Dear Editor:
No government is anarchy; too much is anguish. With a new state administration on board and a new federal in the waiting, it will be hopeful that meaningful changes for the better can be made. Also, April will likely bring new faces to the City Council which will be challenged to correct local problems and address our needs - and, I stress needs.
Last Thursday, the paper published articles about how the state of Missouri had more budget needs than funding and the city was short on funding due to anticipated tax shortfalls. That being said, another article boasted of a $75,000 project ($11,000 city funds and $64,000 in state grants through the highway department) to study ridership on the city bus routes. The city entered in to a contract with an Indiana firm to provide out-of-town staff to count riders on the buses for two days, tabulate data and tell us what we already know - the bus system does not break even. The city has already bought into this realization, so why is there a need to study the obvious? And, surely there is minimal staff who could be diverted to accomplish the counting without paying staff that require lodging and per diem and accounting and engineering expertise who could tabulate and make meaningful conclusions. With today's technology, rented, on-board video cameras could capture the rider count without any staffing. This is just another example where our governments are not representing our best interests and not spending taxes wisely.
With a $10 trillion federal deposit the last eight years, I sure hope the Trump administration attempts a reversal and trends toward a balanced budget goal. Fortunately, the state and city cannot spend more than they take in - save the bonding methods, but to accept the federal grants and pass them on down to state and city government for projects like a bus ridership study is total disregard to us.
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