Public opinion

City commissioners shouldn’t discount the concerns being voiced about a plan to alter trash collection service.

City commissioners apparently don’t have any qualms about forcing a new trash removal and recycling plan down the throats of Lawrence residents. They seem to be committed to the plan proposed by the mayor and his task force regardless of the opposition voiced by many.

Perhaps if the opposition for the proposed plan came from some special neighborhood group in Lawrence or a group who thinks a building permit should be denied because a building casts a shadow on their coffee-drinking area commissioners would pay more attention and be more cautious in calling for a change in the city’s trash collection service.

Recycling and saving the environment is a hot, politically correct topic, but, at the same time, commissioners should be aware of the hardships and added expenses that would result from a trash collection change and apply some common sense to the issue.

It would be wrong to put every controversial issue that comes to the commission up to a public vote, but commissioners should be careful not to adopt a manner and attitude that they know best and members of the public really don’t understand or don’t have the intelligence to make the right judgment on major issues.