I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I just finished reading the content of the recent exchange between City Council and the city solicitor regarding take-home cars ("Mayor, City Council Tussle Over Who's in Charge of Take-Home Cars," March 20). What a shame that even simple common-sense issues have to become so political.

The city has been distressed financially for quite some time, so why did it take so long for someone to ask the question as to whether all these "taxpayer-owned" take-home vehicles were necessary? Common sense should dictate what positions require 24-hour response and which ones do not. No one has asked the question previously because most of these vehicles are "perks" and not necessities.

Somehow, some way, governments need to manage to a bottom line like the private sector. Taxpayers need to demand accountability and performance like shareholders do in the private sector. Whether City Council is overstepping its bounds or not, someone needs to ask these questions. The honest hard-working city employees are the ones I feel most badly for. Not only are they city taxpayers, but also their jobs are directly impacted by this waste. They have been asked for years to get more done with fewer resources and many times at stagnant pay.

RUDY WESTPHAL
Mt. Lebanon

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So the Lord & Taylor building has sat vacant for the past three years ("Downtown's Former Mellon Bank Building a Tough Sell," March 17). Why am I not surprised? Converting the venerable Mellon Bank building into yet another department store -- one with higher prices and worse selection than neighbor Kaufmann's (whoops, Macy's) and lower-quality goods than neighbor Saks -- was a bad idea from the start. Especially since it involved destroying the irreplaceable interior of the building.

Even though I wasn't a Mellon customer, I used to walk through it just to take in its massive marble columns, vast open space and over-the-top robber baron decor. It was a shrine to a certain style of capitalism, worth preserving both for its aesthetic qualities and as a reminder of the excesses of the past. Now, it's just another failed urban renewal project.

Thanks, former Mayor Tom Murphy, for blowing millions of dollars of tax money on sucking up to yet another corporation that bugged out of town after trashing a local landmark. Your grand dreams have frittered away our architectural heritage. As the Joni Mitchell song says, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone."

NANCY OTT
Aspinwall

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I have known Linda Bruno for many years and visited Tiger Ranch ("Advocates Rally Around Woman Charged With Cat Abuse," March 20).

The animals I saw there were happy and loving. There was a beauty there with all of the animals together that touched my heart in a lovely way. Accusing her of animal cruelty is a mockery. Michael Vick and the people who did those terrible things to the dogs that were in the news recently are examples of cruelty, not a women whose only crime is that she tried to do too much good because the rest of the people do so little.

Tiger Ranch is unique and cannot be compared to other shelters.

The animals are allowed to roam freely as they would want under the care of someone who does the best she can for them. So she lets them die naturally, allowing them the same dignity that we do people. Some people just can't kill, and in this violent world we need more of that.

Now all kinds of help is coming to Lin's animals. If those people who saw fit to betray her because they disagreed with her would have helped her instead, Tiger Ranch could still be open and doing the work that the animals so need.

They should have taken the words of Lincoln to heart: "He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help."

MARY J. KRASZCZAK
South Side

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When Mayor Luke Ravenstahl decided to close Market Square early on March 15 to preserve the "family" orientation of the St. Patrick's Day parade events in Downtown Pittsburgh, he had decided that since many St. Patrick's Day revelers went to the South Side after the parade, they could just go there several hours earlier to drink.

When he unleashed all the St. Patrick's Day drinkers on us, I can only conclude that he thinks there are no families in the South Side and, hence, no need to preserve a "family" orientation there.

On behalf of myself and other "families" who do reside in the South Side, I would like to challenge the mayor's assumptions.

From as early as 10 a.m., I could hear shouting in the streets. By 2 p.m., I could barely walk down the sidewalks. But I couldn't even leave, since illegally parked cars were blocking my garage. Around 6 p.m., I did see a few families with children walking around. I wonder what the parents said to their children when the families came upon the unconscious young person who was sprawled on the sidewalk surrounded by police and spectators?

If Mayor Ravenstahl has designated the South Side as the "non-family" oriented neighborhood in which anything goes, could he please start a program to buy out the families who do still live there before their property values fade away? Or at the very least, can he build a parking garage for the residents so that they can escape during those times when the South Side is designated a "non-family" zone?

ELAINE LUTHER
South Side

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Senate Bill 1250, the Pennsylvania Marriage Protection Amendment, is in direct violation of my religious beliefs as a Zen Buddhist priest ("Panel OKs Constitutional Ban on Gay Marriage," March 19).

I am a strong advocate of marriage and live under a strict ethical code (which predates Christianity). That code of ethics guides my actions toward kindness, compassion and generosity and not toward anger, hatred and bigotry.

Our commonwealth was organized for the benefit of all its citizens. It is time we take down (not put up) the signs saying "No gays allowed."

REV. KYOKI ROBERTS
Head Priest
Zen Center of Pittsburgh
Bell Acres

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As the debate heats up about gun ownership in the District of Columbia ("Supreme Court Tackles Gun Ban," March 19), the same issues on both sides always arise.

We can quote Spider-Man: "With power comes responsibility," or G.K. Chesterton: "To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."

But my favorite of course is, "If you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have guns."

MICHAEL PAJEWSKI
Indiana Township

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Surely it must have been a slip for New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd to align the artistry of my late husband, Gene Kelly, with the president's clumsy performances ("Soft Shoe in Hard Times," March 17). To suggest that "George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly" represents not only an implausible transformation but a considerable slight. If Gene were in a grave, he would have turned over in it.

When Gene was compared to the grace and agility of Jack Dempsey, Wayne Gretzky and even Pittsburgh's own Roberto Clemente, he was delighted. But to be linked with a clunker -- particularly one he would consider inept and demoralizing -- would have sent him reeling.

Graduated with a degree in economics from Pitt, Gene was not only a gifted dancer, director and choreographer; he was also a most civilized man. He spoke multiple languages, wrote poetry, studied history; he actually read the treatises of Marx and Engels and understood the projections of Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. He did the Sunday New York Times crossword in ink.

Much of this intellectual curiosity was fostered right there in Steeltown during the Depression -- at the university, where Gene memorized the "new" poems of Robert Frost and read the works of Lincoln Steffens and Upton Sinclair, and in after-hours discussions at Kahn's, when he met with other young men to ponder what was wrong with the country.

Exceedingly articulate, Gene often conveyed more through movement than others manage with words. Sadly, President Bush fails to communicate meaningfully with either. For George Bush to become Gene Kelly would require impossible leaps in creativity, erudition and humility.

PATRICIA WARD KELLY
Los Angeles, Calif.

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