‘Testing Annan’s Sincerity’

Re: “Testing Annan’s Sincerity,” Editorial, July 11, 2005. With reference to your editorial “Testing Annan’s Sincerity,” I must point out that the United Nations meeting in Paris to which you object is an annual civil society conference, mandated by the General Assembly. It is quite normal that the secretary-general sent a message to the participants, stressing that Israelis and Palestinians must continue on the path of dialogue and refrain from acts of violence, and that civil society groups should be dedicated “to building bridges of understanding and reconciliation between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.” Indeed, he would be missing an opportunity if he did not send such a message.

Mr. Annan has repeatedly condemned suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism, whether carried out in London, Netanya, or anywhere else. You may feel that the U.N. civil society conference is one-sided – it would be less so if more Israeli or pro-Israeli groups took part – but to equate it with such acts of violence goes beyond the bounds of both decency and credibility.

EDWARD MORTIMER
Director of communications
Executive office of the secretary-general
The United Nations
Manhattan

‘Miller’s Mailings’

Re: “Miller’s Mailings,” Editorial, July 15, 2005. Gifford Miller’s behavior is outrageous, and your editorial suggesting that he might make amends merely by repaying the city for $1.6 million spent on mailings of self-serving agitprop does not go nearly far enough. Gifford Miller should be impeached.

What is more, it behooves Messrs. Morgenthau and Spitzer to launch criminal investigations into Mr. Miller’s abuse of public trust and public funds. Let’s see if either of those gentlemen have the gumption and the sense of outrage to take a fellow Democrat to task.

So much for the boy genius of 21st-century New York City politics. He is a grasping pol, nothing more.

JAY NEWMAN
Manhattan

‘Developer Reviled’

Re: “Developer Reviled on Upper West Side, Loved in Brooklyn,” Jeremy Smerd, Page 1, July 15, 2005. Cynthia Doty, the Upper West Sider who carped that “all [Gary Barnett is] doing here is maximizing his profit, not maximizing the benefit for the neighborhood,” ought not to apply such a pejorative tone to what is in fact Mr. Barnett’s, and Extell’s, moral right to use its purchased property for its own purposes, not the purposes of those who have not paid for the property in question. Current Upper West Side residents do not have a right to force incoming property owners to keep their neighborhood the way it is. Should this be their wish, their only right is to try and raise money to buy surrounding properties themselves, so as to keep them as they are. The meaning of ownership means the right to do with one’s property as one pleases.

Furthermore, Ms. Doty ought to check her premises to see if she is really as community-minded as she claims to be. Would New York City have such a perpetual shortage of housing, and the resultant exorbitant rents, if developers were allowed to build their buildings to whatever height they chose? If Ms. Doty cared about maximizing benefit, as she claims, she would watch as Extell increases the supply of available housing by making its building larger.

And now that I know that Extell has offered a competing bid to Bruce Ratner’s in my own borough of Brooklyn, I hope it wins – not because I believe that 28-story towers would be “better for the community” than Mr. Ratner’s Nets stadium complex, but because it would not violate the rights of the property owners being targeted by Mr. Ratner and his use of eminent domain.

STELLA DAILY
Brooklyn

Saving Energy

Re: “Audit: City Not Saving on Energy,” Julia Levy, New York, July 11, 2005. The city has set, in fact, a numeric energy reduction goal across the board: The Energy Policy Task Force January 21, 2004 report concluded that the city will need 2,600 megawatts of new electricity resources by 2008 to ensure continued reliability, promote economic growth, and address environmental issues.

QUESHAUN SUDBURY
Assistant Engineer
NYC Design and Construction
Long Island City, N.Y.

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