To the editor:

Maybe there should be referendum on roundabouts and traffic-calming devices. Here is the proposal: The city claims that “neighborhood groups” want these wonderfully expensive projects. So that being the case, then the referendum would require that the “neighborhood groups” acquire 51 percent of the owners in their “neighborhood” to support whatever project they deem necessary AND that “neighborhood” be assessed accordingly with a special assessment on their property taxes. After all, they are the beneficiaries of the roundabout — or so they claim.

Maybe then some of these most ridiculous projects won’t be funded and the proper street maintenance can be done. The staff editor who recently wrote about the street conditions should find a good investigative reporter and report about where community development money has been spent and how some of it could have gone into neighborhood streets, curbs and gutters. Even Prairie Park is starting to need repairs, as well as all of East Lawrence and Brook Creek and Oread and Centennial. Every street in town should look as Cadet does now, south of 15th. No exceptions.

And the reporter, if not too lazy, could figure out how much has been spent downtown on repairs (ongoing) for Massachusetts and the sawtooth curbs. Remove them and replace with a straight curb. Angle parking would continue but a street sweeper could then be used downtown. It is no secret that downtown Lawrence is, as Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” says, “What a dump!”

David Holroyd,

Lawrence