Spend our city tax dollars on the basics, not the gadgets

Cedar Rapids is confronted with numerous problems including homelessness, food insecurity (a polite way of saying slowly starving to death) and growing gang violence which is threatening our schools and city streets. The question then becomes why is the city spending our tax dollars which could be used to attack these life threatening problems on buying electric bikes?

I am sure that somebody made a slick presentation to the City Council on buying electric gadgets for the needy. The reality is that spending hard-earned tax dollars from the paychecks and retirement savings of working-class Cedar Rapidians this way when people lack food and shelter seems a bit frivolous to say the least. Our current electric gadget program may have enriched a few, but for the rest of us it has created safety problems and added to the litter problem as can be seen by the number of these vehicles which are found lying around on our lawns, sidewalks and streets.

At a time when the economic well-being of working-class people is being eroded by inflation and corporate greed, it would seem to me that our tax dollars should first be spent on the basics including providing shelter, sustenance and safe streets and schools.

Mitchell Levin

Cedar Rapids