To the editor:

We completely agree with Gloria Hood’s letter of March 15 concerning the mayhem that happens on the rural roads of Douglas County. However, we want to warn her of a worse scenario.

For 23 years, my husband has cared for the trees and undergrowth fronting our property on East 1000 Road, often in the wake of the township machinery.

Imagine our horror at arriving home recently to discover 24 (by the township worker’s own count) sizable oaks and cedars had been chopped down and torn out by the roots across the front of our acreage. Subsequently, a ditch was dug running several hundred feet and ending abruptly in a patch of grass – a “ditch to nowhere,” so to speak.

Furthermore, we discovered our telephone cable had been cut leaving us without phone and computer service for 24 hours as the person responsible didn’t bother to report the damage.

All this carnage happened without any attempt at communication from the township. We were neither warned, advised nor, God forbid, consulted as to this plan of action.

A letter to the County Commission and a call to the township trustee brought on the perfunctory remark, “We have that right.” True, but what about the responsibility that is inherent in that right?

We guess all the concern for landscaping and green space that we hear about in Douglas County ends at the city limits of Lawrence.

Edith and Len Bogart,

Lawrence