{"id":150573,"date":"2026-08-22T13:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T13:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/150573\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T13:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T13:18:09","slug":"new-berlin-activist-vern-bentley-dies-at-92-waukesha-co-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/150573\/","title":{"rendered":"New Berlin activist Vern Bentley dies at 92 | Waukesha Co. News"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW BERLIN \u2014 It\u2019s amazing what you can do from the back of the room when you\u2019re paying attention.<\/p>\n

Vernon “Vern” Bentley and his wife, Peggy, didn\u2019t let much get past their watchful eyes during their years of monitoring government business in New Berlin, often from their usual spots in the last row of the Common Council Chambers. With future Alderman and current Mayor Dave Ament and his wife, also named Peggy, they called themselves “the back of the room gang,” but Bentley was usually a lot closer to the heart of matters as they unfolded in the city, watching and asking pointed questions of city leaders. From a planned extension of Johnson Road that he opposed, to the idea of a power plant in a quarry, to the development of apartments in the city\u2019s rural half, to successfully fighting a proposed water storage tank in rural New Berlin as part of the Waukesha water project, Bentley was as involved as a citizen could be, asking questions of leaders, working with people, and engendering debate and conversations in the community.<\/p>\n

He also was active in the city\u2019s historical society, earning the moniker “Piano Man” as he shared the wonders of the group\u2019s player piano, according to his obituary.<\/p>\n

Bentley died last week at age 92. Bentley and Peggy Ament bonded over a project they were concerned about, and Dave Ament said he and Peggy Bentley also got involved, and the back of the room gang was born, a group of concerned citizens who kept a watchful eye on the city\u2019s leaders and developments.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s usually how people get involved in things, open records requests and stuff, something happens in their neighborhood, something happens to them or they hear something and they go looking for the information. That\u2019s kind of what we did back then and that\u2019s what he did. We had a real desire to see our community not change too much and not lose the character of the community, the rural and urban sides staying kind of intact along with industrial and the road, not too much disturbance of natural areas. We had that same common goal so we kind of fed off of each other,” Dave Ament said. “I think it\u2019s mostly because he cared and he loved talking to people. No matter who it was he would talk to them, he was always a hugger. He always gave hugs to people he met if they were willing. That was Vern. Just a good guy.”<\/p>\n

Ament said Bentley imparted lessons in the way he approached people and issues.<\/p>\n

“One of key things he always said to us, his terminology may not have been real clear, but you can\u2019t fight nice. In other words, if you have a belief in something, be nice, talk to people and be respectful because they can\u2019t fight you as hard as if you are nasty or insulting. If you\u2019re trying to convince somebody to your side, the best way to do it was to be nice to them, talk to them,” Ament said. “That was his philosophy and that was a lot of why he was so successful in working with elected officials, for example. I think that was a key piece to him. That was something we took to heart when we watched how he did things and it is something that we learned from him.”<\/p>\n

Former Mayor Jim Gatzke said he was saddened to learn of Bentley\u2019s passing. They had both agreements and points of disagreement, but Gatzke said he valued Bentley\u2019s input, saying engaged people like him “are really important.”<\/p>\n

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“He often times disagreed with me and often times was critical of me but I liked Vern and I certainly appreciated his involvement in the community. Nobody can deny he and his wife were extremely involved in the community and really involved in just about every issue that came up and really cared enough about the city and gave a lot of time and a lot of energy to make sure that everything was being done properly,” Gatzke said. “It was a plus, a benefit, to everybody and a benefit to the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf doing what you can do involves helping the community, that\u2019s good for everybody and certainly what Vern and Peg did help the community because they kept people involved, kept people informed and participated in the debate. More than anything else, even if you are wrong, if you participate in the debate you raise issues that can be clarified for everybody in the community. A guy like Vern wasn\u2019t gonna let anything go unsaid. If he saw something he had an issue with, he was going to ask questions about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vernon\u2019s son, Bill Bentley, said his father, an Army veteran, worked for 42 years at Cutler Hammer and Eaton Corp. after being born in Clintonville and growing up in West Allis.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a union steward for quite a while, which I think gave him some of his debating skills and he\u2019d often times tell stories about union people and management and he was the go-between and it was a lot like him dealing with the politicians because he was the in-between trying to right a wrong for the little guy,\u201d Bill Bentley said.<\/p>\n

After owning a Phillips station in Milwaukee, Vernon and Peggy, who met at age 12 and spent their lives together until her passing in 2019, moved to New Berlin, on 9 acres, with sheep on the grounds, with Bentley calling himself an \u201cartificial farmer\u201d because of the lack of cows or pigs. He said his parents used to videotape city meetings, keeping a diary of them to refer to as they researched the issues of the day; Bentley had recently upgraded to a smartphone.<\/p>\n

Both Ament and Gatzke mentioned the need for citizens to remain informed, getting their information from reputable sources or the city itself and taking what they hear on social media with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know there isn\u2019t the back of the room folks around to make people honor their responsibilities and make sure the citizens are involved in the process and informed,\u201d Gatzke said.<\/p>\n

Bentley is survived by his son, Bill (Nicole) and their daughter Regan, and daughter, Tammy (Todd) Tyler. Services are slated to be held Sept. 11, at Heritage Funeral Home on National Avenue in New Berlin, with visitation from 10 a.m.-noon and a service to follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW BERLIN \u2014 It\u2019s amazing what you can do from the back of the room when you\u2019re paying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[71143,112,71142,47108,190,2038,39,71141],"class_list":["post-150573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-back-of-the-room-gang","tag-berlin","tag-civic-activism","tag-dave-ament","tag-germany","tag-new-berlin","tag-obituaries","tag-vernon-bentley"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117139361174859959","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}