Keep public facilities downtown

Now that our city fathers have done a good job with infrastructure and enabling businesses with financial aid downtown, I'd like to see them focus more attention to public buildings and facilities there.

Our religious community has made major investments downtown in recent years: First Presbyterian, St. Mary's Cathedral, Christ Episcopal, Centenary United Methodist, Evangelical United Church of Christ, Trinity Lutheran, Old St. Vincent, Christ Church of the Heartland and more. The First Baptist congregation even brokered a deal with the university to keep it's facilities viable in the inner core. Think what downtown would look like if instead of investing there, the churches had moved out!

So how about our city fathers? They didn't oppose the moving of our courts out of town. They're moving our police station out of downtown. They are now talking of a new city hall. Are they going to abandon downtown again? How about a vision of what our inner core will look like in 30 years and beyond? Let's keep public facilities downtown.

JERRY FORD, Cape Girardeau