County Commissioner Lacey Cruse holds a town discussion here in Wichita

This Saturday I attended a meeting of Lacey Cruse, County Commissioner, District 4 of Sedgwick County,  at the La Familia/ Community Senior Center, for the benefit of her constituents. This gave people, in the center, a place for them to meet her and address important issues from her service at the commission. 

I got to the meeting late, about half way through it. So I missed a lot of the meeting. Cruz had to leave immediately after the meeting, so once again I missed out on a lot of the discussion.

Cruse told the crowd that she just recently made a trip to Ghana, an African country.

Where she went they were building on the infrastructures for that part of the country that work will serve that community for many years to come. In that country there’re two main seasons, dry and rainy. The roads get washed out there after the rainy season.

“After being there I learned to appreciate living where we have such decent roads,” Cruse said.

She added that her political opposition has tried to make it look like her trip was just unnecessary and excessive travel expenses. But she said such trips are helpful and the information she got was something we can use in this country.

She also discussed excessive spending of consulting fees and employing a lot of consultants. She said some consultants are needed. They have their place in a government.

A woman in the audience complained that consultant money could have been used to build things. Cruse agreed there may be some instances where there is too much consulting, but we do need some consulting.

A woman in the audience pointed out that sales taxes are a good way to raise important needed revenues. She pointed out that Oklahoma City spent tax funds, from a sales tax, and that city is thriving.

Cruse agreed with the idea of using sales taxes.

“Oklahoma City voted for a sales tax,” she said. “The people barely notice that sales tax, or they don’t notice it at all. That city is thriving. Everyone says “I don’t want to pay more taxes, or lower my taxes.” I hear it over and over. But I realize how we need them.”

She also mentioned that the town of Derby had passed a sales tax and it helped them a lot.                                                                                                                                                        

 Cruse is done a fine job of representing the 4^th district. She has been a level head for this area. She talked about the need of looking at the city’s various regions and how important such regions are to the county commission.