To the editor:

Teachers are underpaid, so our children are deprived of some of the best teachers. Bus services are being cut. Mental health facilities are woefully under funded. Poor people continue to have benefits and services reduced. Seniors on fixed incomes pay high and annually increasing property taxes. East 23rd Street and many neighborhood streets are in terrible condition. And that’s only part of the list.

Yet I am observing numerous pieces of heavy construction equipment and operators, as they build a half-mile long, four-lane divided street right through a farmer’s cropland where there are, count them, zero homes. I understand an expensive roundabout will be built in this low-traffic area as well.

I don’t want to think this is just another case of the rich getting richer, but when our community leaders spend millions to build a road to nowhere and a totally unnecessary roundabout, while such a high percentage of people in the community are suffering, what other conclusion can I draw?

Just when did money become more important than people?

Jerry Lyons,

Lawrence