Closing down this entrance to Olathe East would make things worse in the next crisis
Locked out
I was a teacher during the shooting at Olathe East High School on March 4. The outpouring of support from other Olathe schools, the Olathe community and the surrounding Kansas City community has been astounding. However, the actions of the Olathe City Council have been perplexing.
The city has notified the school that it is planning to permanently close the only western entrance/exit to Olathe East. This road between Olathe East and Black Bob Road has been used for 20 years.
It will be an inconvenience to have this exit closed — and, more important, it will lengthen first-response time to a crisis at Olathe East. In an emergency, every second can mean lives. The City Council is closing and locking a fire door to a crowded theater where a fire has occurred and could occur again.
Does the surrounding neighborhood wield so much political power as to stop access to a public school? The Olathe City Council is needlessly putting student lives in danger. Students should always be the No. 1 concern, not politics.
- Joe Hodnik, Olathe
Democracy diluted
President Dwight Eisenhower said a people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. The Kansas Legislature used its privileges and abandoned its principles when it passed the egregious, gerrymandered redistricting maps.
How can legislation that dilutes the voices of voters in Wyandotte County be good for democracy? Is shuffling voters from opposing parties to new districts good for anyone? All Kansans, regardless of street address or ZIP code, need fair representation and distribution of resources.
Every voter — unaffiliated, Republican, Libertarian, Democratic and independent — is supposed to matter. What does democracy look like when gerrymandered restrictions silence a segment of voters? The next 10 years will show us.
The League of Women Voters has long supported a nonpartisan, independent redistricting commission with members who reflect the diversity of the residents of Kansas, as well as public interest groups and members of minority groups. The new, unprincipled Kansas maps don’t respect the boundaries of municipalities and counties.
Call your state senator and representative. Tell them principles are important to you. And make your voice heard by voting in the Aug. 2 primary, which is an unaffiliated election, and in the Nov. 8 general election. Your vote matters.
- Janet Milkovich, Overland Park
What if?
Please engage with me in a “what-if”scenario:
What if Payton Gendron, the 18-year-old white supremacist sympathizer accused of cruelly murdering 10 Black people in Buffalo, New York, had been Black and his victims white in a random white suburb in America?
Would Gendron be alive or dead at the hands of the police? Would he (if Black, and the circumstances were reversed) have survived with a rifle at his chin? Or, would there have been a justified police killing of a dangerous assailant suspected of mass murder?
Those who believe Gendron (if Black) would be presumed to be innocent, free to move through the American justice system, are seriously deluded.
Instead, I hold that Gendron, if Black, with the same facts (hateful, ugly ideology, signs of mental illness, access to deadly weapons) would be dead.
The Buffalo morgue, rather than arraignment in court, would have been Black Gendron’s destination.
Racism in America ends the day, which is still to come, when all lives are valued and welcome — and not simply white youths in urban areas. Black lives also must matter in suburban settings.
- Rev. Jarvis L. Collier, Pastor, Pleasant Green Baptist Church, Kansas City, Kansas
Now prove it
Dear “pro-life” elected officials: If you are truly pro-life, you will work tirelessly to support commonsense gun control laws. If you do not, stop lying to your constituents about your love for all lives.
- Molly Mitchell-Danciger, Leawood
Our choice
No country except the United States defends the right of any 18-year-old to enter a store and purchase two AR-15-type automatic rifles and 375 rounds of ammunition. Nobody defends such a mind-boggling position except Republican lawmakers and their followers.
Military weapons designed strictly for the killing of enemy in war are not the guns needed for hunting or personal home defense. But they are the weapons of choice to carry out the mass killings that now occur regularly.
And yet, after each deadly killing of children and other innocents, Republican lawmakers refuse to challenge their sacred cow. Instead, they propose steps to make our schools and churches armed prisons. Their version of “America the Beautiful” is a nation of armed camps.
We have a choice, America. Common sense says we can choose to live without weapons used for mass killings or we can continue to let our children die from them.
- Harold J. Schultz, Kansas City
Singing along
Thank you, Whit Merrifield, not only for your hustle and hits, but also for your fan-engaging walk-up song, “Take on Me.” The one-hit wonder by A-ha was released in — get this — 1985.
But that’s not why we like it so much. We like it for the pure reason that the song engages the fans every time Whit walks up to bat.
The lyrics go: “Take on me/Take me on/I’ll be gone/In a day or …” and the crowd sings “twoooo” on pitch and in perfect timing. It happens every time. And you can sure hear the fans singing on TV, too.
- Rosalina Shoebrook, Prairie Village
