To the editor:

In her Feb. 5 letter, Anne Miller states: “Everyone wants to keep their neighborhood school, and no one wants change. No one wants to have their taxes increased to pay for this.” I must respectfully disagree.

Lawrence has always been a dynamic community, and change is not always a source of conflict. Proposals for change do often engender passionate discussion as we seek to assure that changes are necessary and that they do not have adverse or unforeseen consequences for individuals or the community.

As for an unwillingness to see taxes increased to pay for the services that benefit our community, I don’t believe this is a universal opinion. I have never understood those who feel that there is no such thing as a justifiable tax or tax increase. The services that our taxes fund are functions of our communities and the covenants that they represent. We can all find aspects of these services that do not affect us directly, but we still have a responsibility to support them. If we continue to cut services, eventually everyone’s ox gets gored. It’s only a matter of time.

I once heard a story about one of our local leaders who, when it was speculated that as an affluent man, he must hate tax season, replied that actually, he liked paying taxes “because I can.” We need more people to understand, as he did, that paying taxes is part of the privilege and the responsibility of belonging to a community.