Speak Out A 06/02/02

Trusting teen-agers

THE PERSON convinced parents who allow their teen-agers to have alcohol are setting them up for failure, DWIs, lost jobs, multiple marriages and alcoholism needs to wake up. Teen-agers are going to want the forbidden fruit. I'm not suggesting a drink-when-you-want-to attitude, but kids who are allowed controlled, moderate, supervised drinking will not feel the need to sneak out or, worse yet, drive home from a party instead of calling their parents. Teaching your children trust, how to take responsibility for their decisions and talking with them will have a far better result then forcing them to sneak off or keeping them out of touch with reality. This worked for my parents and their six children. None of us fell into any of your generalizations.

Cape costs too much

I WANT to thank you for showing the comparison of cities and their taxes. I built my home 10 years ago. The real-estate taxes have gone up nine of those years and have more than doubled. In a couple of years I'm retiring with a nice pension, a fat IRA, a nice 401(k) and my Social Security. I am leaving for Jonesboro, Ark., where the city taxes are more sane and I can keep more of my hard-earned and hard-saved money for a more comfortable retirement. Cape used to be a nice conservative city, but the city workers, teachers, firemen and police think they deserve to make more than the people who pay their salaries.

Merging with traffic

IF YOU want to have some fun, go to Siemers Drive and Route K. There are two right lanes to get onto Route K going east. The one on the far right has a sign that reads "Right lane must turn right," which means it is an access lane to south Interstate 55. The lane on the left is the only one in which you are supposed to merge into traffic on Route K. Watch as motorists use the right-turn-only access to I-55 lane. And watch the looks on their faces when you won't let them into traffic. They just don't get it.

Bikes on highways

I WANT to complain about all the bicyclists riding on two-lane county roads. I was going down Route W and got behind a bicyclist who refused to get over. I know that bikes have the right to be ridden in public, but that's why all my tax dollars have gone to pay for the bike trail in Cape. Come on, cyclists, keep the bikes on the trail and off the two-lane roads. You don't see me driving my car on the bike trail, do you? I think that bicyclists who ride on state roads should have to have a license and pay for the improvements on the road.

Try some truth serum

I KEEP reading about the terrorists and how they won't talk. They used to talk about truth serums. If this is true, I can't imagine why the government doesn't give these people a truth serum so they will tell the truth whether they want to or not.

Better highway plan

IF MISSOURIANS want to support a road that makes the most sense, they will cooperate with Illinois and build a road that goes from the south of Lake Michigan to Kansas City. This road would shorten the mileage from Chicago to Kansas City by 100 miles and would make it unnecessary to add lanes to Interstate 70 between St. Louis and Kansas City. The road that connects Southern Illinois to Missouri basically goes from nowhere to nowhere. The northern road would go from a large metropolitan are to a large metropolitan area.

Don't be fooled

PLEASE DON'T be fooled by Peter Kinder's Sunday column. He has lost any claim to the title of fiscal conservative with the sponsorship of the stadium boondoggle. He is trying to have it both ways. By sponsoring the tax giveaway, he is trying to buy the votes from the three metropolitan areas of the state for his upcoming run for state office. He desperately hopes that the people in the rural areas will forget he sponsored the tax giveaway when it comes time to vote.