Letters to the Editor (Nov. 12)

Do research on Tyson

So Sedgwick County sent an invitation to Tyson Foods without researching Tyson first? So says Commissioner O’Donnell. That is an embarrassing admission. What are you people doing to earn your salaries?

If you don’t know Tyson’s reputation, you don’t read newspapers, watch TV or listen to radio.

I don’t live near where you want to plant the plant, but I don’t want it in the county because of the water and air pollution it will bring. I don’t want to pay for health services that Tyson will not give its employees, and I do not want to participate in turning chicken farmers into serfs.

These arguments are in language you can understand. No vulgarities or fake facts have been included. Research and prove that the water and air pollution, health insurance burden, and farm contracts are not all serious negatives.

Perspective on Democratic gains

After losing the presidency, the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Supreme Court, over 1,000 state legislative seats, and all four special elections in 2017, the Democrats finally picked up governors in Virginia and New Jersey. That now makes 17 states with Democrat governors. Pretty soon they’ll overtake the Whig party.

The answer is close by

Not mentioned in Davis Merritt’s Nov. 7 article “Tax increase for schools is inevitable” is that statistical studies show that there is no correlation between money spent by education departments and educational outcomes. Maybe the Kansas courts don’t know that. But in the adjacent Opinion Line is a lament about the “superintendent hiring herself a high-paid deputy superintendent.” Does any more need to be said?

KPI’s aim for education

It’s quite telling that Davis Merritt’s Nov. 7 attack on Kansas Policy Institute doesn’t refute any of the issues and facts raised in our recommended response to the Supreme Court on school funding. Instead, he falsely claims that KPI wants to “dismantle” public education because we don’t support upwards of $1 billion more in funding.

Doubling the state school property tax or raising the state sales tax to the highest rate in the nation might appease the court, but it won’t make a dent in the real education crisis – unacceptably low levels of preparedness for college or career and enormous achievement gaps for low income students. Billions more have been spent in Kansas and across the country while achievement languishes. That’s why KPI promotes policies like allowing districts more flexibility to innovate, paying teachers for performance instead of seniority, expanding online learning opportunities, operating more efficiently so the savings can be used to bolster instruction, accountability for improving outcomes and more choice options for parents of low income kids in the state’s worst performing schools.

Every student should have equal educational opportunities that prepare them for the future, and we need urgent, civil discourse to make that happen.

Keep families together

President Trump has launched a heartless campaign to arrest and deport moms, dads, and young people who have lived here for years and are important members of our communities. The Trump administration’s current target: approximately 330,000 people with legal status, many of whom are parents to American children. These essential workers are protected by a program known as Temporary Protected Status, which or TPS. TPS provides safety to people whose countries have been devastated by war, natural disaster, famine, or epidemic.

TPS holders are our neighbors. They fill crucial roles in our economy and society, including construction and infrastructure jobs, caring for our homes, children and workplaces, and preparing our food. Because they’ve lived here so long, — because their countries have been unsafe for so long — they are crucial to our local economies and communities. Tearing them apart from their families and sending them back to the countries they fled would be a death sentence.

President Trump and the Homeland Security secretary must not uproot them from the lives they’ve built here and strip away their legal status. Until Congress acts to create a permanent solution to protect TPS holders, the administration must allow them to remain with their families.

Street repair in Wichita

I would like to apply for the job of street repair for the city of Wichita. After what I have witnessed on 53rd Street North, there has to be . There will have to have an opening. Over the past several years, they have gone in and repaired the same spots year after year.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out it’s time to replace the street. The technology is out there to make any street to last over 40 years. I do believe my grandson (not old enough to be in college) would have the intelligence to figure this out.

They will say it’s because of truck traffic. There was more truck traffic in the 1950s, when I was a lot younger, and the street was a lot smoother.

I await the call from the city.

The Second Amendment’s protectors

There is a saying that “winners may try and fail, while losers never try.” When it comes to protecting Americans against domestic terrorists, that saying makes the majority of politicians losers.

My grandfather said that if your neighbor is in danger and you can help, but do nothing and he dies, you are a murderer. He did not mean that you had to save him, but that you had to try. I know how my grandfather would have responded to those same politicians. They use the excuse that the killing will not stop. It won’t.

There will always be guns in America — the Second Amendment guarantees it. But there is another saying: “Save a life and you save a world.” The nation’s Capitol rotunda involves a hall of heroes. The Congressional chambers are halls of shame. It has become the first church of the Second Amendment, where fear of a once-honorable NRA and manufacturers who have become arms dealers for domestic terrorists, outweighs the teachings of the God most politicians give only lip service to.

This story was originally published November 12, 2017 at 5:48 AM with the headline "Letters to the Editor (Nov. 12)."