Readers write for July 8, 2010

As a restaurant owner with the usual razor-thin profit margins, I'm always looking to cut costs. But not at the expense of what really matters: food quality, employees and customers.

Thus I'm dismayed at Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer's utter disregard for the truth: There's no way servers take home more than $100,000 a year ("Emmer: Lower the wages for tipped workers," July 6).

Even in our busy downtown restaurant, it's not even a third that amount. Somebody's blatantly lying. Show me the books and back up that incredibly irresponsible claim. Menu prices are higher than anyone wants because food costs have soared, plain and simple. Waiting on tables is backbreaking work, literally, and this is why most restaurant owners tip generously whenever we get a chance to go out to eat.

CYNTHIA GERDES, CO-OWNER, HELL'S KITCHEN, MINNEAPOLIS

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Tom Emmer's proposal to lower the wages of tipped workers is a little like stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. Whatever happened to a fair day's wage for a fair day's work? Apparently family man Tom Emmer doesn't share that conviction.

It's the same theme as always with Emmer and his ilk; wage earners, in this instance waiters and waitresses earning minimum wage, are picking the pockets of business owners. It's also hard to believe that with all the problems facing Minnesota and the nation, that reducing menu prices for restaurants is a top priority.

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Finally someone is proposing to do something about the alarming rise of income for restaurant personnel. I mean, where's a CEO supposed to eat nowadays?

JOHN EVANS, Minneapolis

Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Tony Sutton tries to paint Sen. Al Franken as an "angry, ticked-off guy" in your story on the Minnesota Democrat ("Franken wags a bit sharper tongue," July 6).

Maybe Sutton should better spend his time trying to figure out why Franken, and some of the rest of us, feel that way. Then propose some solutions.

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Your article failed to mention any details about Franken's last major cable news network appearance during the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings. Franken fawned all over Kagan and heaped praise upon her to no end. Then he served up several softball questions at her, apparently as a courtesy. Later, cameras from MSNBC, FOX and CNN caught images of Franken dozing off.

What an embarrassment. I received texts and e-mails from several of my friends from outside the state making sport of Franken and referring to his many "Saturday Night Live" characters.

As if this wasn't enough, later in the day Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., also added to our embarrassment, bantering with the nominee about pop culture instead of asking any real questions about how Kagan might participate in her potential lifelong appointment to our highest court.

I agree with Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that the Senate could use a little more humor. But we don't need the rest of the country making fun of the conduct of our two senators. It reminds me of the days when the rest of the country made sport of Jesse Ventura, our ex-wrestler governor.

ROGER SWANSON, SPRING PARK, MINN.

A July 7 letter stated the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board needs both of its milfoil cutters operating to get that foul weed out of the city lakes. But the lakes would actually be better served if the parks took the money it would take to repair the machinery and use it to intelligently remove the milfoil and allow some native vegetation to grow.

Milfoil cutters do not discriminate. When milfoil was discovered in Lake Minnetonka, cutters were implemented to manage the vegetation, and this has been a disaster. I witnessed the destruction of the beautiful lotus plants in Halsted's Bay when the cutters chopped everything in their path. Now this bay is choked with milfoil and the lotus are gone.

Not only have these cutting machines destroyed acres of native vegetation, they have killed millions of fish. Just check out a load of milfoil that is brought to the shore after a fresh cutting, and you will see plenty of small bluegills, crappies and other species of fish on their way to the compost heap.

Herbicide is needed to control the milfoil and stop killing fish. This method has been extremely successful in parts of Lake Minnetonka and should be implemented in all the lakes where control is a priority. Get rid of the milfoil harvesters. They are expensive to operate and maintain, and they destroy the resource we are trying so dearly to protect.

Talk about cruel and unusual punishment! The story "Boy, 3, found on highway at 3 a.m." (July 7) reports that once the boy was found he was put in the "custody of social services on a 72-hour health and welfare hold." Then a " noticeably shaken" mother was denied her son and had to wait until the authorities were satisfied there is no neglect or trouble in the home. According to a police spokeswomen: "There is no evidence of neglect or trouble in the home, and no charges are expected." Why keep the boy from his mother for 72 hours? If authorities have that right by law, the laws need to be changed so such cruelty cannot happen by government sanction.