Editor, the News-Herald:

I enjoyed reading your Friday’s Opinion Section on the city hiring a firm to call a few hundred Suffolk residents to assess their satisfaction. Here once again is an example of how the city can fritter away your tax dollars to help incumbent officials get re-elected. To me this idea smells and should be dropped immediately.

Low voter turnout has been the crux of the problem that has given our city council a false sense of satisfaction in the community. Apathy brought on by factors such as single candidates running unopposed or opposition candidates that lack funding, motivation or knowledge of the issues has given us a city council that rubber stamps the wishes of the city manger.

Your newspaper should do an informal survey by asking these five simple questions:

Has there been one significant issue the city council has been split on?

Has your council representative spoke publicly in support of your concerns?

Are you happy with the way the city has managed the police department, property taxes school system and the pace of growth?

Do you think the city is doing all it can to reduce spending and cut waste?

Has your council member met with you in the past year?

The answer to all the above is probably no.

Until Suffolk’s political parties give us qualified candidates and better contested election campaigns, we’re in for more of the same dated, tired attitudes. The city can save themselves the cost of the survey, its obvious the &uot;Old-boys&uot; won’t get motivated until we start to give them the boot.

Nathan Greene

Suffolk