IT’S DUFFY’S TURN

We were surprised and confused by Mayor Johnson’s comments
about the incoming mayor and his transition team (“Troubling Transition at City
Hall?” December 14). He probably is struggling with the emotions that confront
all of us as we cope with life’s passages. Certainly, Mayor Johnson has given
much of his life to our city and community these past 33 years, first at the
Urban League and then as mayor.

But we found ourselves disagreeing with his perspective. Had
Mayor Johnson been elected county executive, we do not believe he would have retained
the services of the many loyal Republicans at the county for the sake of
institutional memory. We believe he would have put together the team he knew
would work for MonroeCounty
residents under his leadership, just as Bob Duffy is doing today.

Perhaps Mayor Johnson felt uncomfortable when he took the
reins at City Hall about making changes. He had been an outsider to city
government, coming from the not-for-profit sector. His interactions with
government were likely quite different from Mayor-elect Duffy’s. Duffy brings
almost 30 years of city-government experience to his current position; as a
customer, a rank-and-file employee, and a department head. This gives him a
unique insight into what is and isn’t working for our city.

Johnson’s suggestion that Duffy is beholden to members of
the business community because they supported his candidacy strikes us as a bit
hypocritical. The reality of any campaign is that it takes money to get your
message out to the community. In his bid for county executive, the mayor
encouraged a group of business leaders to raise money on his behalf. With the
financial support of those business leaders, Bill Johnson and Maggie Brooks set
a new record for spending on the county executive’s race. We think it is fair
to say that Mayor Johnson did not feel beholden to those interests because they
supported him. And the suggestion that Bob Duffy will translate that support
into patronage appointments for the “nearly breathing or incompetent” goes
beyond the pale.

This community has much to be thankful to Bill Johnson for.
He in turn owes, to the community he has loved and served, respect for the
person its citizens have selected to guide us for the next four years. Some of
those citizens voted for Mr. Duffy because they believed in his strength of
character and trusted his judgment to make different choices than his
predecessor — even if those choices are not popular — if it is in the best
interest of moving our community forward.

Tony and Terry
Correa, Rossiter Road, Rochester

NO WMD PROOF

At the bottom of the apparently unending flap over weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq
is this simple truth: no one knows that they didn’t exist when we went to war.

Or that they don’t exist now!

As one Iraqi lieutenant has observed: “Dig anywhere in Iraq
and you’ll hit one of two things: oil or weapons.” In the last year or so, US
soldiers have chanced upon a number of Iraqi weapons caches. There are probably
many more. Buried.

At 168,754 square miles, Iraq
is about three times the size of the state of New York.
About two-thirds of Iraq
is desert sand.

Think about it. How hard would it be to bury WMDs in Iraq,
even a nuke warhead, though WMDs needn’t be large? How many of those 168,754
sq. miles do you think the “inspectors” inspected? And how far beneath the
surface did they look?

Here’s the thinking that so many seem to find reasonable:
“Our inspection team poked around here and there in this unthinkably,
impossibly huge haystack and, not finding a single needle, conclude that no
needles exist.”

The sands of Iraq
could easily conceal whole arsenals of WMDs. Right now.

Peter Dzwonkoski, Westmoreland Drive, Rochester

WRITING TO CITY

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This article appears in Jan 4-10, 2006.