Local Landowners Speak Up

Excerpts from letters written about the proposed highway

Lance W. Burr, attorney		"I own 320 acres in the affected area and my friends Dr. Roger Johnson and Dr. Dodge Engleman own another 600 acres. Together we have made a commitment to preserve this land for future generations with a goal in mind of keeping it as pristine as possible. Many other neighbors in the area have also made such a commitment and likewise own thousands of acres. I have personally committed to them to take whatever steps are necessary to stop the construction of any proposed highway directly from Grantville to Tonganoxie which does not follow the existing road bed of Highway 24 . . . We have organized a legal team of 5 attorneys who will be involved in the opposition to any such four lane highway."
Bob Timmons, owner Rim Rock Farm Cross Country Track		"Personally, we were not at all opposed to new highway construction between Topeka and Kansas City, but taking an overland route over all the hills and creeks that border the Kaw Valley seems terribly costly and will certainly destroy the serenity and beauty of this lovely hill country. My wife and I plan to give Rim Rock to the KU Athletic Department so they will have a first class facility to host meets in the distant future. It is important to us and to KU that this new highway not cross our land or near vicinity. Should it do so, KU will no longer have a home course and the opportunity to host local and national caliber meets will be eliminated."
Ron Seibold, Live Foods Company, and Steve Malone, PINES International		". . . More than 10,000 acres of habitat with few roads would be cut in half by a new highway between Topeka and Tonganoxie. The environmental impact of such a project would be catastrophic while the economic benefits would serve only a narrow constituency in our State. We urge any discussion of increasing traffic flow between these cities be limited to widening and straightening existing highways rather than spoiling forever one of the great natural assets in our state . . . ."
W. John O'Brien, KU Experimental & Applied Ecology Program		"The Kansas Ecological Reserves are a series of seven tracts of land owned by the KU Endowment Assoc. and designated for use as experimental study areas or natural history reservations...The Rockefeller Tract, for example, is the site of a series of prairie restorations that have been in continuous manipulation and measurement for 41 years . . . We have seen at least one alignment alternate that passes along the Jefferson County-Douglas County line, directly through our property. This is clearly unacceptable to us. Such an alignment would destroy years of research, and would effectively end any future ecological research at our sites."
Bruce Plenk, attorney		I am strongly committed to preserving green space and particularly family farms near towns like Lawrence. I do not want to see Douglas and Jefferson Counties start to look like Johnson County where every available piece of ground is developed. I value the proximity of farmland and would like to see nearby farms protected in planning decisions for urban growth and highway building . . ."
Lloyd L. Dimick, rancher		I am adamantly opposed to to such a venture for not only the primary reason that a new highway could affect my livelihood and way of life, but because building such a highway would lack common sense and would not represent prudent and responsible transportation spending for Kansans . . . I am a stockman and conservationist whose family has lived and worked in southern Jefferson County since 1935. I own a significant amount of land which consists of open grasslands, dense timber, rugged bluffs, steep ravines and numerous creeks which cut deeply through the hills as they meander toward the river. Building a new 15 mile segment of highway through this terrain would require monumental bridge construction for the crossing of at least 5 major creeks."

Your letters can help, and now is the time to make your opinion count.

Please let the elected officials and those making the decisions know how you feel about this issue.

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