To the editor:

I received two phone calls this past week from a group conducting a telephone poll. The group used initials as its title with the letter “c” being the first letter.

When I asked the first caller to explain what the initials meant, he hung up. The second time I participated in the survey, the questions were leading and slanted to one view. They didn’t encourage opposing ideas.

They were negative about the sales tax increase and Rep. Bob Brookens.

I’m hoping your newspaper can provide information to your readers about this group and how the poll is funded.

In a previous statement made by Mike Maddox, chairman of Kansas Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, opposing the state sales tax increase, Maddox is an advocate for larger cities not rural counties. Few Marion County people will drive across the state border to save sales tax. The expense to do this would erase the savings.

In a May 28 Kansas Farm Bureau newsletter, it stated that “In advocating for public policy, sometimes the biggest victories come not from the enactment of new good laws but in preventing the enactment of new bad laws.”

The 1-cent sales tax is favorable to Marion County for our school districts, property owners, nursing homes, businesses that pay property taxes, and farm-related businesses along with the farmers. Our property taxes would have increased without the sales tax. Farmers could have lost the current sales and property tax exemptions on farm machinery. Cuts in funding for schools and nursing homes would have led to lost jobs.

When you vote in the primary and general elections, consider carefully how issues will affect Marion County.

Carole Spohn
Tampa