Merrill

Many of the points you have discussed are valid, but do you constantly want to bag on the police and fire who run their services 24/7. Maybe they have a better idea of what is needed to move toward the future than someone with no idea what goes on in Lawrence once the restaurants closes and the bars move into full swing. I also know you you have had discussions with one of my neighbors (An officer involved with the negotiations with the city) who has explained to you (or whoever the Merrill is on the radio) the city often misrepresent the information in the paper to put their increases out there as them taking care of the city employees rather than the city as a whole. He has explained the topped out city employees have not gotten a raise in several years and it is only those who have not topped out who they are trying to get tot he average of the other cities in our areas so we don't lose them to those cities.

Also quit trying to sensationalize the machine gun thing. They are asking for rifles so they can get rid of the shotguns that are less accurate and can spray everywhere. I have ridden alone on a Friday and Saturday night. The bad guns do have rifles. Lets let the cops catch up. They aren't as bad as Chuck Norris or Dirty Harry. I will quote you...Please.

The Fatkats in government want your money. They will use any excuse to take it. It's for the children, that are born. It's for your safety, we can take care of you best. You need shelter? We can build it. Food? We can grow it.

To heck with you entrepreneurs and your creativity. We Fatkats know what's best for you. Give us you money.

How about a $6-$7 million rec centers like most other parts of town have?

Are significant numbers of parents concerned about exercise opportunities for their children?

How about we teach our children the value of existing resources such as outdoor walks and bike paths as tools for exercise year round? How about using the indoor aquatic center for exercise as a another source of exercise.

How about we teach our children the negative aspects of high impact sports activities that ruin knees,hip joints and deliver brain concussions?

How about we teach children the value of healthy diets plus pull them away from TV and video games?

Are the children not receiving exercise opportunities through USD 497 gym classes plus walking and biking on the home front outdoors?

Why spend $15 million in west Lawrence? Why not $7 million in west Lawrence and $7 million in the older Lawrence neighborhoods repairing and expanding/widening sidewalks that need attention and might add value to older neighborhoods? And provide exercise opportunities to thousands of families in other parts of Lawrence that new west Lawrence has as we speak.

Perhaps parents should inquire about setting up home gyms as a means for their children to exercise year round. Elliptical trainers,bench sets,tread mills etc etc etc? http://www.proform.com/?s_kwcid=TC|6614|home%20exercise%20equipment||S|b|693963913&gclid=CIOu_-aA5akCFQvKKgodhRptXw

How about children have parties at home complete with favorite music,exercise equipment and vegetable/fruit/cheese platters with plenty of water?

Visit a good Chiropractor.

Get OUTDOORS and enjoy yourselves!

Why spend $15 million in west Lawrence? Why not $7 million in west Lawrence and $7 million in the older Lawrence neighborhoods repairing and expanding/widening sidewalks that need attention and might add value to older neighborhoods? And provide exercise opportunities to thousands of families in other parts of Lawrence that new west Lawrence has as we speak.

That's right new or rehabilitated wide walks and hike/bike trails are the better bang for the tax buck because they provide way more opportunities for thousands all over Lawrence Kansas.

Why does west Lawrence need a $15 million Rec Center with indoor soccer facilities? Soccer is an outdoor sport so why move soccer into a climate controlled building?

South and West Lawrence has way more new wider sidewalks than any other part of town.

South and West Lawrence has way more new hike and bike paths than any other side of town.

The article mentioned "several" reserve funds. Does the city have more than one reserve fund and how much are these funds worth?

The city will spend about $900,000 of savings and reserve funds to partially pay for $2 million worth of radio replacements for police, fire and public works. The radio replacements are mandated by new federal frequency rules. ((((Where does the rest of funding come from?)))

Also proposed is to spend $1.2 million from a reserve fund the city has as part of its insurance program. The spending will allow the city to lessen the impact on employees of a change to the structure of the city’s health insurance plan.

The city has a little more than $12 million in its main general fund savings account, and has about $7 million in its main insurance savings account.

Are there other reserve funds?

Why does Lawrence need machine guns and armored vehicles? No doubt the LPD has assault weapons in their arsenal as we speak.

This is just part of the proverbial "death by a thousand cuts." To maintain a certain level of services, tax rates should never need to increase. The problem is that the government raises tax rates and fees to cover lean years, but then keep (or raises) the same rates during the good years. As a result, taxes and fees continue eating a higher and higher percentage of incomes.

2001 Mills: 24.77 City, 27.86 County, 55.34 Schools, 1.5 State (109.45 Total) 2009 Mills: 26.693 City, 32.803 County, 57.894 Schools, 1.5 State (118.89 Total) (Increase of 8.6%)

2001/9 Tax Assessment Rates (no change): 25% Industrial/Commercial, 25% M&E, 11.5% Residential Property

2001 Sales Tax: 6.9%? (or 7.3%--I forget) 2009 Sales Tax: 8.85%

If you kept up with past articles, it was mentioned on LJW that the reserve fund is in the ballpark of $12M.

Call me crazy, but I think those "(sub)machine guns and armored vehicles" LPD has requested falls under the same reason police or fire/medical have half the equipment they do - to be prepared for the unimaginable. What happens when a serious critical incident occurs, and our police or fire/medical are caught unprepared? Police carry firearms everyday, but don't use them; perhaps our police department should be like UK and disarm our police officers...sounds like a good idea...until you find yourself needing the police in an incident that involves weapons. Why do police and fire/medical have AEDs? How many heart attacks occur in Lawrence each year that demands such equipment? The cost to purchase and maintain all of those AEDs is astronomical and consider now how often they are used. Is it worth it to have our police and fire/medical equipped with such devices...just in case the "worst" happens?

Hell, what does we have police and fire/medical for anyways? JUST IN CASE THE UNIMAGINABLE HAPPENS. No one plans for their house to catch fire. No one plans to suffer a stroke or find themselves in a serious car accident. And equally so, no one plans to find themselves victim/target to a SERIOUS criminal or terrorist incident. Guess what? The "bad guys" can get automatic weapons and armored vehicles themselves. Are you that much of a monster to cast our police officers to the wolves ill-equipped to handle the worst of possible situations? Standard police cruisers are not armored - even average-caliber handgun bullets cut through doors and other body panels like paper. Even the highest-grade civilian body armor cannot withstand high velocity rifle rounds. You have to be kidding me that you think it's reasonable to expect police to effectively, using their handguns and shotguns, combat an assailant equipped with an automatic rifle?

Does anyone think that the City can afford such expenses right now in our economic crunch? No, no one is saying we should all dig deep in our pockets now to find LPD funding for such expenses ASAP; however, it is something that our police department will need ONE DAY. I'd much rather see our police department (much like our fire department) have the equipment that it NEEDS to handle ANY situation and NEVER use it at all, versus seeing our police department lacking in preparedness and run into that "one scenario" where one or even several police officers die and a large, tragic lesson of "if we only had..." learned because of it. I'm sure you'd like Lawrence to continue to be the "city of the arts", and not "that one city where innocent lives were lost because their police department was unprepared". Don't think it's happened before? Try googling "North Hollywood Shootout". It's just one of a number of infamous incidents where a city's police department wasn't prepared enough to handle "the unimaginable".

How many times in the past 25 years have been hit by a variety of tax increases saying it is only this much on a $200,000 home etc etc?

Don't forget the water and sewer rate increases on the table and in the past. These are tax increases.

What reserve funds is the city talking about for the LPD and Fire Dept radios? Let's be explicit please. How much is in this "reserve fund"? In the study session they were talking of using the sales tax money voters approved that they were thinking was to to be used for sidewalks,street repairs and perhaps more hike and bike trails. (((( I did not vote for this because the word "infrastructure" was not clear enough to me plus there was no itemized list which left this "infrastructure" tax dollar money open to just about anything))))(((DUPED AGAIN)))!!!

The LPD is also asking for machine guns and armored vehicles. What for?

USD 497 is waiting in the winds and probably the county. Yep the USD 497 $20 million dollar PLAY project is a tax increase.

PLUS the $15 million park dept westside Rec Center = another portion of PLAY = $35 million thus far being spent on PLAY.

May 2007 Should the city spend $20 million or more on the PLAY project? 76% said no. http://www2.ljworld.com/polls/2007/may/should_city_spend_20_million_or_more_play_project/

Of course that question has not been put to the public since. USD 497 did say that the sports project was in fact a part of the PLAY project. Back door politics takes away expendable cash.....

So it appears that the OVER DEVELOPMENT that has taken place in the past 25 years is NOT paying back the taxpayers. Lawrence has become a tax dollar money hole.

Pardon me, but why are city workers getting pay raises when the bulk of state workers get nothing? What is the difference between working for the city of Lawrence and working for the state of Kansas? Is working for the city of Lawrence that more complex and involved? Nah.....it's just that the city of Lawrence likes to make certain the little guy is continuing to be taxed out of the town while Corliss and his buddies are pulling in more than $10k per month.

And George....aka Moderate.....do you have any clue whatsoever what a $60 per annum increase to a retired person on a fixed income of under $25k per annum feels like? The posts I've read that have been written by "Moderate" indicate you live in a fancy house and get a lot of money, albeit fixed. Want to trade places?

Oh....and those police and firemen? If they don't like their current pay, let them move to another community. Crime in Lawrence, Kansas? Give me a break.....let them guys move to Detroit or Atlanta and find out what being a po po is all about. Firemen? Same deal....it ain't like there's a zillion arson prone right wingers in Lawrence........ "Millions for defense, sir, but not one cent for tribute!"

What complete BS!

Why do we need extra cops?....is the city growing that much? the force can't do the job?

Why do we need more Bioscience Lab? ever seen the place? it's tables & chairs....not jobs for the people.

Why do city employees need a raise? not making enough? you ever seen the salaries these people are already paid?

WHEN DO WE SAY ENOUGH TO THIS!!!!!

Look, it could be worse. It is only an 8/10 percent increase (we voted for the 1.7% increase for the library and the parking garage) That comes out to about $50 for the average homeowner. In fact for those still getting merit pay increases or salary bumps (teachers) it will be lost in their income increases.

I would watch the county as I suspect they will hit us hard to pay for social service cuts made by the state. After a 20% increase last year there may be some room for us to complain if they do that. I bet they don’t care and will whack us good!!!

And you can bet that each and every city employee that pays another $64 a year on their house will ask for a raise and it will be more than 5 dollars and a few pennies a month.

Mr. Corliss, I am tired of squeezing and squeezing. You are comfortable since you make over $10,000 a month. But how do you and the commissioners and the others who want these budget increases explain to the people who make $30,000 a year and less?

Not eveyone is Bill Self, throwing around a million here and a million there but with no endowment to keep up the new rec center.

Lawrence leaders, yet unnamed are making a very serious mistake. If no one at City Hall can figure out where to make budget cuts and still provide the same service, that indicates to me that :

1. They are inept.
2. They don't care.
3. Their job is not on the line.

Thank You Kindly,

For all those who think wilbur owns rentals, guess what, the rent is going up and wilbur's friends are raising theirs. Guess what. wilbur doesn't own any, but belive what you will.

Even Mr. Compton who cannot afford to build his own sidewalk at the Masonic Temple will raise his rents.

And all this fuss from the "original" restaurant owners complaining about the Olive Garden. Where is their outcry about Schumm's 46cent tax on a downtown lot. Now that was "original".

Mr. Corliss, tighten up the budget and the belt.

Well looking at the numbers, I for one would like to pay for more police officers on the street, but the numbers show only $400,000 for that. Then I look down and see $500,000 paid to the Bioscience Authority to build a building that benefits private business. Then anthor payment to come in 2013.

Why does the city dole out money to groups like this then whine that they don't have money for basic services and try to stick it to us with a tax incress? Just to add some police.

Oh my god! Another 64 dollars of taxes on my 200,000 dollar home, what am I going to do except die????

This means one less time going out to eat, I think everyone can manage.

You can "Thank" our new governor and republican legislators for this! They balanced their budget by passing cost to local municipalities. You're gonna see the county ask for a mill increase also.

Nationally, we're hearing "Change? Is this the kind of change we want?" Well, Kansans need to ask themselves if this is the kind of "change" we want in Kansas?? Brokeback (Governor Brownback) will destroy Kansas well before he tries another run for president. We can only hope he runs, just to get the hell out of Kansas. (Like Bob Dole did)

Please pray with me that Kansans will wake up before it's too late....

Can I get a big raise from my employer since I have more expenses??? Yeah Right.

Why even consider cuts in a city that loves taxes? Just add on another 10-20Mils and we can build that "Land of OZ" theme park we need to go with our new Library!!!