Letters on northeast grocery store, DeVore, new library, independent judiciary, consolidation, aid to hospitals, dressing professionally

Have faith there will be another grocery store

I haven’t said much on the closing of the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market at 13th and Oliver, or of the nearby QuikTrip. Truth of the matter, as one of the original developers of the shopping center, I was too hurt and frustrated to speak. I felt betrayed and had no power to fight back.

But today I will speak through the faith vested in me. The dream, the vision and mission are still alive on the inside of me for a neighborhood grocery store in our community.

The near-northeast community and I have been through disappointments. Things might not be the way we hoped they would be. However, it’s time we shake off our disappointment and create a fresh new vision for our community.

So today I declare that we will not let one disappointment or even a series of disappointments convince us to give up and settle where we are. We have come too far by faith, and the fire within me has been stirred up.

I speak by faith and believe in my heart the near-northeast community, particularly at the corner of 13th and Oliver, will once again have a neighborhood grocery store.

DeVore a doer

The Wichita community lost a great leader, a great visionary and a great man last week with the passing of Richard A. “Dick” DeVore (Feb. 3 Eagle).

Whether he was volunteering with the Wichita Community Foundation, Wichita Art Museum, Music Theatre Wichita, the YMCA or the many other organizations he impacted, DeVore’s focus was on making Wichita a great place to live. He believed in our community and wasn’t afraid to roll up his sleeves and put in the work to make Wichita great.

Just as we wouldn’t have beautiful sculptures adorning Douglas Avenue or a magnificent Dale Chihuly installation at the art museum without DeVore, we wouldn’t have any of the current YMCAs in Wichita without him. He joined the YMCA board of directors in 1972 and immediately focused on eliminating debt to lay the groundwork for long-term success. His name adorns the South YMCA because of this vision and service. From the West YMCA that opened in 1981 to the Newton YMCA that’s under construction, DeVore was instrumental in making each new YMCA possible.

DeVore was a doer, a risk taker, a leader. To me, he was a friend, an adviser, and a great example of how to live life with utter joy every day.

Excited about library

It was a wonderful celebration for me to be at Tuesday’s Wichita City Council meeting. My paternal grandmother, Sara Norcross Jones, served on the first Wichita Library Board in 1915. Now, 100 years later, I’m so excited for our city and appreciate all the generous money gifts and hard work that are making our new Advanced Learning Library a reality (“Wichita getting new central library,” Feb. 3 Eagle).

Lessons in government

It appears that many of our elected leaders in Topeka fail to understand the three branches of government and why it was set up that way. We are getting a lot of concerns from Topeka that the Kansas Supreme Court is not following the will of the good people of Kansas. I suspect this means some of the decisions are not to elected leaders’ liking. Some of the decisions coming out of Topeka are not to my liking, so I do understand how they feel. Having said that, I do not want a dictatorship with this group at the helm.

Given the fact that many in Topeka fail to read much beyond the first paragraph in legislation supplied by the American Legislative Exchange Council, their lack of knowledge is understandable. But I hope someone will explain that the judiciary is supposed to be free from the current politics du jour of the Republican Party.

I certainly have hopes we can send them some lessons in how government works this November.

Redirect aid to hospitals

Considering that roughly one-third of all hospitals in the U.S. are in danger of closure (Feb. 3 Eagle), one wonders why we don’t keep some of the money that our government has earmarked for foreign aid and redirect it to our hospitals in danger. Would not this be the best of aid? Should we not care for our citizens who are in danger before we care for another country’s citizens?

Let’s use our tax monies to help ourselves first. We cannot help others if we do not care for ourselves first. I realize that common sense is generally the last thing that our government looks at, but in this case it should be first.

We can take some of the billions in our foreign aid and use it immediately for the at-risk hospitals, thereby helping our citizens.

Other consolidation

I find it interesting that Rep. John Bradford, R-Lansing, stopped with school consolidation as a way to save taxpayer money. There are plenty of governments that could be combined to create great efficiency.

Let’s start with the fact that Kansas has 105 counties, 65 of which have populations of less than 10,000 citizens. In a world of automobiles and the Internet, there is no reason to live with a political system created for horses and buggies – except that it creates make-work government jobs and contracts for Republican Party loyalists in rural Kansas.

In fact, why not take this idea national and consolidate states with populations of less than 10 million? Welcome to Okanaskaota (the new state formed from the combination of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas). Oops, there goes the Republican U.S. Senate majority.

But back to Kansas: How about consolidating any branches of government that can’t do math better than the average fifth-grader? Based on the handling of the state budget, we would have a unicameral Legislature, the governor would be doubling as the Capitol janitor, and budget director Shawn Sullivan would have the third shift at a Kansas Turnpike tollbooth.

Dress professionally

I feel the need to weigh in on this debate about appropriate attire in the workplace (“Kansas senator imposes dress code on women,” Jan. 23 Eagle). As much as I hate to agree with the conservatives in Topeka on most subjects, this one strikes home.

I worked in the office environment for about 45 years. During all that time, I was in the forward ranks with my workplace sisters in rebelling against office dress codes. In the 1970s, we actually fought for the right to wear pantsuits, if you can believe it. We also fought to earn the respect of our male colleagues by requesting they look at our eyes, not at our chests, when we were involved in a business discussion.

We had to work twice as hard for a fraction of the money just to prove to those male colleagues that we “girls” were capable of doing more than schlepping coffee, typing letters and looking pretty while we did it.

Young women may be unaware of just how many of us were kicked to the curb along the way to earn them the right to dress as they please at work. This said, they need to understand that dressing as they please does not mean dressing unprofessionally. Appropriate dress is more important than ever in today’s competitive working environment.

By all means, dress however you like after hours. But please honor those of us who fought to earn you that right by showing your colleagues (and yourself) that you know the difference between work and play.

This story was originally published February 6, 2016 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Letters on northeast grocery store, DeVore, new library, independent judiciary, consolidation, aid to hospitals, dressing professionally."