Speak Out 08/27/04

Too much taxation

THE CAPE Girardeau School Board is coming after us for more taxes. These board needs to find additional funding for schools other than putting it on the property owner. My wife and I are retired senior citizens. Our taxes are costing us $100 a month now. Our home has never had anything done to it since it was built, but it seems like every other year our taxes go up. We're at the point that we will have to either sell or lose our home due to the school taxes. School taxes are 75 percent of the total amount of taxes I pay. Where is this money going? These people better start thinking about the property owners and the taxes they're putting on them.

Let's have a YWCA

EVERYONE KEEPS wanting a waterpark. How about a YWCA for young girls or young boys? I grew up in south St. Louis, and there was always something for us to do there: swimming, gymnastics, crafts and lots of other things. This is an election year. Put a little pressure on the politicians to get one started here in Cape Girardeau. That would be a good place for the kids to go.

Irresponsible biking

THIS IS in response to all these calls about biking on the county roads. My husband and I bike with our children. My husband and I went this past weekend with the children to the family fun day that Procter & Gamble had for families and retirees. While I was driving to Procter & Gamble, I came around a curve in the road, and there were bikers. They weren't riding in single file. They were riding four abreast across the entire lane. That's dangerous and stupid. This is about riding responsibly. I would never have my children nor would I ride in the middle of the lane, especially not in an area where the speed limit is 55 or it's curvy. It's not that you ride the bikes. It's the irresponsible manner in which you ride them.

Bad tax thinking

THE FEDERAL government has used its taxing power to redistribute earnings to achieve a variety of social reforms. Politicians love those indirect business taxes because they hide the cost of government. During the New Deal days, an undersecretary of the treasury wrote, "Taxes can serve a higher purpose than just raising revenue." He said they could be an instrument of social and economic control to redistribute wealth and income and to penalize industries and economic groups. We need to put an end to that kind of thinking.

Dealing with barking

ALL DOG owners who allow their dogs to bark and disturb the neighborhood should have to forfeit their barking dogs to the Humane Society. Caging these dogs so they bark constantly is cruelty to these animals and to the neighbors. Peace disturbance is a violation of the law.

In-state voting

MISSOURI POLITICIANS are lining up strategies to get the votes of rural voters. I'm tired of hearing about outstate voters. We may not live in St. Louis or Kansas City, but we live in Missouri. I am an in-state voter.

Not self-supporting

A WATER park built with tax surplus and operated by the city would not be a self-supporting attraction as some believe. The first complaint by the public would be it costs too much. The next would be the hours of operation and length of season, the same as the Capaha Park pool. If a water park is viable, why hasn't private enterprise built one? Amusement business in Cape Girardeau has never survived. What happened to the water slide, go-cart track, ice rink? How long can the roller rink and skateboard park survive with low participation?

Pay off those bonds

I HAVE a great idea. The $1 million motel-restaurant tax surplus money that is causing a lot of talk in Cape Girardeau could be used to pay off the $2.1 billion in bonds to finance the Renaissance Aircraft Co. that has apparently skipped town.

Hire officer instead

I DON'T need a police officer with an overpriced sports car to tell my child that drugs are bad. I will do that job myself. The police could have taken the money donated for the DARE car and hired another officer.