Your Letters for Jan. 24, 2025

Constituent representation

When will elected officials begin to do their job of representing their constituents?

I have just read two articles in the News-Press and neither article states how the organizers contacted their electors to act in their behalf.

The first is the article about removing the I-229 overpass. I know MoDOT engineers are not elected but Sam Graves is!

I have emailed Sam Graves more than once to inform him of my opinion about removing the viaduct. I get a email back saying he will contact me soon about my inquiry. I have yet to see those emails. But I do get added to his newsletter even though I always uncheck that box.

I want the bridge to stay. I want MoDOT to fix it. I want my elected City officials to inform MoDOT what the majority of the community wants. I know they don’t know because they never ask the community. MoDOT did have public input but talking to those guys reminds of a used car salesman. Which means, I get what they tell me I need.

The City used to put out a survey asking what was priority for the community. I just assume they don’t care about that anymore since I haven’t seen or heard about any surveys in several years. And yes, I have received them in the past and returned them with my opinion.

I suppose I should contact my Council member in regards to my wishes, if I only knew who that was nowadays. I think it’s one of those “At-Large” members but I’m not sure.

I want the St. Joseph School District Board of Education to start doing what the community wants. And that is to forget this “New High School” rhetoric because their Bonds are never going to get passed. If they think the majority of the community is going to vote in more taxes, they are truly living in a bubble. When will they start acting on the wishes of their constituents?

The majority wants them to figure out how to improve what we have and stop trying to place every student in the same school. This is detrimental in so many ways. I believe all they have to do is read a few articles on the popular “We the people 3 schools” page on Facebook. This page alone will give the board all the information it needs to do what the community wants. After all, these are the people that elected them to represent the community. Not inject your own personal agenda.

Jason D. Ingram

St. Joseph