To the editor:

I sympathize with Grant Goodman’s Sept. 27 letter against the transit sales taxes. It is unfortunate this proposed funding for the T is a regressive tax. It’s also unfortunate the City Commission declined to continue the T’s mill-levy funding.

A number of people tried to prevent events from turning out that way. Those of us who are now endorsing the two sales taxes to keep public transit alive in Lawrence had this debate among ourselves and with our own consciences. Many of us decided, however, that most of those same persons who would be unfairly burdened by a sales tax, would suffer even greater harm if the T disappeared. In a mobile and spread-out society such as ours, lack of transportation is a major handicap to almost all aspects of people’s lives. Try handing your car keys to a friend and asking them to swear they won’t return them for a week, no matter how insistently you demand it.

The City Commission made a major mistake in cutting the T out of its 2009 budget, but I don’t want to punish the innocent who will be hurt most by that failing. Since the commissioners now seem willing to take steps to fix that error, I feel I must support that effort.

I don’t want to belittle Mr. Goodman’s opinion or that of others who share it. I simply wanted to offer the perspective of someone who has struggled with this moral conflict himself, and come to a different conclusion.

Dennis D. Constance,
Lawrence