Enough with these marathons and fun runs that keep shutting down Kansas City streets | Opinion

Run elsewhere

I would like to address all the marathons, fun runs and other races throughout our city this time of year. If you live near Ward Parkway, the Country Club Plaza or Broadway, you are constantly plagued by road closures on Saturday mornings. As a Kansas City resident and taxpayer, I would like to be able to use those roads.

We have parks with tons of paved routes for race organizers to take advantage of. Why do these events have to be in the middle of the city? If they ran at Swope Park, we would save taxpayer money on all the police whose task is to block every intersection to through traffic. It would also be safer for the runners not to be on a public street.

- Lynne Clock, Kansas City

Make it fair

Why not make fairness one of the criteria for revamping Social Security? It is at its heart a transfer payment between generations. I pay for you, then someone else pays for me. What would be fair? The payments one generation contributes should equal what they take out (taking inflation into account).

If baby boomers have contributed less than their current payments, instead of taxing earners more, boomers’ benefits should be reduced. Maybe the retirement age could be changed. Maybe wealthier retirees could get less. (Note that the payout is already progressive, with lower earners receiving a greater percentage return on their contributions.)

Alternatively, the minimum monthly payment could be treated as a guarantee covered by the Treasury, making it more like a welfare program, which I don’t think was the original intention. Either way, I don’t think the solution is to soak current high earners for the bill.

- Stephen Kunz, Overland Park

No big deal?

Using court records from the sentencing hearing of Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot defendant Kasey Hopkins, The Star’s Judy Thomas has produced a classic piece of journalistic credibility and ironic understatement. (April 12, 11A, “KCK window contractor gets jail time in Capitol riot case”)

Thomas quotes from the government’s sentencing memorandum in which Hopkins expresses remorse for his involvement in the Capitol riot and acknowledges a “lengthy and troubling criminal history dating back to 1994.” Hopkins claims that his seven years in prison after his 2002 conviction for forcible rape was “the best single thing” that happened to him because he turned his life around. Yet Thomas recounts at least another eight convictions for offenses including assault, driving without a license, possession of a controlled substance and failure to pay support.

Somehow, in the face of such a long history of criminal behavior and the details of Hopkins’ activity at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Hopkins’ expressions of regret for his actions that day appear naive and less than credible.

After reading Thomas’ story, I couldn’t help but recall the statements of politicians who have characterized the riot as an optic of tourists exercising the prerogatives of citizenship to visit the seat of government. That equivocation seems not so far removed from Kasey Hopkins’ understatement.

- James Heiman, Independence

Children’s lives

All these people who are so adamant about the right to life: Why aren’t they raising all sorts of hell about the continuing shooting of children?

Are they only interested in the right to be born but not the right to live?

Considering how many there are, it seems to me that if they all got busy and demanded gun control, they could make a major difference.

I don’t understand their silence.

- Barbara Young, Independence

Behavior, not dog

I was planning on moving to Independence. But as I was making my arrangements, I learned of the city’s breed-specific dog ban. My Ginger is considered one of the types of dogs prohibited by this law. She’s a very sweet girl, who was raised around all my grandbabies. She’s the reason I changed my plans to move. I would be heartbroken to lose her. She’s been with me for eight years.

This law is discriminatory toward dogs. The dog isn’t the problem. It’s whoever trained a threatening dog.

Please don’t blame a specific breed of dog for the behavior of the owner. Lots of dogs can be aggressive, and that’s what should be addressed. I agree: Protection from aggressive dogs is important. Just don’t separate good, loving dogs from good owners. Address the real problems of actual aggressive and dangerous dogs.

I would love to continue my plan to move, but I can’t as long as Ginger is in danger.

- Karla Myers, Kansas City

He got his

My, my — to think that all these years Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has ruled against the ‘‘have-nots” of society, especially the Black and brown ones, it turns out that he has been living large courtesy of his own personal sugar daddy, billionaire GOP superdonor Harlan Crow, who showers him with lavish gifts and exotic trips. (April 8, 2A, “Thomas responds to report on trips paid for by friend”)

It appears that climbing that proverbial ladder of success, and then pulling up that ladder once he reached the top, has proved most beneficial for Thomas.

- Eddie L. Clay, Grandview

At the source

Waste management companies should have team-building outings to clean up the trash blown from their trucks on the highway. I have seen this numerous times. It’s a big part of the problem.

- Eileen Robinson, Kansas City, Kansas