Two events reported in the Butler Eagle have prompted me to write. The first is really “old news,” but it has bothered me.

Those who voted to sell the Bulter Area Sewer Authority did their constituents a disservice. Pennsylvania American Water is not paying for BASA, ratepayers are going to be paying for it for decades. PA American is going to keep raising prices. Politicians can claim they got money for communities, but I feel it's actually a back door tax increase.

More recent is the article concerning lot rental at local manufactured home communities. Out-of-state companies are worse than old “carpetbaggers” from the post-Civil War era. They prey on some of the more vulnerable. The amount of increases is ridiculous.

State Rep. Tim Bonner should be ashamed. Harrisburg needs to require these companies to roll back rentals to where they were before the purchases, then raise it to match inflation.

Private equity is ripping off our communities and some think this is OK?

To be clear, I do not live in these communities, nor do my family members. But this is not right. I hope state Rep. Marci Mustello and others in Harrisburg step up for constituents.

While I am a Republican and support capitalism, this is profiteering in the worst ways. These people are stuck, cannot move their homes and high lot rent makes them more difficult to sell. The fact that companies refuse to even maintain the property is salt in the wound.

Dave Penn, Saxonburg