Atlanta Forward readers respond to columns on the Atlanta Housing Authority and its CEO's salary, written by former mayor Shirley Franklin and former city councilman Derrick Boazman.
MrLiberty: Housing the poor and other services such as this should all be handled by private charities and the government should have absolutely no role whatsoever. You have rampant waste and complete unaccountability specifically because it is handled by government. Yes, private charities sometimes have corruption. But people can stop contributing and the problem gets corrected. With government they continue to steal from the taxpayers and fund the failure regardless of the problems, and the problems never get corrected. Same problem with everything government does – same solution would work.
George Hawthorne: Given the "transformational value" to the inner-city residential real estate "landscape" of Atlanta and catalytic effect of the redevelopment projects of the AHA, the AHA's turn-around and the leadership provided by Renee Glover and her core team is a bargain and clearly in-line with the "private-sector" equivalent in those industries. Mr. Boazman has clearly forgotten the dismal financial shape of AHA in the early 90's and the blighted conditions and crime and poverty directly resulting from the AHA projects.
Catlady: While the jobs are tough, I think those salaries sound out of line with the "real world."
Rick: Seems as if only the wealthy should be justly compensated for their efforts. The poor on minimum wage should be stuck, locked in at a rate that never changes, worked like horses and given no more than they need for a day, so they can't afford to take time off to interview, to change jobs. In these ugly times, christians' values no longer exist, except one day a week, for one hour — Sunday.
Public "Service": It is high time that we stop referring to those who work for government as public "servants." They are anything but. They are employees whose jobs are paid for through the involuntary taking of wealth from others through taxation, etc. They do not "serve" the public in any sort of holier-than-thou way. In most cases they are employed by the government because they are looking for job stability, excessive benefits, and a desire to avoid the stress of actually having to perform a service that meets a voluntary customer demand in the real marketplace. They prefer pandering to politicians than having to please a fickle public.
Mangler: It's like you people seem to think a public or government job should be done out of charity. That's what volunteering at a church is for. Running an agency, city, county, state or the country requires skills and abilities that not everyone has or is willing to perform. You have to pay people to do good jobs. If you only pay public servants minimum wage, guess what, you're going to have burger flippers running billion dollar agencies. Think that will end well?
