Letters From the Week of July 31

Burnt Ends, “Water Hogs,” July 17

Thanks for the great story about the five enemies of the state who are depleting our water resources and threatening the Earth. I am looking forward to a series. I suggest:

Send a reporter to a local restaurant and identify the five evildoers who eat the most food, while millions are starving.

Send a reporter to the streets to locate the owners of the five biggest cars in town, riding while many military veterans cannot walk. Include a photo of one of their parking spaces with four bicycles parked in it, illustrating the waste. Note the difference in the carbon used between cars and bicycles. Stress the need for a carbon tax. Note that our leader wills it.

After that, locate the five people in Kansas City who are enjoying themselves the most. Post pictures. They must be sought out and stoned.

Your “Water Hogs” item stated that the top user of water in Kansas City could fill a 50-gallon tub 89 times a day, 365 days a year and that the average family in KC uses 6,200 gallons. This seems to imply that the average family uses just 6,200 gallons per year. However, this appears to be nearly impossible. That comes to just 17 gallons a day. Only 17 gallons for a family? One shower would knock out 17 gallons. Can you please clarify how much the average family (or, better yet, household) uses each year? It would also be interesting to see how Kansas City, Missouri, households compare with Johnson County households (nothing like stirring the JoCo vs. KC debate).

William Gist, Kansas City, Missouri

Editor’s note: Thanks to William Gist for calling attention to this error. Contrary to what the Department of Burnt Ends reported, the average amount of water used by a family in Kansas City, Missouri, is 5,984 gallons per month (71,808 gallons per year). For the record, that’s 1,436 bathtubs.

Feature: “Children Left Behind,” July 10

Thank you for Peter Rugg’s article on children with autism left behind in our schools. I live in the North Kansas City school district and have filed a due-process complaint because my son regressed in the district’s early childhood program. We pulled him out, and our 3-year-old son is now speaking in complete sentences. He is enrolled at ABC’nD Autism Center, and we are very pleased with his progress.

Schools on the East and West coasts know that the treatment of autism is a specialized field and that it isn’t unheard of for a young child to get a 30-plus-hour intensive program with trained professionals. Without treatment, children with autism will end up in group homes and institutions. Up to 50 percent of children with autism can recover with treatment. Early intervention can determine whether a child attends college and pays taxes or spends the rest of his or her life being cared for by taxpayers. The Missouri Department of Education knows how necessary many hours of intensive behavioral and verbal therapy are for a child with autism, but nothing will change until parents put their foot down and demand an appropriate education.

I am so glad you pointed out how unfair the due-process system really is. Parents really have the deck stacked against them from the beginning. There is a complete conflict of interest when a special-ed director or an attorney who represents school districts is on the hearing panel. There is also no consequence for a school district when it bends or breaks the rules.

Jenny Whitty, Kansas City, Missouri

Regarding the Lee’s Summit School District and services provided to children with autism spectrum disorders and their families: I do want to thank Peter Rugg for taking the time to seek out input from district employees for his article. However, I am writing in order to clarify a section of his article that contains inaccurate information. Rugg quoted me as stating that individuals from area school districts pay $1,400 to attend our autism trainings. It has always been, and remains, our goal as a district to educate others on autism spectrum disorders as inexpensively as possible. We do not charge Lee’s Summit staff or parents who wish to attend, and educators from other districts are charged only $150 for the entire four-day workshop.

Again, I appreciate you taking the time to visit with me for your recent article.

Stacey Martin, Lee’s Summit R-7 Autism Coordinator

Peter Rugg responds: “The numbers I reported were based on Martin’s comments during a tape-recorded interview.”

Feature: “The Protectors,” July 17

Once again, the Unified Government shows its contempt for us regular folks, who are their real employers. This is not the first time a firefighter has skirted the law because of the status of his employment. The public pays the piper, and the piper is given carte blanche treatment because of the special status bestowed on just about all “public servants.” They are virtually above the laws that pertain to the ordinary citizen.

Marilyn White, Kansas City, Kansas

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