Letters, 7/23: LES hike is reasonable
If there were some way in good faith I could be a hero to my friends by opposing the Lincoln Electric System’s rate increase proposal, I’d grab it. But like the other LES board members, I look at the numbers from the Budget and Rates Committee — made up of two business owners and an accountant — and conclude the reasonable thing to do is to allow LES to collect enough revenue to pay its bills.
It’s good to keep perspective that LES rates are in the lowest 10 percent of comparable cities. Still, the 10.1 percent rate increase will be especially hard on customers with low incomes.
The minimum wage goes up this month to $6.55 an hour and to $7.25 in a year. If that’s not enough to pay for rising food and energy prices, then it should be increased. That’s the relevant policy tool, not obstruction of a needed rate increase.
LES’s exceptionally low rates have meant that we have been slow compared to New England and California, for example, to adopt measures that increase the efficiency of electricity use in our homes and businesses.
I was glad to see the mayor combined his revised budget for higher electrical costs with a directive to city department heads to adopt electricity-saving practices. With the city leading by example, that is the direction we need to go.
Marilyn McNabb, Lincoln
Eliminate travel altogether
The writer of the NASCAR letter (LJS, July 16) may be on to something.
Let’s do away with all events that require any travel. Sporting events, concerts, weddings, funerals, reunions, etc. Just think of the money we’d save. We could pay off the national debt and repay Social Security.
Who knows, OPEC might even pay us to drive.
Allan B. Hennecke, Lincoln
StarTran right thing to do
I would like to make a few comments about the budget impacts and StarTran. I have been an active rider for the last few years, not because of economics, but because it is the right thing to do.
The buses are traveling all across the community, making it convenient. It’s redundant to drive a car and create twice the pollution and incur the extra cost of $4 gas. This is effective transportation; I wish more people would realize this.
We have based our community around the car, from low density housing to free parking for shopping. The roads are subsidized. Our taxes pay for the initial costs of the new roads and their maintenance.
In the scientific telephone survey, 43 percent of respondents indicated that funding and services for effective transportation should be increased.
We seem to think that effective transportation is driving down the road unencumbered. We need to change our way of thinking at the problems we have before us.
Second point, let them be free. Let StarTran become a quasi-government body, like the Airport Authority or Natural Resources District. Lincoln is one of the few communities that the public transportation system is under the city government. Look at Omaha, with Metro Area Transit, or any other like-size community. Then this would not be a city problem.
As far as I can remember, StarTran has been the whipping boy for budget cuts. Lincoln is too big to let the public transportation system die of a thousand cuts.
Steve Duvall, Lincoln
It’s good to keep perspective that LES rates are in the lowest 10 percent of comparable cities. Still, the 10.1 percent rate increase will be especially hard on customers with low incomes.
The minimum wage goes up this month to $6.55 an hour and to $7.25 in a year. If that’s not enough to pay for rising food and energy prices, then it should be increased. That’s the relevant policy tool, not obstruction of a needed rate increase.
LES’s exceptionally low rates have meant that we have been slow compared to New England and California, for example, to adopt measures that increase the efficiency of electricity use in our homes and businesses.
I was glad to see the mayor combined his revised budget for higher electrical costs with a directive to city department heads to adopt electricity-saving practices. With the city leading by example, that is the direction we need to go.
Marilyn McNabb, Lincoln
Eliminate travel altogether
The writer of the NASCAR letter (LJS, July 16) may be on to something.
Let’s do away with all events that require any travel. Sporting events, concerts, weddings, funerals, reunions, etc. Just think of the money we’d save. We could pay off the national debt and repay Social Security.
Who knows, OPEC might even pay us to drive.
Allan B. Hennecke, Lincoln
StarTran right thing to do
I would like to make a few comments about the budget impacts and StarTran. I have been an active rider for the last few years, not because of economics, but because it is the right thing to do.
The buses are traveling all across the community, making it convenient. It’s redundant to drive a car and create twice the pollution and incur the extra cost of $4 gas. This is effective transportation; I wish more people would realize this.
We have based our community around the car, from low density housing to free parking for shopping. The roads are subsidized. Our taxes pay for the initial costs of the new roads and their maintenance.
In the scientific telephone survey, 43 percent of respondents indicated that funding and services for effective transportation should be increased.
We seem to think that effective transportation is driving down the road unencumbered. We need to change our way of thinking at the problems we have before us.
Second point, let them be free. Let StarTran become a quasi-government body, like the Airport Authority or Natural Resources District. Lincoln is one of the few communities that the public transportation system is under the city government. Look at Omaha, with Metro Area Transit, or any other like-size community. Then this would not be a city problem.
As far as I can remember, StarTran has been the whipping boy for budget cuts. Lincoln is too big to let the public transportation system die of a thousand cuts.
Steve Duvall, Lincoln
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