To the editor:

In April 2007, Fire Chief Mark Bradford requested a budget increase to replace aging equipment. Around the same time, the city commissioners reviewed the effectiveness of tax abatements as business incentives. Several members of the public called for increased reporting and scrutiny for firms receiving abatements.

What did four of the five commissioners have to say about these two issues? The commissioners didn’t want to subject businesses to any undue reporting burden even if a business didn’t create the jobs it promised. Commissioners said something to the effect that business leaders knew what they were doing and they didn’t want to second-guess them.

At the same time, here’s what the Journal-World reported about Chief Mark Bradford’s request on April 25, 2007:

“Several commissioners said they want additional information before they are ready to commit to the major purchases.

“City Commissioner Rob Chestnut said he wanted to see more hard data quantifying the condition of the city’s fire trucks before accepting the opinion that the vehicles are in immediate need of replacement.”

No hard data is needed from local businesses because they know what they’re doing, but a 25-year professional is second- guessed on an extremely critical request?

Today we see what the city commission has wrought; not enough taxes to fund critical services. Fortunately no one was killed because of the fire equipment malfunction.

Catherine Shenoy,
Lawrence