LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - Use wheel taxes to improve roads
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Marathon County Board: Please use the wheel tax to improve roads, not to build a new Highway garage.
Marathon County implemented a wheel tax in 2017. The wheel tax was promised to be in place only for one year, and most residents believed it was intended to be used to improve Marathon County roads.
In reality, an amount equal to the annual wheel tax (about $3 million per year) mostly went into county highway reserves.
The annual amount actually spent on paving roads changed very little after the wheel tax was implemented. The property tax levy dedicated to bituminous surfacing (paving) dropped when the wheel tax was imposed, resulting in very little change in total spending on county highway paving.
The county is now considering using the excess highway reserves as partial funding to build a new county Highway facility.
I am advocating for using the excess highway reserves to actually improve county roads.
Many Kronenwetter residents have expressed a strong belief that the county roads and intersections in Kronenwetter need to be improved. It seems likely that residents in other towns, villages and cities would believe that county roads within their municipality also need to be improved.
A item “Presentation on Planning and Funding Plan for Potential Relocation of Wausau Highway Department Facility” was on the agenda of the March 20 educational board meeting.
Please contact your Marathon County supervisor and let them know if you would like to see the highway reserves spent on improving county roads in your municipality or spent on building a new Highway facility.
Dave Baker Kronenwetter
Our nation has entered a period of fear and intimidation as the Trump administration exercises its own version of ethnic cleansing and thought control.
People are afraid to venture out of their homes or send their children to school for fear of being targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) because of the color of their skin. They are being advised to not open their doors if police officials are on the other side.
Hundreds of thousands of people that entered this country through proper channels, that were vetted by the U.S. Immigration Service and given a legal status to live and work in this country, have had that status summarily removed for no reason other than they are not U.S. citizens. Green card-holders are being deported because their views do not align with the president’s. Third World countries are paid to imprison people we have not even charged with a crime.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are being withheld from universities for supporting any form of religious, ethnic, racial, sexual or physical diversity, equality or inclusion.
Newspapers, law firms, businesses and individuals are routinely threatened with law suits for policies or activities that oppose the president’s current or past actions. The New York Times has listed 200 words or phrases that are being struck from government documents.
Stories like this conjure thoughts of Nazi Germany.
We greet newcomers with the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” America has always welcomed competing ideas and the freedom to speak without recrimination. We do not punish critics, ban words, attack universities or send people that have not been charged with any crime to a foreign prison . . . do we? We haven’t in the past, but we do now, and our country, our democracy, is in danger because of it.
Tell your representative and senators: These attacks on common decency, on our legacy as leaders of the free world, must stop. We are better than that.
Bryce Luchterhand Unity
