To the editor:

After reading the Jan. 29 Journal-World article about the “Planning event …” it is clear the city’s insatiable appetite for spending still goes unchecked. One quarter of a million dollars for a bunch of dreamers to sit around a table and hypothesize about what they “think” the city should look like.

Let us not overlook other important topics referenced in the article such as riding your bicycle to a grocery store, sidewalks, parks and public gathering places. And, yes, what a great idea, cram more people into less space. For this we need a consultant?

What about the existing deplorable unsafe condition of the downtown area streets? The city cannot keep up with routine street maintenance. I guess we need another consultant.

All the talk with the consultants will be about changing conditions that the city has no money or power to accomplish. So 10 years from now, when nothing has changed, the city will spend another huge amount of money to figure out why the plan did not work.

Stephen Turner,

Lawrence