Average is good enough

Management greed at Briggs

The article, “Briggs & Stratton faces possible bankruptcy,” should actually be headlined, “Upper management pillages and plunders Briggs & Stratton while facing bankruptcy” (July 6).

This outrageous practice, verging on rewarding business leaders for failure, has got to stop.

Income inequality aside, their failures have resulted in lost jobs, lost benefits and puts at risk retirement benefits for frontline workers. Where is the justification of CEO and upper management bailouts? If Briggs & Stratton received any federal monies because of COVID-19, the upper management should be required to pay it back, and not at the expense of the employees.

Douglas Johnson

Glendale

Thank you for the article by Craig Gilbert (“Biden’s voter enthusiasm is limited,” July 4).

When I look at the long list of “average” American presidents in the last 50 years, I see the names of Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush among others. They all have one thing in common with almost all presidents of that era: They never violated their oath of office and were never accused of being a Russian asset or a traitor.

Our current president puts himself first ahead of the well-being of the country. When it comes to honesty, loyalty and patriotism, I’ll take average.

Charles Trimberger

Whitefish Bay

Let’s ask more of landlords

Eviction filings in the Milwaukee Circuit

Court hit 461 cases between June 22 and June 26 (“Milwaukee evictions increase 26% in June,” July 6).

Of those 461 filings, nearly half were brought by just one property company — Berrada Properties Management — with about 8,000 rental units in the city of Milwaukee alone. Those filings are a somber reflection of the crisis facing many families and a harbinger of the neighborhood instability to come.

The largest landlords, like Youssef “Joe” Berrada, take in millions of dollars annually, renting to many of the city’s lowest income families. These families, with little or no financial reserve, have suffered the most over the past four months of the public health and economic crisis. And while many landlords have been willing to work with their tenants to get through this crisis, some continue to use the eviction courts aggressively, undermining the health and financial stability of neighborhoods in the process.

Thankfully, during the COVID-19 crisis, the federal, state and local governments have all stepped up to make public money available to slow what still threatens to be an unprecedented number of evictions. But public money can’t cover all of the cumulative loss of rent that flows from a community-wide loss of income. And the rent assistance funds will quickly run out if large landlords do not accept their fair share of the financial loss.

We can get through this crisis, but only if the well-funded landlords do their part and work with the government and non-profit sector. Flexibility on rent deadlines, temporary rent reductions, deferments and even rent forgiveness, where appropriate, rather than court filings, will allow the public funds to be used most effectively.

It is also time that other policy reforms be embraced given that this crisis now compounds our city’s history of mass eviction of low income, disproportionately African-American residents. Community Advocates’ Public Policy Institute’s February 2020 report “Home is Where Our Health Is” contains many such reform recommendations including, support for employer-assisted housing and community land trusts, expanded tax incremental financing for affordable housing development and uniform lease agreements to promote uniformity and clarity in rental lease agreements. And a rental housing resource center that will serve both tenants and landlords is already well on its way.

It’s time that we ask more of those who profit the most from our chronic shortage of affordable housing and are in the best position to prevent evictions of thousands of families through an overused court system.

Colleen Foley executive director Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, Inc.

Milwaukee

We need more responsibility

There has been a lot of talk about Black Lives Matter and conjecture about what changes in the police department we would like to see as a result. The movement has some changes in mind. I have some in mind also.

I would like to see people stop drinking and driving and see people stop carrying guns when they are drinking.

I would like to see people stop leading authorities on high-speed chases. I would like to see people submit to authority when asked to do so.

I would like to see people stop resisting arrest; better yet, stop doing things that lead to arrest. I would like to see people stop robbing and shooting each other.

I would like to see less teen pregnancy and fewer abortions. I would like to see people stop using and dealing drugs. I would like to see fathers being accountable for their children, legitimate kids and otherwise.

Jim Bauernfeind

Milwaukee

Thoughts on the founders

I agree with the protesters that changes must be made to the way that our country’s minority population is treated. The killing of George Floyd was terrible and uncalled for, as are the murders of other people of color for looking suspicious or driving while intoxicated. I also agree that police officers that cause the death of another human being for no good reason should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

I cannot agree with some of the people in this country that want to remove the names of our founding fathers from schools, public buildings, parks, etc. because they owned slaves or promoted slavery when they were building this nation. In their time they were good men with bold ideas for forming a country. Were they perfect? No, they weren’t. Not only did they own slaves and refuse to count them as persons, but they gave the right to vote only to land owners and men of wealth. They did not recognize women as persons, nor did they give the indigenous population any citizenship rights.

What they did do was form a new country with bold new ideas. They crafted the Constitution to govern that new country not only for the time, but for the future as well, by making the Constitution a living document that could be amended when times and ideas changed from what they thought appropriate at the time.

We need to stop looking back at what was and cannot be changed to what we can do to change what will be.

Michael Braley Port Washington

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