The city has 15 feet of existing easement on the south side. The road is off-center 5 feet on our side (north side of road). If they would center the road, that would leave 10 feet on the south side and 10 feet on the north side. Then widen out the road on our side to the boundaries of that 10-foot easement.

Brian Kingsley, city engineer, said they couldn’t because the south side has never been a road and it would cave in. Well, I’m not an engineer but my yard has never been a road either. Won’t it cave in, too?

The city has 10 feet of easement on the south side. If they put the road where it should be, they will still be able to put sidewalks and electric lines on the south side. Then they can use the 10 feet of easement they already have on our side and widen out the road 10 feet.

We will lose 10 feet of our yard but we will save our trees and green space. The city will then need to acquire more easement from the north side to put the phone lines and gas line in, but they shouldn’t need any more than 5 to 10 feet.

Velda Roberts and Brian Kingsley said moving the sidewalk to the south side would deviate from city standards. What city standard says the sidewalk has to be on the north side? The city already started the sidewalk on the south side by S&S Body Shop. So they already deviated from city standards.

Velda Roberts made a comment about how she didn’t think the new city shop should be built by the sewer and water plant because it was out in the country. On the other hand, she doesn’t want one sidewalk out there, she wants two. Reasonable minds should be able to reach agreement.

Paula Crook,
Tonganoxie.

Businesses respond to need

To the editor:

I wanted to take a moment to fill you in on a “happening” the day of the fire at the Tonganoxie nursing home.

My mother and I ran up there to see what we could help out with at the high school where the residents were taken (we have a family member living at the nursing home). The thing that they really needed was food for the residents who could not eat solid food. Mom and I ran up to see Debbie at Corky’s restaurant and before we could even finish asking, she donated enough mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans for all the residents on a puree diet. We then ran by Dollar General to grab some bowls and utensils for the food and when the manager at Dollar General found out what we were doing, she not only donated the bowls and utensils, but loaded us down with about 10 bags full of pudding, Jell-O, crackers, applesauce, etc., to take to the residents.

We feel these two businesses and a lot of volunteers from our town went out of their way and greatly deserve a pat on the back.

Kelly Casey,
Rural Tonganoxie.