To the Editor:
In all athletic competitions, from the kindergarten Peewees level, to the adults engaged in professional sports, there are penalties for “unsportsman-like conduct.” Since the current contest for Mayor of Alexandria can now be consider a contact sport, perhaps it’s time to apply some of those penalties to the electoral battles underway.
Let’s start with some of the “flagrant fouls” that could be called against current Mayor Bill Euille and former mayor Kerry Donley as they engage in the verbal and written jousts against Vice Mayor Allison Silberberg, who is the only duly nominated Democratic candidate for Mayor, based on her winning the public primary vote of June 9. Let us also remember she is not a neophyte, but the leading voter getter among all the candidates for the earlier 2012 election, and has served for three years. She has listened to the many residents who spoke at countless public hearings, while her council counterparts turned a deaf ear.
Let us also take the Title 9 legislation that “prohibits sex discrimination” in sports and add it to the political sphere in Alexandria, where two male politicians lost at the polls to a woman, so now their comments often have a definite misogynist touch. Women can and do compete on the field, on the court, in the stadiums, in the arenas— and at the ballot box. This mayoral race isn’t about gender or race. It’s about two male politicians who can’t believe that the voters turned them out — so there must be something wrong with “the process.”
Euille and Donley are joined in their assault against Silberberg by various surrogates.
There are some so-called Democrats who line the political field as cheer leaders. But they forget their job is to “root for the home team,” not for the players who were thrown out of the game in the June 9 election.
On Nov. 3, every voter gets to be an umpire. Voters can throw out Euille and Donley again, just like they did on June 9. This election isn’t about men versus women. It’s about $540 million in debt, unfettered growth, traffic congestion, an uneven tax base, overcrowded schools, plummeting numbers of affordable housing, and too little recreational and open space for our significant population. None of these items are “new” problems. Euille and Donley helped create many of these problems. Now it’s someone else’s turn to step up to solve them in a realistic way. Let’s start with Silberberg as mayor and with a council that isn’t hard of hearing when it comes to listening to the residents.
Kathy Burns
Alexandria