Letter writers err
Editor, The Commercial:
Mayor Washington did not say that.
In her State of the City address, the mayor identified some 20 projects “going on in the city” as reported by Eplunus Colvin in the Feb. 24, 2024, edition of The Commercial.
A letter attributed to “Earl and Ora Mays, Pine Bluff,” published Feb. 27, 2024, took the mayor to task, asserting she had “no significant role” in starting and funding this project. (The project referred to is titled “Coleman Elementary Safe to School Project.”)
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Ms. Colvin’s report contains about 1,000 words; not one of those is the pronoun “I.” The mayor “spoke about infrastructure development in the city such as…,” Ms. Colvin reported; Mr. Earl and Ms. Ora repeated the phrase in their letter.
“Such as” makes it clear: the mayor identified what success looks like. And this success happened on the mayor’s watch. It’s cliché time: With respect to villages and children, it takes … well, you know.
Taylor Eubank,
Pine Bluff