To the editor:

I have little sympathy for city officials when it comes to the horrible conditions of our streets. Over the past several years, the city has been fiscally irresponsible with our tax dollars, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on these ridiculous, unnecessary roundabouts instead of stop signs. Why build roundabouts when the streets leading into them are in such embarrassingly poor condition? The Romans had better roads!

As the city plans to replace our city streets, I beg the city to set deadlines for the contractors to complete each project and penalize them for going past those deadlines. Recently, two major projects on West Sixth Street – Sixth and Kasold and Sixth and Wakarusa – have taken too much time to complete. Many a nice day passed with local business being forced to permanently close their doors as no work was being done on these unfinished projects. The city has shown little remorse over the financial difficulties these lengthy projects have caused longtime local businesses.

It would also be nice if the city used a little intelligence. Several streets have dual turning lanes, but one intersection has needed dual turning lanes for two decades: the incredibly busy and beat-up 23rd and Iowa. Instead, city officials have allowed traffic to back up for blocks because they inexplicably refuse to put in dual turning lanes.

All I ask is for the city to use its brains and money more efficiently than it has in recent years. That shouldn’t be too hard.

Joel Wagler,

Lawrence