Dear Editor:

Vote for Toni Atkins? The Councilwoman who gave city pensioners the costliest retirement benefits based on non-existant revenues? Then hid from investors what our true revenues were? Borrowed money for maintaining pipes and sewage, then asking property owners to cough up new fee increases to pay for new pipes? What about shoving an expensive high riser on the residents of her district they don’t want and that smacks of conflict-of-interest? Donn Lavigne in the February 1st Gay & Lesbian Times has it right never to vote for this imperial woman again. Her taxpayer-funded attorneys are an affront to the crime victims in her district that is currently witnessing an epidemic of attacks.

What solutions do you have for this crisis, Ms. Atkins? Another public forum? How many more cops or patrol cars can we buy with the money we pay the lawyers that keep you in office? Oh, that’s right, I keep forgetting, your staff is to blame for the trouble you’re having. May we remind you, Ms. Atkins, of what former President Harry S. Truman said: “The buck stops here.”

John Primavera

Dear Editor:

I believe instead of pointing fingers at bar/club owners or the Tavern Guild, we need to come up with solutions to combat the increase in assaults.

As a concerned proactive citizen, it is my civic duty to offer solutions, not blame and complain.

Melissa Athens

Dear Editor:

There continues to be much discussion among Iraq War supporters, most notably the reference of former Congressman and Vice-Presidential Candidate, Jack Kemp comparing U.S. Involvement in Iraq to the events of WWII Europe. Mr. Kemp is correct in his assertions but has his facts inside out.

Consider the following, Germany, without provocation invaded the sovereign nation-state of Poland on September 1, 1939, sound familiar?

The following year they crushed the Maginot line like a Tinker Toy, occupying France from 1940-44 as the Vichy Regime, sound familiar? The Germans established their own so-called Green Zone in The City of Light along present day Boulevard Hausmann, sound familiar? The French Nation of which I love dearly was sadly anti-Semitic, sound familiar? French General Charles De Gaulle took refuge in London where he gave what is arguably the greatest call to arms speech of the twentieth Century, sound familiar? Many within the French Military had collaborated with the German Occupying Force, sound familiar? And yes, there were even perceived terrorists, among those my own family, shot and taken prisoner of war while operating as the Free French, sound familiar? So Mr. Kemp, although the intention may differ in these two wars the result remains the same. That is, on one hand you have the intent of state sponsored fascism and the other of democratizing the Middle East.

How can you sir, justify both your intent and result without respect to the present conditions no less? America has repeated the barbarism of the past disguised as a benevolent intent. How pathetic and demeaning of our beloved America, sound familiar?

Daniel J. Smiechowski