Letters

Tracks and Fields
Death and taxes:Regarding Casey Logan's "Dead in Its Tracks" (July 19): Great story. St. Louis and Illinois have a bistate tax. Kansas is doing a commuter train from Kansas to Union Station. Why isn't Kansas City doing a bistate tax with Kansas? Not because Science City was a big flop with a bistate tax.
Howard Carson
Kansas City, Missouri

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Runaway train:Question No. 2 on the ballot August 7 says nothing about where the transit line is to be placed. That geography has merely been proposed. What the progressive City of Kansas must decide involves only the funding. The present "plan," presented by the Central Business Corridor, is only one plan, and Casey Logan's article points out its flaws.

Funding light rail is the important first step. It gets the needed government money now, not later. After light rail passes, the present "plan" can be modified, then presented as a separate issue to a vote by the citizens. Or three plans can be presented, with the most popular being activated. Kansas City has time to rethink the plan.

Why is it important to get the funding first? Well, construction prices are not going down. Auto emissions and pollution are not receding. Transportation issues are not becoming less complex. To be progressive, Kansas City must fund light rail now, fight out the details soon after, and present its citizens with the best plan for all.

The city cannot follow the lead of an unimaginative chamber of commerce, poking its head in the ground, afraid of the future. Such fuddy-duddy thinking might be fine for some Elmer Fudd cartoon, but not for the Kansas City of the 21st century.
Larry Rochelle
Overland Park

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Home Sick
The great Northeast:I am glad to finally see someone else take on the Don Bosco Center (Deb Hipp's "Housing Heartbreak," July 12). I do take exception to her portrayal of northeast KC, though. If Don Bosco did not encourage slumlords to do business here, we would not have as many problems. The Northeast neighborhood has been complaining about Don Bosco for at least seven years. They are one of the main contributions to the decline of our neighborhood. When we complain about their treatment of the immigrants, we are called racists.

Hipp's article left out the fact that many of those substandard housing units are owned by people who live in suburban KC. Why don't they have to maintain their property in Northeast? They would never be allowed to own substandard rental property on the Plaza.

Northeast has asked Don Bosco to teach the immigrants about American life on numerous occasions -- something as simple as explaining to them what trash day is and educating them on their rights as tenants. I volunteered to teach a "Welcome to America" class and was told that instead, they really needed to get their citizenship so they could get on welfare.

Now, about Bobbi Baker-Hughes: Pendleton Heights Neighborhood Association complained so much to Don Bosco about housing so many immigrants in substandard housing that they allowed a representative from the neighborhood to be on the board. Bobbi and her company have turned around many buildings that used to be uninhabitable, and the immigrant community considers her a friend.

Contrary to media portrayals, Northeast is a great neighborhood with a low crime rate. It would be nice if, for once, the media would look at those who live outside of Northeast as the root of many of our problems, not those who live here.
Michelle S. Hensley
Kansas City, Missouri

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Go Fish
A whale of a story:I laud the Pitch for running the article on the Makah tribe's desire to exercise treaty rights that were guaranteed to them 146 years ago (John Dougherty's "Resurrection," July 12). Many non-Natives, especially those whose decisions have an effect on Indian Country, need to realize this.

Washington State tribes, like the Puyallup, had to have "fish-ins" in the mid-1960s and early 1970s to make unapologetic federal and state officials pay attention and to stop the ignorant general public from assaulting Natives who fished and simply exercised their treaty rights. And the thirty or more tribes here have had to deal with the likes of Slade Gorton, a Republican "Indian fighter" who was, thankfully, beaten in the 2000 elections. Others in his party, and a small minority of Connecticut Democrats opposing the Mashantucket Pequots, use "state's rights," not realizing that Article One, Section Eight of the U.S. Constitution puts federally recognized tribes on the same footing with states in dealing with the feds. It's appalling but not surprising when politicians have to be "educated" on treaty rights.

The activists who protested the Makahs had no ground to stand on. How can a tribe of 1,200 people do as much damage to gray whales as Euro-Americans did simply out of greed? And ironically, these environmentalists unite with the racist descendants of genocidal pioneers who killed Natives out of jealousy for the land, and now in other Native subsistence rights states, like Minnesota, there have been stickers stating "Save a Walleye, kill an Indian." Great ...
Mike Ford
Lawrence

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Creature Features
The sound and the furry:I just wanted to comment on Joe Miller's article "Critter Camp Out" (July 5). PLEASE tell me this is a joke. I can't even believe he wasted time writing about this stuff. The only service he has done to the general public by writing this silly article has been to warn people of the freaks who are possibly working with kids!