Letter to the editor — November 22, 2010

There is no good reason for heartless people to dump animals out anywhere. Animals are more faithful than some people know.

One reason animals are dump-ed on county roads is they are charged a fee to leave them at the new animal shelter, and if you want to adopt one it costs quite a bit of money.

So the faithful animals are put to sleep.

Iola doesn’t have an animal control officer. By law cities of any size are required to have a designated animal control officer to see that animals are cared for properly.

Two very true articles to the editor were in Thursday’s paper. If you won’t take care of an animal you shouldn’t even have any. Read the last article, think hard about what it tells you. I wouldn’t want to be abandoned and left to starve.

On the hospital issue. Are our local contractors going to get any chance to help in the construction. Like building contractors, plumbers, electricians, etc. We have very capable people here in Allen County and adjacent counties. I have heard some of them say, “Iola almost always goes out of our area to fill job vacancies.” Take for example chiefs of police. Some of our officers in years past had 15 to 25 years on the force. They must have been well-trained to have kept their jobs that long.

We should have had a local officer as chief, not that there is anything wrong with our current one. I’ve seen him just one time since he came here. What the point is, Allen Countians pay taxes that get anything built and the work is awarded to someone out of our county. Allen Countians fork out the money but get nothing back.

Take one bid that was won by someone just because he had better equipment than the lower bidder had. That was unfair to the lowest bidder. He should have been given the chance to see if he could do the job effectively. If not, then let the next one do it. If possible, let’s use our locals as much as possible. We pay the taxes.

Back to the animals. Cold winter is coming. Make sure the animals have shelter out of the elements. Put yourself in their place.

Respectfully

Carl Letsinger

Iola, Kan.

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