UMKC wants a new arena and entertainment district. What about its Brookside neighbors? | Opinion

Quality of life

University of Missouri-Kansas City officials held a listening session regarding a request for proposals to build a 5,000-seat arena and 5-acre development for retail, housing and events next to the coming KC Streetcar terminus at 51st Street and Brookside Boulevard.

Neighbors expressed angst that they were neither asked nor consulted before UMKC decided to solicit developers to exploit the last streetcar stop. University officials want a private developer to build amenities they cannot afford, without consideration of the residents of South Plaza and other neighborhoods who must suffer the consequences — a headache billed as a neighborhood enhancement.

Fundamental neighborhood issues include parking, noise and light pollution, and impairment to our quality of life. We do not know how loud the streetcar terminus will be, although transportation development district taxpayers supported it for the benefit of students and neighbors. UMKC charges for parking on campus. Therefore, folks park on the streets of surrounding neighborhoods.

The proposed arena sits in a recessed valley that amplifies and carries sound as far as 63rd Street. Is there a developer who can guarantee that the cacophony of sports and musical events is containable?

As neighbors, we beseech the leaders of UMKC not to locate an arena across from homes. Are you listening?

- Keith E. Spare, Kansas City

Help nurses

Before COVID-19, during the pandemic and even today, millions of health care workers have experienced long, tough shifts filled with heartbreak, being understaffed, overworked and underappreciated. Too often, this results in job burnout and physical and mental breakdown.

For years, burnout was believed to be an individual issue, not system-wide. When burnout happens, depression, anxiety, substance use, workplace hostility and physical wear and tear tend to follow. The percentage of nurses affected by depression, anxiety and suicide is now higher than the general U.S. population’s average.

Something must be done to prevent another nurse or health care worker from getting too far into the burnout hole and suffering from mental trauma.

As a nurse, I am passionate about the health and welfare of others, and I will always lend a hand when co-workers or friends need it, to let them know they are never alone. Mental health is vital for everyone. And for those working in the health care field, it is extremely important to seek help when needed, promote overall well-being and hold one another up when we are down or having a rough shift.

- Julia Brannon, Independence

Whose virtues?

I couldn’t disagree more with Gillian Richards’ July 2 commentary, “Americans’ dismissal of religion doesn’t bode well for the republic.” (17A) In an environment where self-proclaimed “Christians” have supported ripping children from the arms of parents because they dared to seek refuge in the U.S. (with no plans or means of returning them); where “Christian” legislators are enthusiastically passing laws to exclude, expose for harassment and violence, and criminalize LGBTQ+ members of our communities; where “Christians” are supporting forcing children as young as 10, the victims of incest and rape, and those whose pregnancies might well kill them from receiving medical care — please save us from these religious “values.”

Richards contends that “self-government (depends) on morality and virtue, which, in turn, depended on religion.” We can agree that self-government depends on morality and virtue. However, religion is not the only source of those values, nor, as our current society demonstrates, is it even necessarily a good source for those values.

We both agree with James Madison that without virtue, republican government will fail. Certainly, much of today’s American Christianity is not a viable foundation for such virtue.

- Judi A. Sharp, Overland Park

Yes, for war

The author of a July 6 letter (10A) suggested that the AR-15 rifle is not a weapon of war. For a while in Vietnam, I was armed with the CAR-15, the carbine version of the M-16. It looked a lot like today’s AR-15. It was a weapon of war.

However, it was not much of a weapon. As I remember it, its chief benefit was that it was small and less prone to snag on the wait-a-minute vines common in the jungles of that part of the world.

- Quentin W. Schillare, Lenexa

Moving backward

What will the Supreme Court do next — approve a return to segregated lunch counters?

- Joseph McMillian, Olathe

Count them up

Is it time to track Sen. Josh Hawley’s lies and exaggerations? He tries to attract media attention by picking an issue a week and creating controversy, even when the issue had not been problematic before. His profile relies on agitation about masculinity, our supposedly Christian-only nation, antisemitism, societal integration, border policy and more.

He lied to become Missouri attorney general and lied to become senator. When the media report his statements as news, people remember only his name, but not the content of the issues — the former president’s game plan but in a much more subtle way.

Tracking Hawley’s lies would expose their extent and expose his true nature.

- Shel Roufa, Leawood