To the editor:

Much noise is coming from city hall about how best to increase the revenue streams headed in its direction. Since the city has maximized fees on about everything that it can, there is little else it can do but raise taxes. Too bad it did not craft a more austere budget for 2007-08. It has already fallen short on its revenue projections for this fiscal year, and with energy costs pushing the daily expenditures at the pumps and grocery stores higher, that trend is likely to continue.

Any sales tax increase is likely to hurt a large portion of Lawrence’s population and force cutbacks in their spending. However, the city’s infrastructure, from streets and curbs to firetrucks and police equipment, is crumbling. A sales tax increase may be the best way to provide the funds to repair and replace that infrastructure. Such a tax will not gain any support if it is not specifically tied to those repairs. Nor should a tax increase be used to offset the regular expenditures for repairs in the city budget. It must be additional funding for those projects. Taxpayers have been led down the primrose path before and the money ended up in the general fund, was spent elsewhere, and repairs fell by the wayside.

If our commissioners settle on a sales tax increase, it had better be strictly tied to the infrastructure needs of the city or it will not have enough support to pass.

Ken Meyer,

Lawrence