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Minimum wage and Metro Council
Regarding the recent vote by members of the Louisville Metro Council to raise the minimum wage here in town to $10.10 an hour, which was deemed “too high” and lowered to $8.75 an hour, of which all the Republicans on the Council, including Marilyn Parker, still voted against:
The city pays each member of the Metro Council $45,074.12.
Marilyn Parker, or any Metro Council Member for that matter, as all 26 get this for their part time work at city hall in addition to their full time paid staffs, and outside jobs that every last one of them has from my understanding since they cannot live on a mere $45,000 a year themselves.
$10.10 an hour is too much, but here’s what you, as a tax payer, are paying just four city officials:
Gregory Fischer, Mayor: $117,328.12
Edward Hamilton: Chief of Public Services: $119,646.80
Christorpher Poynter: Mayor’s Office Director of Communications: $93,324.40
Type in the name of your choice: http://services.louisvilleky.gov/salarylookup/Default.aspx
But $10.10 an hour is too much.
Robert Zoeller, Waltlee Road
Response to Editor’s Note on ‘The Interview’
I was wondering if you would agree with this idea: I think it would be quite interesting to see Hollywood do a movie on the many governments and leaders the United States overthrew and in some cases assassinated, or tried to overthrow if not utilized terrorism against to wreck their economies, like Nicaragua, Cuba, etc. How about talking about our assassination of leaders who were popular with their people, especially the poor in their respective countries, and in some cases even democratically elected?
In some respects, focusing on the possibility of killing North Korea’s leader who, everyone would agree is pretty terrible, causes us to justify our ‘regime change’ delusions. The problem, Aaron, is that we are slapping sanctions on democratically elected governments like the one in Venezuela, which we tried to overthrow in the early 2000s, yet which was elected via an electoral system that the Carter Center refers to as the best in the world.
We have a terrible history, a terrible legacy, of even smashing democracy in some cases. It’s only later we learn that Assad, Ghadaffi and Saddam, among others, actually had some positives, as more ‘secular’ leaders and we are now facing I.S.I.S, in part, due to helping regime change in these countries. If we are going to persist in trying to remove regimes to build supposed democracy — while stomping on it in the process — how about regime change in Saudi Arabia, a place there is no religious freedom and where even North Korea ranks better in terms of woman’s freedom?
Both on the left and right, there are a growing number of us who are questioning the ideas that Obama seems to be not all that different on than Bush. How is it our job to remove governments or maintain embargoes (as well as slapping sanctions on Venezuela) when we are in bed with countries whose human rights violations dwarf Cuba and Venezuela put together?
We don’t have to have a movie to show us the mess; look at our wounded soldiers, look at I.S.I.S., who are there in part due to the power vacuum we created or helped created. I stand supportive of the democratically elected Maduro Government in Venezuela and with true democracy while many in Washington are trying to start yet another embargo at the request of a few right- wing Cuban-American Senators. Let Hollywood do a movie of the attempted coup of Chavez and what the Venezeulen people thought when a man was installed for a brief amount of time for whom not one vote was cast.
Travis Schuster
Response to Miller at the Mic
Enjoyed Ashley Miller’s thoughtful, well-written column on LOVE in the 31 December LEO.
My wonderful Patty and I got married in 1947 by a Navy chaplain. We were in LOVE at the time and still are. But the word has taken a beating.
Example: Two consenting adults meet in a a bar over the weekend and later engage in hanky-panky. I have no quarrel with this. But don’t jump with joy when they later tell others they made love. Damn it, they didn’t make LOVE — they exchanged body fluids and had raw sex.
Patty and I developed a shared and and responsible understanding of what LOVE really is and lived accordingly.
Bob Moore, Dove Creek Court