Being snowed or living in sunshine

Wanna become despised? Speak out for or against whatever’s going on in Washington.

Wanna become REALLY despised? Admit, as I’m about to, that by the time you read this, I’ll be jetting to sunny Miami, where the high is expected to be 81 and the low 72 with only a few patchy clouds and no precipitation.

No, it’s not a vacation. (What are those, anyway?) It’s another conference I’ve been asked to speak at. I’m always grateful for the opportunity to speak out about the First Amendment and the Fourth but I’m rarely grateful for the airport transfers necessary to do so.

A couple of weeks ago, I was headed to New Orleans and faced one of the worst transfers ever. Only a few rare flights go directly from Wichita to wherever you’re heading. The one that crashed into the Potomac was one of them. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Going to New Orleans, it seems, requires a stopover in, of all places, Minneapolis. Perhaps the postal service is giving advice to the airlines about how to route their passengers.

Transfer at Minneapolis and you face not only an octopus of terminals, arriving at the far end of one tentacle and departing at the far end of another. In between, Minneapolis has placed a legitimate shopping mall, the entire length of which you have to traverse before reaching your next plane.

This week things should be easier going to Miami, with a transfer in Dallas. Over the weekend, I’ll be back in not-so-tropical Kansas. The only transfer I’ll need will be to my computer to speak via Zoom to a group in Houston. After that, it’s a driving trip to Wichita to speak to the Rotary Club there.

If my editorials haven’t somehow ticked you off, my travels probably will. My only comfort comes from advice that editor Michael Gartner once offered: “Show me a beloved newspaper man, and I’ll show you a sh***y newspaper.”

Despite what hosts of some so-called news shows on cable TV might think, our job as journalists is not to bias the news but to ask questions, give voice to the voiceless, and point out problems — not for the sake of rubbing noses in them but to try to encourage everyone to come together and do something about them.

This often leaves us vulnerable to being accused of negativity, since part of our schtick is to point out things contrary to what prevailing wisdom might believe. We take that in stride as evidence we’re doing our duty, but occasionally even curmudgeonly old editors like to be able to editorialize not about what’s wrong but about what could be right.

So, to combat the jealousy I’m likely to endure for escaping for two days to Miami, here’s a list of things — all positive — that we as a community might consider coming together to do:

 Make sure at least one side of every street in town has a well-maintained sidewalk, preferably six rather than four feet wide, to allow people to walk side-by-side, pushing baby carriages, pulling wagons, or just ambling along without having to feel like someone is required to walk a perfectly straight line for a field sobriety test.

 Between the sidewalk and the street, in what we call the “parking” (though cars aren’t there), make sure at least one tree is planted to provide beauty, energy-saving shade and shelter, and oxygen-enriched air. If the property owner wants to avoid raking in fall, it can even be an evergreen. Keep in mind that trees in the long term pay bigger dividends than most stocks and bonds.

 Provide affordable housing but be careful not to make it so affordable that it attracts unruly and unwelcome residents to live in homes so poorly maintained no one else would live there. That means regular apartment inspections, strict code enforcement, and greater assistance to landlords in making sure they sign up only the best neighbors, but don’t let that become twisted to the point that only certain ethnicities or classes of people are allowed.

 Create community recreation that will attract people to town, not just serve people who already live here. A restored, paved nature walk, either along Luta Creek or along the old channels of the Cottonwood and Luta, with signage along the way honoring the prehistoric indigenous people who lived here thousands of years before European settlers, might do the trick.

 Relocate buried utility lines out of streets and onto “parkings” so streets don’t have to be torn up and left with patchworks of rock and different kinds of pavement every time a line fails. Every house in an urban area — including Marion’s valley and the county lake — deserves to have a decent road that’s well maintained, doesn’t wash out, and doesn’t drive like an obstacle course.

 Decide where to locate new homes, businesses, and other facilities not on the basis of what land someone currently owns but on the basis of a regularly reviewed and carefully considered master plan that eliminates almost all need for politically controversial conditional use permits.

 Cut down the time youngsters have to spend riding costly and polluting buses by forgetting about classes of school for all but high school varsity sports. Marion County has five school districts. The five provide sufficient opponents without having to leave the county for junior varsity, C team, and middle school sports.

 While trying to avoid the controversy created by efforts to trim the national bureaucracy, focus some of our attention on how we might save money in local government. Challenge each governmental unit to propose not just one budget but three — one keeping both spending and taxes the same, one increasing them by 10%, and one decreasing them by 10%. Then invite taxpayers to comment on what would be lost or gained under the alternatives and give them a reasonable opportunity to influence what the budget finally should be.

I’m old-fashioned enough to want to curtail gambling, drinking, cheats who take charity they don’t need, and a few other things, but these are enough to get started pondering. The question, as always, is what ideas you might add to the list — and whether you have the courage needed among all citizens of a democracy to speak out about ideas you might have.

Miami is a good metaphor for this process, which involves putting everything out in the sunshine and letting the best ideas grow and flourish. The garden works, however, only in people that are willing to plant and tend it.

— Eric Meyer