To the editor:

Journal-World readers, I hope you remember the reporting and stories in this paper about American Eagle Outfitters and their full-court-press endeavor to locate a new distribution center in Lawrence’s East Hills Business Park. After months of attempting to meet the city’s onerous and “moving of the goalpost” requirements, AEO threw in the towel and negotiated a successful arrangement with the city of Ottawa.

In the past year, AEO has added a 540,000-square-foot addition, bringing their total size to nearly a million square feet. Of even greater importance is that AEO will add 190 employees by April of 2008 for a total in excess of 500!

So, a recent J-W story informed us that our sales tax growth for the recent reporting period was a pathetic 0.6 percent. The average for the entire state disclosed a growth of 8.5 percent. Manhattan’s growth rate was 31.6 percent! The average growth for the eight cities, which constitute the state’s largest retail marketplace, was 12.5 percent. Just think of how much the purchases of those American Eagle employees could have impacted our sales tax receipts.

Oh yes, I almost forgot to mention that the stock of AEO has, over the past five years, risen from $5 to $30 a share and a month ago, because of their growth, their stock is now listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Jim Winn,

Lawrence