league team. How can we expect to attract a team when there is no newspaper and little other coverage of the Wingnuts?

It has been months since we read in the paper that an announcement was imminent that Wichita was attracting a minor-league team. By this time, it is obvious that no one is beating at our doorstep to relocate to Wichita. Lack of newspaper coverage of the team we have certainly doesn’t help our case.

Lawrence-Dumont Stadium will be demolished after the baseball season is over. Yet no plan for a new facility has been announced by the city.

Lombard for U.S. House

Laura Lombard is an excellent candidate for Congress from our 4th District of Kansas. She is a fifth-generation Kansan.

Lombard’s education and background in international relations with a specialty in trade issues should serve Kansas well.

She is the new generation of young Democrats who will make America proud again.

Reasons against Medicaid expansion

Recent mail around the state regarding those who have voted for Medicaid expansion through Obamacare highlights exactly why Kansas should not join the parade of states that have put their fiscal health at risk.

Nearly every state that has added able-bodied adults with no children to their Medicaid rolls has underestimated both enrollment and costs. They’re now left with two bad options to pay for their mistake: cutting other vital programs or raising taxes. Many have done both.

Other state spending priorities such as education and transportation aren’t the only things being crowded out in those states. Medicaid expansion also crowds out the most vulnerable. States that have expanded the Medicaid population have reduced services for low-income children, single mothers, the elderly and the disabled – the very people the program was originally supposed to serve.

Expanding Medicaid under Obamacare is financially unsustainable, will not provide quality health care to vulnerable Kansans who need it most, and won’t address the problem of the lack of services in rural Kansas. It’s a pig in a poke, and we shouldn’t buy it. Those who voted for it in the Legislature made the wrong choice.