The Gadfly is a series of letters offering commentary on local issues and published in the Warrensburg Gazette.

Dear Editor

The local area has some fun events coming up. The Johnson County Rodeo opens tonight and Warrensburg's Old Drum Days starts next week.

The County has started its first paving project; let's all hope that they do a good job on Grosstown Road (NW501) and that the paving system is right for the traffic. It appears that the landowners along SW100/101 (Hale Lake & Patrick) will get their chip & seal paving to hold down the dust, but I doubt if that system will stand up once people start using the route to avoid traffic on MO-13. To pay for future paving, the County Commission wants to pass a use tax; that's a tax predominantly on businesses & industries that make major purchases from out of state. They may pass it this time, since country people want good roads and Warrensburg voters are always eager vote to tax somebody else.

After the "15 year road plan" debacle, we should believe the highway department on the PCA Road ramps? The City spent money to get ahead of the game and now the highway department says it could be wasted. All we needed was the state to exacerbate the City's financial problems!

The fine print in the City budget story said that the police want to buy assault rifles. While I guess they need some firepower, "collateral damage" casualties are totally unacceptable. They need guns that will shoot straight & stop a threat, not guns that have a high rate of fire. Meth lab operators don't worry about innocent bystanders, but the police must. We don't need a local Waco.

Speaking of the City budget, if the City finds it can run perfectly well on an austere budget, maybe it should consider cutting frills