Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

I love Minneapolis and my Seward neighborhood and plan to age in place where I'm part of a multigenerational, multiracial community. However, I'm struck by how often medical appointments for me and my graying cohort are in the suburbs — there's an assumption that we all have access to cars. I've done what I can to prepare my home, but when I can no longer drive, I'll need a reliable and safe transit system that will take me where I need to go.

The Legislature has an opportunity to make this system a reality by passing a 1-cent sales tax in the metro area. The resulting $6 million would transform our system into a genuine public good with expansion of rapid bus transit lines, improvements of existing transit infrastructure, and a program to hire transit ambassadors to ensure public safety. This would benefit all of us in the metro area — especially those who currently depend on an ill-maintained and sometimes unsafe system.

Some of our legislators are thinking that small investments — a half-cent tax — are good enough. It's not. With the half-cent tax, it's as if a person had a medical condition and the doctor gave the patient only enough medicine to relieve the immediate symptoms instead of offering a path back to real health — a path that might include medication, nutritional supplements, a rehabilitation plan and support in making lifestyle changes.

Isn't a comprehensive, healthy transit system what we want for ourselves? And isn't this the time to fund genuine transit recovery?

Patrice C. Koelsch, Minneapolis

•••

Wouldn't it be nice to get reimbursements for work expenses without receipts? Tucked into a pair of massive "omnibus" energy bills in St. Paul is a five-year extension to a little-known policy called the Gas Utility Infrastructure Cost rider. It was supposed to expire, but monopoly gas utilities like Xcel Energy want us on the hook for another half-decade.

The bill (HF 2035) lets utilities bill customers upfront for improvements to the natural gas network, against the typical practice of showing their work before getting paid. A similar practice led to billions of wasted dollars by utilities in the Southeast. It's also problematic because new gas-reducing technologies like heat pumps mean that regulators should be giving extra scrutiny (not less) to utility spending on the gas network, costs ultimately borne by captive customers. Legislators should vote no. Voting down this provision doesn't say "no" to gas infrastructure, it just says "no freebies."

John Farrell, Minneapolis

The writer is director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

MINNEAPOLIS GOVERNANCE

Let EPNI buy the Roof Depot

The city of Minneapolis invested $16.7 million in the Hiawatha Expansion Project and has nothing to show for it. The project, which would expand the city's public works facilities on the Roof Depot site in the East Phillips neighborhood, tarnishes the city's stated goals for environmental justice and repairing the public health crisis caused by racism.

Right now, the Minnesota Legislature is discussing whether or not to grant money to the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute to buy the property from the city. In a meeting April 19 between EPNI, city officials and legislators, Minneapolis Public Works Director Margaret Anderson Kelliher indicated that the city would be willing to sell the Roof Depot building to EPNI. This is the first time the city has acknowledged that East Phillips is not the only place possible for its Public Works facility.

Kelliher qualified her statement by saying that the city will sell to EPNI if the Legislature approves all proposed appropriations for the city, including money to refinance the debt on the U.S. Bank Stadium.

The city is using East Phillips as a pawn in a larger game to siphon wealth from taxpayers to the elite. But the city is trying to leverage what it does not control. The state could withhold all of the proposed appropriations to Minneapolis unless it sells to EPNI. The city will have lost its queen to a pawn, and will be left with nothing but vindictiveness.

It would be much better to just let EPNI buy the Roof Depot.

Daniel Schmidt, Minneapolis

DOWNTOWN MINNEAPOLIS

The 'when' of the skyways

Minneapolis Downtown Council CEO Steve Cramer's retirement announcement ("Staunch Mpls. booster to retire," Business, April 20) makes the challenge for finding a replacement one that Mayor Jacob Frey missed when he said he "doesn't remember a project" that Cramer has "shied away from," and it's a big one. A needed one. An urgent one to truly bring Minneapolis downtown vitality back.

Coordinate all skyway open-and-close hours. If St. Paul can do it, Minneapolis can do it.

Barbara Nylen, Minneapolis

NEURODIVERSITY

An affirmation

Thank you for publishing the letter to the editor on neurodiversity on April 14 ("Action matters most"). I have not been medically diagnosed, but it's all there. I feel the word "autism" scares some people, and awareness of the uniqueness of the spectrum is important to get out there. Again, this is my journey.

I am a 70-year-old female, and I must say, I love learning. I learned about being an HSP, a highly sensitive person, eight years ago. Yep. I learned about the autism spectrum last fall. Yep. I then learned about ADHD in the early winter. Yep.

My adult daughter and I are on this journey of discovery. We are both neurodiverse. It's good to have a person on your journey who understands and experiences things in a similar way. I have been retired several years, and my daughter is still working. We both do, or have done, very skilled jobs for a very long time. Neurodiversity is like a shake of the dice, and you come up with your own unique combination of traits. I like my "dice combination" and am now working on areas I think I can affect in the journey. Awareness is good because there are a lot of us out there.

Elinor Oxley, Minnetonka

EDITORIALS

Don't do that

The April 18 editorial stated that "Donning the badge is a daily act of courage" and extolled the bravery and dedication of our fine police officers who risk their lives every single day trying to keep us safe. The Star Tribune Editorial Board could not help itself, however, from including those last few paragraphs mentioning "George Floyd's 2020 death under the knee of a Minneapolis officer." And it tossed in a few more paragraphs about how police officers need a higher bar and we need to get rid of the guns. Can we not just grieve our fallen heroes for a few minutes without vitriol and PC platitudes?

Patricia L. Landers, Maplewood

•••

Some articles are peppered with puns (and alliterations). Do the writers think these tricks help to communicate a message? The April 15 editorial "Drive carefully toward an EV future" had a pun in the headline and more in the opening paragraphs. Using so many puns in a piece on electric vehicles is just passing gas.

Robert Margolis, Arden Hills