Opinion
Lawrence Journal-World l LJWorld.com l Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Europe must stand up to Putin
EDITORIALS
There’s a limit The city has limited funding available for social services, so choices must be made.
E
ven with a 2015 budget that tops $188 million and calls for a property tax increase of nearly 1.9 mills, the city of Lawrence can’t afford to do it all. Lawrence city commissioners will be asked tonight to approve the city budget for publication. Before they do that, they will consider three last appeals for additional funding from the city’s social services budget. All three requests were turned down by the city’s Social Service Funding Board, which includes community members with past or current involvement with the local nonprofit sector. For 2015, the board recommended funding from the city’s general operating fund for 16 local agencies. That funding totalled just over $513,000, the same amount allocated for the current year but $458,000 short of the amount requested by a total of 27 agencies. The biggest request commissioners will consider tonight is from a group working to fund the re-creation of the “Pollinators” mural that will fall victim to the wrecking ball when an office building at Ninth and New Hampshire streets is demolished to make room for new development. The Friends of the Spencer Museum of Art estimates it will cost $50,000 to repaint the mural on the new structure. The developers have committed $20,000 to the project, and the group is looking at ways to raise the remaining $30,000, so it is making its case to the city commission. This is a nice project, but the group needs to look for other funding options. The mural will be located close to the new Ninth Street arts corridor, and Lawrence Arts Center officials have said a significant portion of the $500,000 grant for that project will be used to purchase public art. Could some of that be used for the mural? The city already will be making a significant contribution to the corridor by funding $3 million in improved infrastructure along Ninth Street. The commission also will hear from two other groups for whom funding wasn’t recommended from the city’s general fund: Warm Hearts and Van Go Mobile Arts. Again, it would be nice if the city could afford to fund all such requests, but choices must be made. The Social Services Advisory Board offers some guidance in making those choices. The board’s minutes indicate some concern over Van Go’s high perclient cost and the lack of long-term outcome statistics in the agency’s request. The board recommended no funding from the city’s general fund, but allocated $32,000 for Van Go from the city’s special alcohol fund. When discussing the Warm Hearts request, board members noted that requests for assistance with utility payments also are handled by Ballard Community Center, which has more administrative structure in place to handle that program. Probably with that in mind, the board recommended a funding increase for Ballard. Some local taxpayers may wonder why the city is even in the business of funding social services to the tune of half a million dollars each year. It’s because, over the years, city officials have seen a need to support agencies that always need more funding to pursue missions that are important to the community. Still, as noted above, there’s a limit. The city’s advisory board has reviewed the funding and put forward a solid set of recommendations. Commissioners shouldn’t be too quick to override the board’s conclusions. LAWRENCE
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Vladimir Putin has become a global menace. There is an irrefutable link between the Russian leader’s reckless policies on Ukraine and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. This tragedy is the direct outgrowth of his decision to train and arm Ukrainian separatists with heavy weapons in an effort to destabilize Ukraine. It doesn’t matter whether the triggerman thought he was targeting a Ukrainian military plane rather than a civilian airliner. More than 200 European civilians, along with dozens of Aussies, Asians, and North Americans, lie dead because of Putin’s determination to force Ukraine to join a new Russian empire. These deaths should serve as a wake-up call to feckless European leaders who have refused to follow President Obama’s lead and impose tougher sanctions on Russia.
Trudy Rubin
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trubin@phillynews.com
The Russian leader has destroyed a decades-long peace in Europe by invading a neighboring country.” The moment is now. Western investigators have yet to gain access to the scattered airplane wreckage because they are being blocked by pro-Russian separatists, even as the damning evidence of Russian complicity piles up. The current crop of Ukrainian separatist leaders are mostly men with Russian citizenship or passports, including their military commander Igor Girkin (also known as Strelkov), a longtime agent of the KGB’s successor agency, who now works with Russian military intelligence. The recently elected Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, has pursued a dialogue with separatists and offered to decentralize government power, but he has been rebuffed by the rebels. With Russian
support, they have consistently violated cease-fires. In recent weeks, Kiev retook significant territory in eastern Ukraine; Putin backed off his threat to invade as Western economic sanctions (even weak ones) began to bite.
Weapons from Russia At the same time, however, Russia was pouring heavy weapons — including tanks, artillery, rocket launchers, shoulder-fired missiles, and other antiaircraft weapons — across the border into Ukraine. This brings us to the subject of the Russian-made “Buk,” or SA-11 surface-toair missile system, which Western intelligence analysts believe shot down Flight 17. On June 29, Russian TV and Internet sites claimed that Ukrainian rebels had seized a Buk launcher from a Ukrainian army base, and rebel websites began bragging that they now had such a system. On July 14, rebel sites said they had used the Buk to shoot down an An-26 Ukrainian military transport aircraft at 21,000 feet. They also claimed to have shot down a Ukrainian Su-25 jet on July 16. In other words, the rebels suddenly acquired the capacity to shoot down planes at very high altitudes. But military experts say extensive training is required to master the operation of the Buk system; this would not have been possible if the missile system was recently seized from the Ukrainian army.
The Ukrainian government insists that Russian trainers and military were behind all the shootdowns, military and civilian. They say their An-26 and Su-25 planes were targeted from the Russian side of the border. They also say that Russia sent a Buk system across the border, complete with an operating team, early in the morning of July 17 — the day the Malaysian plane went down. The missile launchers, they add, were driven back to Russia hours after the crash.
Tragic error However the rebels obtained the Buk, the evidence indicates they indeed fired it, although they appear not to have realized they were targeting civilians. Right after the plane crashed, a post went up on Girkin’s website bragging that rebels had just shot down a Ukrainian army plane, a claim that was picked up immediately by all Russian media. “We did warn you,” Girkin allegedly said. “Do not fly in our sky.” After the news broke of the civilian disaster, Girkin’s website scrubbed all references to the shootdown. So did Russian media websites, which also removed weekold posts congratulating the rebels on acquiring Buk missiles. However, screenshots of the old posts are still widely available on socialmedia sites. Obviously, the evidence must be fully vetted. We can expect that Putin, with the straight face he perfected as a KGB agent, will continue to deny Russian involvement and blame everything
on “Ukrainian fascists.” But, as Obama said Friday, “We don’t have time for propaganda. We don’t have time for games.” The Russian leader has destroyed a decades-long peace in Europe by invading a neighboring country. He has stirred up a “rebellion” that is led by Russian citizens, and fueled by Russian heavy weapons, training, and hysterical media.
Putin bears responsibility And now, by providing separatists with long-range missiles, which required Russian trainers, he bears responsibility for the death of hundreds of innocent people. In the words of Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, “This is how delivering advanced weapons to bandits ends.” Obama had announced new, tougher U.S. sanctions early last week, but Europeans had declined to follow. He should continue to press them. Their weakness has encouraged Putin’s dangerous behavior. “It is time for the Europeans to show the European Union is not a jellyfish,” says John E. Herbst, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who is now at the Atlantic Council. “Cowardice on the part of the Europeans is no longer acceptable.” Surely doing justice to the memories of 200 innocent European men, women, and children requires European leaders to stand up to Putin, now. — Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
PUBLIC FORUM
Voting counts To the editor: Daily, in this paper, there are complaints about our city/county government and the decisions they make. Where are your votes at election time? For over 12 years I worked as a supervising judge at the precinct where I live. For most of the small city/county elections anywhere from 125 to maybe 300 people, out of about 1,700 constituents would come out to vote. Usually it was the same voter-conscious people who voted. Huge lines would form when it was time for general elections, for governor/president. But it is the small city elections that make the most difference in our lives. We complain about the immigration problem, but these are people who come from horrendous political situations to live in America where they have the freedom to vote. And you give it up for who knows what. Unless you are Native American, all your ancestors were immigrants. Mine were. Don’t complain that your vote doesn’t count, because it does. You are exercising a right that so many people in this world are dying for, literally! Don’t complain until you have walked in their shoes. And please vote, before that right is taken away from you. It’s close to happening right now. Karen Keim, Lawrence
Indefensible budget
as inevitable. To provide basic services, property taxes must go up. But this characterization of the situation is inaccurate. In reality, significant — and avoidable — spending growth by the city is driving the tax increases. Much has been made about the impact of tax cuts by the Legislature on local revenue streams. That is true for the county budget but not the city budget. City revenue has gone up recently — in fact, more than expected. The real culprit behind the tax increases is the city’s unsustainable level of spending. Corliss in the Q&A mentions that the 2015 budget shows the growing challenge of personnel costs to the city. So what does he propose for the 2015 budget? Nine new staff positions, which, if approved, would result in 33 new staff positions for the city just since 2013. Many of these new positions are unnecessary. The proposed budget includes a “director of arts and culture,” a nonessential position, if there ever was one. It also includes another new police hire after the department already has added eight positions since 2012. To top it off, the city commissioners gave themselves a raise, which increases the City Commission’s budget by 27 percent — the largest percentage increase of any entity in city government. This budget is indefensible. The city manager and commissioners need to go back to the drawing board and learn to live within their means. Ben Jones, Lawrence
interests.” We can even agree on the problem: “Brownback rolled the dice with his taxing strategy for Kansas. If he rolled a winner, the state would be in good shape, but if he rolled snake eyes, the state would likely face severe financial challenges. So far, the Brownback plan has not produced the revenues and jobs the governor had predicted.” Indeed, the level of economic growth and job creation in Kansas lags that of surrounding states and is markedly behind the nation as a whole. Supply side (trickle down) economics fails once again, as it did for Reagan. As a result, the state is running large deficits, made up for by robbing our “rainy day fund” during a time of national prosperity, while simultaneously reducing funding for many important state programs, as pointed out by Mr. Simons. And the state’s credit rating has been reduced. Gov. Brownback’s solution to this situation is to do more of the same and continue with the additional tax cuts his program originally envisioned. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. To restate the question Mr. Simons asked, but did not have the courage to answer: “Again, what is best for Kansas’s future?” We’d better be right in the upcoming election. We’re about out of chips to gamble with. Dr. Steven C. Bruner, Lawrence
Financial gamble
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To the editor: Chad Lawhorn’s Q&A with City Manager David Corliss on the city budget was informative and made clear the To the editor: Mr. Simons’ column on July 19 carmany problems with the proposed 2015 budget. City officials portray a property ried a title we all can agree with: “Kantax increase for the fourth straight year sas voters must focus on state’s best
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