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 new product or service primarily because the proprietor is local?

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

Second, a small business’s story becomes a part of your community’s broader story and is something you can participate in. Small businesses identified a missing component to your community, designed a solution, and invested their livelihood to execute the idea and offer their products and services for you to enjoy together.

Finally, small business owners are often the most impressive members of your community. They’re real-life superheroes who’ve willed an idea into existence and nourished it into a growing business while overcoming daily 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 in spite of what we 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 should have heeded Ketanji Brown Jackson’s wisdom”). Johnson had been put into solitary confinement for several years while suffering from serious mental illness.

This cruelty is unimaginable to me when I think of all we now know concerning the healing of people who suffer from mental illness. How do we expect rehabilitation of anyone subjected to such inhumane treatment? What does this say about a society that would allow this to go on? Once again George Will is right.

— Joan Homstad, Woodbury

Require people to do their jobs

Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minnesota Department of Health, Bureau of Criminal Affairs and many municipal police departments. Each has been cited for failing to properly monitor and enforce 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 citizens and industries (hopefully fairly).

Based on that experience I have the guaranteed solution to the problems at hand. It will work IF honestly enforced: hold staff accountable for doing their respective jobs and use the progressive discipline in the existing contracts when they don’t.

It’s hard to effectively discipline poor job performance but that’s what supervision and management are ultimately all about. I suspect most of the performance deficiencies plaguing various agencies are due to poor middle and upper management; it was during my tenure in state government. Ultimately, the solution is for all employees to be held accountable for meeting the requirements of their jobs. If they don’t, won’t or can’t, the remedy is simple: progressive discipline up to and including discharge. And that includes agency heads.

— Mark Schreiber, St. Paul