Letters on K-254 speed limit, KU finance plan, Merritt column, fringe issues

Save lives by lowering speed limit on K-254

We had another tragic traffic fatality recently on K-254 northeast of Wichita (Jan. 28 Eagle). It’s a highway that people drive on at near-interstate speed, too often forgetting that it’s not an interstate.

After this most recent fatal crash, public outcry is again demanding that K-254 be made safer. I saw a Kansas Department of Transportation spokesman on TV explaining that plans were being talked about for building overpasses at several of its busiest crossroads. He reminded viewers that the cost for such an upgrade would be astronomical and that the state could not currently afford such a project.

Why doesn’t anybody talk about dropping the speed limit to make this road safer? Even a 5 mph reduction would help.

Three years after interstate speed limits were increased by 5 mph in Kansas, The Eagle reported there had been no appreciable increase in the number of interstate accidents but that the number of fatalities had increased by 54 percent.

The cost of changing speed-limit signs from Wichita to El Dorado wouldn’t even be pocket change compared with the cost of overpasses. The arrival time difference at El Dorado from Wichita with a 5 mph speed reduction would hardly be noticed.

KU finding funds

Kudos to leaders at the University of Kansas for demonstrating that they are creative enough to find their own money to finance construction in the face of failed state fiscal management (Feb. 2 Eagle). The bond market doesn’t look favorably at the state, and the Kansas Department of Transportation doesn’t have enough money to finance everything.

On a personal note, many of us will be paying higher state taxes due to the governor’s mismanagement. We’ve lost our medical deductions, 50 percent of our deductions for mortgage interest and for real estate and personal property taxes, and we’re paying higher sales taxes. But that won’t solve the bigger problem created by the ongoing fiscal crisis and our legislators.

Pity the poor legislators. Re-election will be difficult if they choose to do the right thing. If they go against Gov. Sam Brownback and his big money friends, another lackey will be found to take their place.

Fed-up constituents could vote them out of office if they don’t do the right thing. Maybe it’s not too soon to begin looking for a new day job – or to grow a backbone.

Dishonest suggestion

Has anyone else noticed how the timbre of the commentaries by Davis Merritt has darkened? Regarding “Ending legislative battiness a top priority” (Feb. 2 Opinion):

Apparently, if you’re a bank owner and wish to discriminate against a customer who is a gun dealer, it’s OK because you have an individual preference for doing so. But if that gun dealer had a customer who is known to him to be a homosexual, then it wouldn’t be OK to discriminate against him.

And how heartbreaking it would be to someone who wins the lottery and has to give up his welfare benefits. How could he even afford to go to the counseling necessary to deal with such a loss?

As for the legislators pushing an amendment establishing the right to fish, hunt and trap in this state: I guess there are people who believe that those in Washington, D.C., always know what’s best for us here in flyover country.

Regarding the dress code by Sen. Mitch Holmes, R-St. John: I’ll admit it was a gaffe. Instead of apologizing, he should have amended his decree to instruct both women and men appearing before his committee to avoid wearing “low-cut blouses and miniskirts,” or would that constitute a bias against some liberal men?

Merritt’s suggestion that Democrats register as Republicans and join with RINOS (Republicans in name only) to affect the primaries was dishonest, and those who engage in it show a lack character.

Fringe issues

As we all know, the Kansas tax base has been shattered, and the Kansas economy drifts aimlessly without improvement, while neighboring states recover from harder times. Every fifth-grader in Kansas knows why this has happened and what has to be done to stop the bleeding, but Kansas administrators prefer to yank funding away from soon-to-be-crumbling infrastructure, and from Kansas education, and children’s programs, and from health care, apparently believing that a miracle will somehow occur and provide relief.

In the meantime, Kansas legislators have decided to focus on truly significant problems such as whether to drop the concealed-carry age from 21 to 18, whether to pass a law to allow shooting clubs on campuses along with their air rifles, whether to ban discrimination against gun sellers (I wonder if strip club owners would like to get in on that one), and whether to pass a constitutional amendment to doubly ensure every Kansan his or her right to hunt, fish and trap.

Perhaps it is finally the time, this fall, that those current Kansas legislators be returned to private life where they can devote their full attention to all the fringe issues that seem to so fully fascinate them, and to elect others who may not desperately want the job, but can at least do it.

This story was originally published February 9, 2016 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Letters on K-254 speed limit, KU finance plan, Merritt column, fringe issues."