The case for small businesses

Advocates for shopping locally use the common plea of “support small businesses,” but why should we risk our hard-earned dollars experimenting with a brand new services or products primarily since the proprietor is local?

Well, the foremost reason is it’s in your best economic interest: Small businesses create a “Local Multiplier Effect” returning greater than thrice as much per dollar to the area people than a sequence competitor, in accordance with the American Independent Business Alliance. Money spent at a small business is invested back into your community by creating recent jobs, opening recent businesses, and contributing to the local tax base, ultimately benefiting the local economy.

Second, a small business’s story becomes a component of your community’s broader story and is something you possibly can take part in. Small businesses identified a missing component to your community, designed an answer, and invested their livelihood to execute the concept and offer their services and products so that you can enjoy together.

Finally, small business owners are sometimes probably the most impressive members of your community. They’re real-life superheroes who’ve willed an idea into existence and nourished it right into a growing business while overcoming each day obstacles.

Don’t just “support” small businesses this Nov. 25, but put your dollar to work by shopping small and investing in your community.

Chuck Peters, St. Paul

Cruelty regardless of what we all know

I read with deep sorrow George Will’s Nov. 19 column on the denial of Michael Johnson ‘s appeal to the Supreme Court (“The Supreme Court must have heeded Ketanji Brown Jackson’s wisdom”). Johnson had been put into solitary confinement for several years while affected by serious mental illness.

This cruelty is unimaginable to me when I believe of all we now know in regards to the healing of individuals who are suffering from mental illness. How can we expect rehabilitation of anyone subjected to such inhumane treatment? What does this say a few society that might allow this to go on? Once more George Will is true.

Joan Homstad, Woodbury

Require people to do their jobs

Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minnesota Department of Health, Bureau of Criminal Affairs and plenty of municipal police departments. Each has been cited for failing to properly monitor and implement their respective policies or responsibilities.  The media and government officials scramble for the answers, wring collective hands and eventually shrug shoulders to what ultimately has been a broken record for years.

I worked in state government for 40 years supervising staff (hopefully well), drafting state statutes (which became law) and enforcing various regulations upon state residents and industries (hopefully fairly).

Based on that have I actually have the guaranteed solution to the issues at hand. It would work IF truthfully enforced: hold staff accountable for doing their respective jobs and use the progressive discipline in the present contracts once they don’t.

It’s hard to effectively discipline poor job performance but that’s what supervision and management are ultimately all about. I think many of the performance deficiencies plaguing various agencies are on account of poor middle and upper management; it was during my tenure in state government. Ultimately, the answer is for all employees to be held accountable for meeting the necessities of their jobs. In the event that they don’t, won’t or can’t, the treatment is straightforward: progressive discipline as much as and including discharge. And that features agency heads.

Mark Schreiber, St. Paul