To the editor:

The city spent $100,000 on new art for our fire stations. The new statue may be impressive, but did any commissioner ask whether they could have bought new safety equipment for the department instead? Are our stations fully equipped with everything they need? Are there sufficient thermal imaging devices to locate persons in smoke-filled rooms?

If the answer is no, then we wasted tax dollars on art and sacrificed the safety of our citizens. The arts council is drooling over the prospect of having $600,000 to spend from the prospective new library and wants $800,000 from the Lawrence Memorial Hospital expansion. Our tax dollars are not intended for that purpose and neither is the support for LMH. It was meant to give us a better health facility and perhaps a more modern library.

A better alternative for the “arts” community is to join with the Kansas University art programs and give those aspiring artists a venue to display their work. They are looking for opportunities and the arts council could provide them with locations to do so.

Lawrence is struggling with ways to pay for its infrastructure repair and replacement, not to mention its fire equipment. It has taken on more than it can pay for and has little option but to raise taxes. The last thing we need is to have our hard-earned tax dollars go for more amenities and not for the basic care of the city.

Ken Meyer,

Lawrence