November 14, 2020

Letter to the editor:

In today’s world it’s tough, where do we stand?
I’m going to start by congratulating Mayor Lucas on what a fine job he is doing!
The first thing would be guns and violence.
The second thing I’m going to say is we need to have an audit on the money spent for the Rock Island Corridor purchased from Union Pacific 3 or 4 years ago.
Union pacific supposedly received $59.9 million for the 17.6 miles of rail.
MARC received the Tiger grant from the federal government for $10 million.
KCATA sold $42 million in bonds.
Jackson County came up with $10 million.
All this was to cover Union Pacific‘s asking price.
But did Union Pacific receive all this money?
There needs to be an audit!
I don’t know if it should start at the City, the County or the State level?
It was my understanding that the KCATA was going to build the light rail and Jackson County was going to build the Katy Trail.
But in construction you don’t build one and then the other, you build them together!
What’s very disappointing is that KCATA wants to talk about buses!
Maybe we need a new CEO for the KCATA?
All Robbie Makinen wants to talk about our buses and giving free rides to everyone.
They should be giving rides to people who have passes.
Today there are a lot of students that have passes but the buses don’t go to their schools and there are a lot of employers that would give their employees passes if they wanted to ride the bus!
Today KCATA has a new chairman (David Bower) so maybe it’s time that we have a new CEO!
Today our number one goal is to have the 2024 GOP convention come to Arrowhead Stadium where they can have a new 1000 room Charles Wheeler Hotel and Convention center on one of the east parking lot.
Let’s Unify the KC region with transportation.
It’s time we all rode together!

John Ivey