To the editor:

I would like to thank Robert Hundley and Roger Leonard for their opinions on what a disservice our city manager and new fire chief are doing our city (Opinion Page, March 30, 2014).

First, the city manager is getting far too high an annual salary, and then she slapped our local firefighters in the faces by bringing in a stranger from out of state to be fire chief, when a chief should have been selected from our own firefighters, who have lived here and served us well and who were hoping to become chief someday.

It seems strange to me that our city manager and fire chief have so much control over our council members that the council members feel they cannot vote to overrule some of their bad ideas.

Our city manager seems to be running our city, instead of the elected council members doing so. The elected council members are supposed to be carrying out the wishes of our citizens, not the ideas of the city manager. If they cannot do this, they need to step down.

I have lived in Suffolk all my life, and I would hate to see our city manager and fire chief destroy everything that has made our Suffolk such a desirable place to live.

Margaret Fanney

Suffolk