The Garden City Telegram

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Published 2/2/2012 in Commentary : Letters to the Editor

Support needed to curb violence

Domestic violence is pervasive and must end. In fact, violence against women and children affects everyone in Garden City in some way. In 1994, the Violence Against Women Act was a giant step forward for our nation. Its passage meant that our federal government finally acknowledged that domestic and sexual violence cause tremendous harm, and put resources into helping victims. Millions of families are better off as a result.

The time has come to again reauthorize this critical legislation. Evidence shows that VAWA is working. Over the last 15 years, domestic and sexual violence have declined. But there is more work to do. On average, each day current and former boyfriends and husbands murder three women in America and several hundred people are raped or sexually assaulted. Countless children witness this violence.

The Violence Against Women Act of 2011 will build on efforts to prevent violence before it begins and teach the next generation that violence is always wrong. We need more resources for children and youth who have been exposed to violence, and to engage men as allies in this work. Congress must reauthorize this legislation and invest more in building healthy communities.

Sincerely,

JANENE RADKE,

Garden City

Radke is advocate services coordinator at Family Crisis Services Inc.

Bioscience authority unfair to taxpayers

Deleting computer files, violating contract policies, buying pieces of art for personal use ... good governance requires oversight, and it's clear that oversight was lacking in the case of the Kansas Bioscience Authority.

But since the facts are coming to light, we should also pay attention to legislative leaders who pulled out all the stops to protect the KBA. Senate President Steve Morris has been quoted as calling the KBA "one of the shining lights in Kansas," and resisted efforts to perform an audit, the very audit that unveiled a pattern of taxpayer abuse.

Morris and others went to the mat for the KBA, even after the facts from the audit were released recently. The question Kansans deserve answered is, why? Why are some legislative leaders like Morris willing to go to such lengths to defend an agency that was clearly treating taxpayers with little to no respect?

DERRICK SONTAG,

Topeka

Sontag is the Kansas State Director for Americans for Prosperity.

Bill penalizes older Kansans

A bill came up in committee, in the Kansas Senate, on Jan. 26, that Robin Jennison has put up. It will require persons over 65 years old to purchase a hunting-fishing license before you can take your grandchildren by the local pond to fish, or go out and shoot a rabbit. This bill will not create the amount of money that is required, to do the things they want anyway. Why tax the elderly that have supported the Fish and Game Department for all these years? Contact your senators, Steve Morris, Ralph Ostemeyer and Mr. Jennison at (785) 296-2281 today, thank you. This is being opposed by the Silverhaired Legislature.

DREW HOEME,

Scott City

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