To the Editor:
I read with utter disgust that Mayor Euille is pursuing a write-in campaign and that his supporters are multiplying this arrogance by claiming Vice Mayor Silberberg “lacks experience and is not ready” [“City’s Democrats Face Civil War,” Gazette Packet, Sept. 10]. They made the same arguments about her during the primary election, the results of which the mayor had pledged in advance to accept. She won, he lost. But the mayor and his cabal cannot accept the voters’ desire for new leadership with new, more independent ideas. After all, the cabal knows better than the voters, or so they think. They act as though they are the parens patriae of the city; that the city cannot survive without their “wisdom.” Perhaps the developers’ lobby is not yet ready to let them go.
In my 41 years as an Alexandria resident (15 years as an Old Town business owner), I have never been so outraged by the city’s ruling oligarchy. They are fueling cynicism and undermining what little confidence in government remains. If they remain disgruntled after Mayor Silberberg’s first term, citizen Euile can be run or re-election then. That is the way democracy is supposed to work.
James S. Ray
Alexandria