CHICKENS, EGGS, AND SUBURBANIZATION
In his letter “Wilmot and Smart Growth” (The Mail, September
15), Joseph M. Young engages in broad, stereotypical rants and swipes against
my family and me — and all business people, for that matter. He blames
real-estate developers for the demise of urban America,
but in truth it was average, white, middle-class citizens who vacated our
cities for the lily-white pastures of suburbia, in response to their often
irrational fears of post-war integration.
I guess
it’s the chicken-and-egg problem: Did commercial and residential development
lead homebuyers to suburbia, or was it the other way around? A little of both,
I’m sure.
Mr. Young
tries to stereotype me as just another typical capitalist fat cat, “consumed
with personal economic gain… (in public office) to serve only
one person.” I guess Mr. Young forgot to look at my legislative record
when he categorized me as some self-serving bottom feeder at the public trough.
I am the
only MonroeCounty
legislator to propose racial and economic integration of all our public schools
in Rochester and MonroeCounty. In fact, my 1996
legislative proposal caused such a stir that it inspired the GRACE lawsuit, of
which I am a founder. While we ultimately lost in state court, we probably
indirectly assisted in the positive ruling on the CFE suit.
I am also
the only county legislator in recent memory to call for a study of smart
growth, countywide. My legislative proposal four or five years ago asked for a
countywide plan that would direct development to the area of MonroeCounty that needs it most: the City
of Rochester.
What
saddens me most about Mr. Young’s letter is his complete misreading of my
interview in City (Say What, August
25). Until Mr. Young takes off his green-colored glasses, he won’t be able to
see that Democrats can be pro-job and pro-diversity.
There is
one aspect of Mr. Young’s letter I do agree with. The Monroe County Green Party
is most likely growing stronger, since it has nowhere else to grow but up.
Christopher J. Wilmot, East Avenue, Rochester(Wilmot is assistant Democratic leader of the Monroe County
Legislature.)
SKIMPY COVERAGE
The cover of City’s September
8 issue said: “Seeking New Leadership in the Land
of Amo.”
I expected to find an article detailing the issues and the candidates in the
Democratic and Republican primaries for the 29th Congressional District. The
election of a member of Congress to an open seat is a once-in-a-generation
opportunity for the people of this area. And with Congress and the nation so
narrowly divided, it is an event that is critically important to the future of
our community.
I was,
instead, disappointed to read an article that covered only half the election.
It covered the two conservative Republican candidates as if they were the
entire race. The article completely ignored the Democratic primary, even to the
point of only telling Republicans where and when to vote. Samara Barend has the support of Democrats from throughout the
district and is endorsed by national Democrats like Howard Dean, local
officials like Sandy Frankel and Joe Morelle, and the
Working Families Party. She has the background and expertise to win this race
and serve the people of the 29th, but for some reason City ignored her and all the Democrats in the District.
Sam Barend is the founder and executive director of Minds of
Steel in Corning, a not-for-profit
organization dedicated to fighting mental illness through exercise. As head of
the I-86 campaign and recipient of an Eisenhower Fellowship, Sam was the
catalyst for the conversion of Route 17 across the Southern Tier into
Interstate 86, an economic-development success vitally important to that part
of the 29th District.
Sam is
committed to drastic reform of the Patriot Act, while ensuring that the
nation’s homeland security is still secure. She would continue to lead the
fight for economic development in Western New York, to
keep current workers employed and to give our children the option to stay in
the region rather than continue the brain drain when the best and brightest of
our youth leave, never to return.
Sam Barend is the true heir to the moderate and passionate
tradition that Amo Houghton has represented for the
29th District. In the days before the general election, I trust that City will give its readers the chance to
read much more about Sam Barend and the real choice
they have for Congress in the 29th District this year.
Bill Moehle, South Landing Road, Brighton
The editor’s response: We traditionally
select a few of the more hotly contested races for our campaign coverage, so
that we can give more extensive coverage to them. We’ll be covering Barend next month.
WHY KERRY?
Two editorials by an intelligent, informed editor in two
consecutive City issues heavily favor
the Democratic presidential candidate, without one, single, solitary syllable
of specific, reasoned support of that candidate! Why should we vote for John
Kerry? Because he isn’t George Bush. That’s been the
standard Democratic rant since Day One, and Ms. Towler adds little to it.
Both
editorials disinter what must by now be the deadest of all dead issues: We
shouldn’t have gone into Iraq.
Enough, already. I agree. Most people agree. Probably
in his secret heart, Bush agrees. I wish we hadn’t gone there, too. I also wish
the World Trade Center were still standing, that Charley and Frances had veered
sharply out to sea, and that the Bills had made the last few Super Bowls. But
since these have not happened, the only critical question is what we do now.
And who should lead us in doing it.
“Republicans
say John Kerry is not fit to serve,” Ms. Towler writes. “He is, of course.” Of course, my fanny. Kerry may conceivably make a good
president, but there’s nothing “of course” about it. If she really believed her
own remark, Ms. Towler would have had something —anything! — positive to say about Kerry. Instead, it’s the old, familiar
liberal lullaby: Bush is the Anti-Christ, the Arch-Fiend, Attila, Hitler, and
Darth Vader all distilled into a single Apotheosis of Evil.
And Kerry
isn’t. Presumably. Even though, from all one can
deduce, he’s not that far from Bush in the matter of Iraq.
At the moment. I guess. Who really knows?
Ms. Towler
might more usefully have isolated and defined and analyzed Kerry’s positions,
and she probably would have, if it were possible to have a clear notion of what
they are. But Kerry himself has not isolated and defined his positions. Mostly,
when they aren’t bashing Bush, he and the vanishing John Edwards trot out the
standard checklist of Things Everybody Wants and tell us they want them, too.
What a surprise.
And then
there’s the identity thing. Conservatives complain that Kerry doesn’t know who
he is. It may be worse than that: A lot of the time, he doesn’t even seem to
know who he wants to be.
Maybe the
president we don’t know (and can barely hold in focus) is better than the one
we do, but that case has certainly not been made.
Peter Dzwonkoski,
Westmoreland
Drive, Rochester
Mary Anna Towler’s
response: So far, I think John Kerry has failed to run a strong campaign.
And I am dismayed, and have said so, with his vote to give George Bush
permission to attack Iraq.
His explanations and his evasion on that topic have been appalling.
Kerry painted
himself into a corner on the Iraq
issue, right from the git-go. We may never know
whether he and his Democratic colleagues were spineless when they caved in and
supported Bush, or they truly approved of the invasion. Or
whether they naively thought that if they gave Bush the power to go to war, he
wouldn’t use it. And I don’t know which is worse.
That said,
two things:
1) I do
think John Kerry is fit to serve. He might not be a great president, but in my opinion, he is competent. I hold views
that are far more liberal than his on many issues, but I think his positions on
health care, the environment, tax cuts, et al (which we laid out February 25
when we endorsed him in the Democratic primary) are far better than George
Bush’s.
(You might
want to read “The Kerry I Know,” by Tom Oliphant in The American Prospect — www.prospect.org. Oliphant, a strongly
liberal Boston Globe columnist, has
known Kerry and followed his politics for years and thinks he’ll make a great
president.)
2) Either
George Bush or John Kerry will become president next January. As much as we
might wish there were another Democratic candidate, John Kerry is what we have.
And to paraphrase your letter, the only critical question now is who should
lead us.
I do not
believe that George Bush is “the Anti-Christ, the Arch-Fiend, Attila, Hitler,
and Darth Vader all distilled into a single Apotheosis of Evil” and have not
said so. I do believe that George Bush is causing great harm to this country,
that his policies have made us less safe, not more. And the more news I read
about Iraq —
and the administration’s response to developments there — the more I am
convinced that George Bush and several members of his administration are truly
dangerous people.
TOUGH BUSH
The Bush administration has done an awesome job of
backpedaling when it comes to George Bush’s statements about weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq.
I have been amused to Bush move from the statement that Iraq
had weapons of mass destruction and the use of them was imminent to saying that
Iraq possessed
the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. Whatever the case, the United
States invaded Iraq.
Now comes word of a massive explosion in North
Korea. A South Korean news agency reported
seeing a large mushroom cloud. Gee, might this have been the test of a weapon
of mass destruction? Not according to the almost immediate reassurances of the
Bush administration. Colin Powell said the explosion was not a nuclear weapon
test, despite admissions from North Korea
that they have been preparing to test nuclear weapons.
Is the
administration now going to play a name game with weapons of mass destruction?
Weapons other than nuclear weapons can be weapons of mass destruction, right?
The 9-11 terrorist attack on the United States
did not use nuclear weapons.
So why
would our government make an effort to reassure us? Why isn’t the Bush
administration planning some sort of military action against North
Korea? I thought George was tough on
terrorists. Is there any oil in North Korea?
Thomas R. Janowski,
Hazelhurst Drive, Gates
HEADING INTO FASCISM
I agree with Jeremy Glick that the current administration is
moving us toward a fascist state (Say What, September 8). I had occasion to go
to the Social Security office recently to get a Social Security card for my
newborn son. I suppose as a law-abiding citizen, I didn’t have to have it, but without it, I might not get the tax credits
and deductions provided for in the IRS codes.
I learned
that my infant now needs two forms of
identification. Besides his birth certificate, how does a newborn child get a
second form of identification, except from the Social Security office itself?
Perhaps a statement from a doctor, the functionaries suggested. Excuse me? A
birth certificate is signed by the birth attendant and filed with the countyVital Records department. In short,
that is what a birth certificate is: a statement from a doctor. What more can a
doctor or midwife attest to that does not abridge our right to
medical-information privacy?
“How
about a health insurance card?” they said. When did the Social Security
department get the right to require my participation in an HMO, a PPO, or even
Child Health Plus?
When I
challenged these requirements, I was told: “Everything changed after
9/11.” How or why should the processing of newborn records change? I’ll
admit that my son will probably terrorize my household in a few short years,
but he is not a sleeper cell for Al Qaeda.
My husband
and I have a combined 47 years of service to the United States Army. My husband
has already served in a foreign war and is on his way to serve in this one. I
have sworn to “support and defend the Constitution of the United
States of America against all enemies
foreign and domestic” more times than I care to recount. Yet, I left the
Social Security office feeling like a subversive or a criminal.
We serve
this country to protect democracy and individual rights, especially the right
to privacy. I am not comfortable with the direction the federal government is
going, and this is only one small example of that direction.
Frankly, this is the enemy within. When two US
citizens with verifiable credentials of their own, birth certificate in hand,
cannot get a required document for their newborn child without giving up their
right to privacy, then it is clear to me that the government is at war against
its own people.
Willa Powell, Canterbury Road, Rochester
BUSH LETS THE POOR PAY
Controversies over service records of the presidential
candidates are useless and delay discussion on the real policy issues. But we
can learn from basic facts about their service histories.
Both are rich.
President
Bush used power and connections to avoid combat.
John Kerry
volunteered, and saw what war does to both combatants and people in the war
zone. A person who has seen this horror will not send our military to war
except for serious, legitimate reasons.
John
Kerry’s example reveals that he believes both rich and poor should share the
dangers for the protection of our people in wartime.
President
Bush in National Guard service was able to delegate dangers of combat to
someone else. Evidently he believes that the power of the rich and connected
social elite qualifies them for decision making and generous tax breaks, but
poor Americans should pay the taxes and do the fighting.
His
arrogance in saying “Bring ’em on” was
especially repugnant but true to these beliefs.
These
distinctions qualify Kerry and disqualify Bush for re-election.
Donald Miller, Marquart Drive, Webster
SHARING?
How many of the foreign countries that are readily accepting
our industrial migration, along with our trade secrets, are
supporting us in Mr. Bush’s Mid-East venture? All take,
no give?
Don “Barefoot” Post, Clarkson-Parma Townline
Road,
Brockport
JFK IS KFC
Prince George
writes that the Republicans’ negative ads launched against John Kerry won’t
change hearts and minds of independent voters (“Time for Bush to Go,” The Mail,
September 1). News flash! The Dems have been giving
as good as they’re getting.
Prince
George complains that Kerry’s good reputation is being
sullied by negative ads of the opposition. Well, what did the anti-presidential
forces do for nearly a year with their 527s running $63 million worth of ads
trying to tarnish the president’s good name? What’s good for the goose is good
for the gander.
Politics is
a game of sharp elbows. If the troops of the president’s opposition can’t
handle the heat, they should stay out of the kitchen. And what of CBS’ Dan
Rather not doing his homework and running with a recycled story citing possibly
doctored documents about the president’s National Guard service? Yet another attempt to cast aspersions on the president’s
reputation.
Like KFC, JFK’s goose has been cooked.
Oliver Glover, Rochester
JOHNSON AND BUSINESS 101
And now for the most recent news on the Mayor’s pet
projects.
First, HighFalls: $24 million and another
failing entertainment complex, while privately funded
areas such as the East End and St. Paul District
maintain themselves or thrive. Jillian’s couldn’t be
sold by its parent company in a bankruptcy sale because of such woeful
underperformance, and the building’s owners have put it up for sale at a mere
46 percent loss. Nothing like trying to create a market where
no one wants it.
Next, PaeTecPark:
What was originally to be a stadium paid 50 percent or so by public funds is
now a 78-percent publicly supported project. And the result will be a second,
open-air stadium less than one block from Frontier Field. Who is the planning
brain behind this move?
What a deal
— at taxpayers’ expense — for the Rhinos, on top of their 45-year lease for
a dollar per year. Wasn’t the Sports Authority removed from oversight for
asking the tough questions?
And, last
but not least, $40-plus million — some of it city funds — on the fast ferry,
which may be dead soon. Funny how the Transit Authority was
hung out to dry by the media and the mayor for demanding the finances on this
project, and was then removed as the project was pushed through. End
result: 80 days, and business suspended. No warnings. Seemingly
no contact with the officials that pushed the business.
Wouldn’t it
be nice if government officials put as much support behind privately funded
projects — like a new Wegmans in Henrietta or on
Elmwood Avenue, or a downtown casino — as they put behind taxpayer-funded
fiascos like the fast ferry and High Falls, which should have been toe tagged
years ago, and would have been without endless taxpayer subsidies?
Well, maybe
they can all discuss it over a drink at Empire Brewing. By the way, how many
hundreds of thousands of dollars did that cost the taxpayers?
Bernard LoVerde,
Webster
FERRY, DETAILED
“Ferry Tales” (September 15) was the best explanation of the
current problems bedeviling the ferry that I have seen. I learned a lot, more
than I would have ever learned from the Democrat
and Chronicle. I liked specially the interview with Ken Lundy, which gave
me the Canadian slant, or at least the Port Authority slant.
I will be
sending the article to my daughter at college, who thirsts for local news. Keep
up the good work on this issue.
Scott Forsyth, Douglas Road, Rochester
WRITING TO CITY
We welcome and encourage readers’ letters for publication.
Send them to: themail@rochester-citynews.com or The Mail, City Newspaper, 250
North Goodman Street, Rochester14607.
Our
guidelines: We don’t publish anonymous letters — and we ask that you include
your street name and city/town/village. We don’t publish letters that have been
sent to other media. While we don’t restrict length, letters of under 350 words have a greater chance of being published. We
do edit letters for clarity and brevity. And in general we don’t publish
letters (or longer “op-ed” pieces) from the same writer more often than about
once every two months.
This article appears in Sep 29 – Oct 5, 2004.
