Bus transportation costs -- lower them

[K C Muffin]

I guess that it's a value system and for me it is an expense that I am willing to commit my tax dollars to. I see you are from Overland Park. I have a brother who lives in Lenexa and it is difficult to connect their life experiences to ours. I think that Dodge City is a very unique community. A rural setting with urban issues.

Oh, I'm not so very different from you. Born and raised in Dodge City. Lived there till I was over 30. I think I have an idea of your life experiences. I worked at the Chamber of Commerce when we courted the beef packers. Did any of us realize what would happen to the quality of life? I don't believe so. Let me put it this way. Your taxes are higher than mine, yet your quality of life is most likely lower. That's wrong no matter how you slice it. And you can't fully address it with high taxes. I agree Dodge is a very unique community - rural with urban issues. But you can't tax them away.

[DCFan]

Oh, I'm not so very different from you. Born and raised in Dodge City. Lived there till I was over 30. I think I have an idea of your life experiences. I worked at the Chamber of Commerce when we courted the beef packers. Did any of us realize what would happen to the quality of life? I don't believe so. Let me put it this way. Your taxes are higher than mine, yet your quality of life is most likely lower. That's wrong no matter how you slice it. And you can't fully address it with high taxes. I agree Dodge is a very unique community - rural with urban issues. But you can't tax them away.

You know I don't think that I really appreciate someone telling me that I don't have a good quality of life. I grew up in big cities and could have never imagined living in a community the size of Dodge City. But this is a great community with a richness of diversity. There are people that would give you the shirts off their back. There are community leaders that work hard to make this a better community.

I have family that live in Kansas City and other big cities. While they are spending thirty minutes or more driving home from work I can be home in 10 minutes. I can pop open my cold beverage sit on my deck and look over the plains of Kansas. This time of year, after dark, I can see the combines working the fields and the grain trucks driving into town. You can appreciate the tradition of generations of Kansas farmers. Now that is quality.

If Dodge City had a median income of $67,000 like Johnson County does instead of the $36,000 income that Ford County has there would be none of us complaining about our taxes because there would be plenty of revenue to help drive the train.

Somehow it doesn't seem quite right that you are sitting up there in the county with the highest median income in the state and talking to us about taxes. You have a lot more people to share the burden.

[K C Muffin]

You said it - it's all in the things in life we value that makes the community we live in important. Dodge has those things for you. I get that. But it doesn't have the things I value and I bet you get that. I wasn't being condescending, just musing that I couldn't live there again after living here. The tax thing - it's another of those values. You hold certain values dear to you and others less dear. I hold different values dear and others less dear. I don't have kids that have to ride the bus across town to school, so it's easier for me to champion neighborhood schools, whatever their faults. See, you love that 10-minute commute. But your kids spend more time than that on a bus. I just don't see that as ok. But you do and that's what makes you an individual - not wrong or right. ;)

As far as combines and quality of life...I'm deathly allergic and don't really enjoy the country that much. I sit on my deck and marvel at the beauty of the woods across the street, the walking trail alongside the creek instead. It's all in how you see it.

[DCFan]

Yea, it all how you see it. But I would never say that someone else has a quality of life less than mine. I think that it is really interesting that you have decided that Dodge City is such a bad place to live for you then you get on here and try to tell us that it is such a bad place for the rest of us too.

You left for reasons that were good for you. That's great. I've made those decisions too, but I would not presume to tell someone else that they're wrong to stay.

[K C Muffin]

I reread my first post - I'm ok with it. I didn't intend to give you the idea that I thought my lifestyle was better than yours. I like it and I wouldn't like yours. But that's just me. Not a putdown by any means - please don't take offense because that's not my intent. You are just happier with that lifestyle. When I left, I left for reasons that were definitely not good for me, but the longer I stayed here, the better it got. I grew up there and loved life. The only reason I stay in touch now is because I still have a soft spot in my heart and some silly voice inside that says I'll be back.

Please don't read any condescension or holier than thou into any posts of mine - it's simply not there. Any suggestions I put forth are just those - they're made without iimmediate knowledge of what else is going on. Stay safe! And stay cool!

[DCFan]

... Your taxes are higher than mine, yet your quality of life is most likely lower.

I guess that I miss understood based on this statement. But I don't hold grudges. :opensmile:

[K C Muffin]

I see how that can be misunderstood to mean that I judge your quality of life to be lower than mine. I didn't say it right, then. My quality of life was lower when I lived there than it is now. So I would have a hard time ponying up the taxes that you have to pay for that quality of life. It's totally a personal observation. I love you guys! My 'time off' isn't really 'off' - the email continues to roll in and the phone continues to ring. In some ways, I'm jealous of your quality of life!

[DCFan]

It's in the "eye of the beholder". :)

[K C Muffin]

Alrighty, then - enough of the kissy, kissy stuff. It's beginning to be embarrassing. My Gawd!!! ;)