Money taken away from Linn youth shelter

On the one-month anniversary of the closing of the Linn County Youth Shelter, I'd be remiss to not have a thing or two to say about our lofty county supervisors.

FEMA gave us back our tax dollars to the tune of $1 million to build a new facility to house children in need in Linn County. The county supervisors decided to build themselves a nice suite of offices and not build a new shelter.

In doing so, the $1 million allotted was chopped down to $810,000 because they took a 19 percent penalty for not using the money as it was intended.

There was a place that was staffed by incredibly devoted people, whose main goal was to help children in need find some care, understanding and structure. Like so many other places in Cedar Rapids, the flood knocked the youth shelter out of commission.

But our county supervisors made that a permanent knockout and put people out of work. So remember on Election Day that your tax dollars were reallocated to build the supervisors new offices and to drop one more support for Linn County's neediest kids.

Symon R. Sanborn

Cedar Rapids