LETTERS TO THE

E DITOR No more apartments

To the editor: The original agreement/promise was to basically give land to Harland Schraufnagel to build up to five apartment buildings. The lots to the north was agreed/promised to be zoned for one- and two-family dwellings, and the lots to the east were agreed/promised to be zoned for one-family residential lots.

To try and get Sportsmen Estates residents on board with this, the council said they would give them free curb and gutter. This has been done. The city should stick with their agreement/promise, simple as that.

The Northside Apartments have not proven themselves to be good for the community. Two attempted murders, two gun firings, a knifing incident and several drug busts have occurred in a short time. The grounds are a mess!

I took a drive through there and saw beer cans and bottles and paper cups and even black trash bags of garbage all over the parking lots and lawns. When I returned to my nearby home I picked up a beer can that was thrown in my driveway.

There is talk of adding more policemen to our force. I think we can all figure out why.

I believe in growth like everyone, but I believe in only good growth. It seems like the signs at Northside Apartments that read “No firearms or weapons” allowed, aren’t working. City of Abbotsford — stick to your agreement/promise.

James A. Colby Abbotsford

Local businesses need our support during this crisis

To the editor: It is imperative that we all do our best to support local businesses now and into the future. Many of them are struggling mightily at the moment due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

As conscientious citizens, our patronage with local businesses deemed essential must be conducted responsibly under the Safer at Home guidelines put forth by Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers.

The recent stimulus package passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump offers a slim lifeline to small businesses and their employees. Many workers who have not been laid off face a reduction in hours, resulting in a smaller take-home check available to pay their living expenses. Help is on the way to bridge the gap in the form of unemployment or underemployment compensation, along with direct checks from Uncle Sam.

My hat goes off to all those people who work in service businesses, including grocery and convenience stores, delivery, trucking, childcare, print and other media and many different healthcare applications. Blessings to fire, EMS, police and all government workers. These folks all deserve our thanks and safe support.

I saw and covered many delicate issues during my 20-year career as a weekly newspaper editor. They all seem to pale in comparison to what is facing us in this unprecedented and unpredictable time in the history of the world.

Todd M. Schmidt

Colby

Democrats are exploiting COVID crisis for politics

To the editor: There has been a lot of debate about how to handle the coronavirus threat we are facing President Trump’s (R) handling of this has 55 percent approval. Democrats and the media are complaining and doing a lot of negative reporting about Mr. Trump’s methods/policies. Things could be worse if Democrats were determining actions. Just look at what they are doing.

Democrats control the House of Representatives. The House passed a $1.7 trillion bi-partisan (363-40) Coronavirus Relief Bill to address the current threat. Senate Democrats killed this relief bill.

This led to Speaker Pelosi (D) and other House Democrats to write “their” bill in which they demanded the following:

_ Publicize corporate board pay and race statistics.

_ Bail out the Post Office.

_ Require early voting.

_ Require same day voter registration.

_ Increased airline fuel emissions standards.

_ Report greenhouse gas stats for individual flights.

_ Give community newspaper employees retirement plans.

_ Unprecedented union collective bargaining powers.

_ Expanded wind and solar tax credits.

_ $15 Federal minimum wage.

_ Permanent paid leave.

_ Climate change mitigation effort study.

They also discussed wiping $10,000 in student debt loan, infrastructure spending, Social Security expansion, and other issues. They reportedly tried to include abortion funding in the bill that passed. Their “open borders” policies would compound the problems we currently have.

After the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, former President Obama (D) didn’t follow recommendations to replenish the stockpile of 100 million N95 respirator masks used ( Bloomberg News and LA Times.) Now Mr. Trump is fixing this shortage.

This crisis is just a political opportunity to the Democrats to push through their agenda. The Hill reported that Rep. Clyburn (D) told colleagues, “This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.”

There may be no “best” way to handle this threat, but this already massive spending bill shouldn’t be inflated with pork for unrelated Democrat pet projects. Democrats keep up their obstruction while people suffer. They should be working for the country, not their own self-interest.

Tim Kampfhamer

Colby

Trump wasted valuable time in COVID response

To the editor: The director of The National Security Council Pandemic Response Team said the U.S. was not prepared for a pandemic. She was fired the next day. When the president was asked about it he said, “This is something that you can never really think is going to happen.”

The Trump administration created a fictional pandemic scenario beginning in January of 2019 through August of that year called “The Crimson Contagion.” The fictional pandemic was eerily similar to today’s real pandemic.

The outbreak of the fictional respiratory virus began in China and was quickly spread around the world by air travelers, who ran high fevers. In the United States, the fictional virus was first detected in Chicago, and 47 days later, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic.

By then, it was too late: projections showed 110 million Americans were expected to become ill, leading to 7.7 million hospitalized and 586,000 dead.

The president might have considered the results of his own administration’s fictional test scenario as a warning. Instead, just five months later, in January of 2020, his budget proposed cutting the Centers for Disease Control by 16 percent. The following month his economic advisor said this about the coronavirus, “We have contained this. I won’t say airtight, but pretty close to airtight.”

We all knew about the coronavirus in China in January. Trump celebrated the news with his secretary of commerce stating “it will help accelerate the return of jobs to North America.”

The World Health Organization warned the world in February. Trump ignored it. On March 10, Trump said, “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away . . . be calm. It’s really working out. And a lot of good things are going to happen.”

Last Friday, Trump said, “Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion.”

President Trump has placed too much value on money and too little on lives, his inaction has put thousands of lives in jeopardy, and he has lied to the American people. Peter Hellios Granton