Letters to the Editor (Jan. 30)

The figure is clear

Six hundred million dollars is widely recognized as the floor for new money to be spent on Kansas schools amidst ongoing legal wrangling, via the Gannon lawsuit. Kansas politicians from every ideological perspective use this number as a given.

Yet, a recent column from Davis Merritt takes issue with Kansas Policy Institute’s assertion that $600 million represents a judicial mandate. Legislators may personally think it is too much or too little, but they understand it that if it walks likes a mandate and quacks like a mandate it is, in effect, a judicial mandate. In fact, one of the attorneys suing taxpayers recently said, “(Funding is) exactly $600 million short.”

The Court winked and nodded their way to establishing a range of between $600 million and $1.4 billion in new taxpayer money in their decision. This is the mandate that Merritt wants to ignore in his recent critique of a Kansas Policy Institute opinion survey.

A needed stop sign

My neighbors and I in east Wichita would like to express our thanks to the city for placing stop signs at the intersection of North Old Manor and East Pine.

You may remember two school buses collided there last month with such an impact that one bus was knocked over on its side. That previously open intersection has been the site of many collisions and near-misses in recent years. It’s nice to finally have a stop sign to slow down the east-west traffic and increase safety for the area’s drivers, bicyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians.

Our thanks for making it happen.

Shared parenting only makes sense

I am so excited and thankful that Kansas legislators want to solve the gender bias in family courts with Senate Bill 257. Equal, shared parenting is obviously better for children and now we have a mountain of research that confirms it. State legislatures across the country are acting on that research by changing the old, antiquated and harmful sole custody model.

Ron Nelson’s opposition to Senate Bill 257 in a previous Eagle article is hogwash. He thinks this presumption of equality would discourage parents from working together. The current “winner-take-all” system encourages conflict and of course conflict is lucrative if you happen to be a lawyer. Proven domestic violence, drug use, mental illness and distance are all exceptions to shared parenting, and that is what judge’s discretion should be used for.

A judge should not deny children equal access to their fit and willing parents. Why would a judge tell a parent to spend less time with their children?

It’s pretty hard to argue with equality and doing what’s best for children, but bar associations and domestic violence groups across the country are doing just that. Shameful.

Limits on drilling

I understand localities wanting dominion over resources around them. Restricting coastal citizens from drilling seems akin to asking Brazilian farmers not to clear cut acres of rainforest. Yet the federal government safeguards our common welfare, including national lands, waters and natural resources. We need to protect coastlines, not open them for oil drilling.

Natural resources, lands and waters do not only carry monetary value, contrary to this administration’s belief. Yet we continually exploit our natural legacy for easy profits. Each grab for land and its wildlife, and each environmental disaster incurs cost on our children and our nation’s spirit. We are losing wilderness and animal species at a rapid rate by eliminating habitats and ruining ecosystems. Oil production bears much to blame.

And though some politicize climate science like a punching bag, it is the elephant in the room. Oil pulled from the earth gets burned. It is time to move beyond oil, now before we ruin more lands and wildlife. Opening the waters to more drilling, especially along our rich and diverse coastlines, is policy moving in the wrong direction of history.

This story was originally published January 30, 2018 at 9:36 AM with the headline "Letters to the Editor (Jan. 30)."