To the editor:

I agree with Sue Reeder (letter, 8/31/02) when she pointedly asks “How many times will we have to lose something before we recognize what we have to do?” However, her definition of “something” is different from my own.

She is referring to the loss of homegrown computer technology business LaGarde, purportedly at least partially due to the unfinished South Lawrence Trafficway. Never mind that many of LaGarde’s high-salary jobs go to Kansas City residents. Never mind that LaGarde could have relocated to eastern Lawrence instead of bailing out of Lawrence because access to K.C. was hindered. Never mind that we have a direct highway connection to K.C. in I-70 with three interchanges.

Has anyone noticed the changes occurring at Iowa and 31st? First, there were families in trailers on shady, wooded lots. Then, when our planning and city commissions allowed the property to be sold for development (by Home Depot), there were just the lovely, mature trees. Now, after a few violent, bulldozer days, there is bare, brown earth. Soon, I imagine, asphalt will cover even this.

Why isn’t Reeder’s “something lost” about this little piece of Lawrence? Or why isn’t it about the acres of centrally located, natural, historic wetlands, fully restored and thriving, that will be torn up and buried in the concrete of 10 lanes of polluting, disruptive trafficway and 31st Street? As Joni Mitchell once sang, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone! Pave paradise, put up a parking lot.” Let’s count all our assets.

Sharon Dewey,

Lawrence