To the Editor:
I am amused by the never-ending chorus of letters in the local papers endorsing political candidates for city council. And now we even have the emergence of political action committees supporting rival states of candidates. Who do these people think they are? Are they so full of themselves that they think they can tell a naive general public who to vote for?
I think it is up to the individual citizen to decide who to vote for, if they decide to exercise their enfranchisement at all.
And obviously many residents of Alexandria choose not to participate in local elections. Voter turnout in these elections has been notoriously low over the years. However, I don't think moving the city council and school board elections to November was a good idea. Mixing them in with state and national elections diverts attention away from local issues.
I have voted in every city council election since May 1979, when I was an 18-year-old freshman at George Mason University, but I am the exception to the rule. Most of the people I grew up with in the 1960s and 1970s from the richest to the poorest have long since fled the city of Alexandria.
The plethora of campaign signs littering the landscape is an eyesore and should be curbed. I am not influenced by someone telling me whom I should be voting for. I can make up my own mind, thank you very much.
Gregory G. Paspatis
Alexandria