Dear Fellow Dems,

Alexandria did what some of us think was an excellent job putting across her ideas and stating her positions. She worked hard as a candidate and got her message out. She was clearly a person of dedication, and a person to trust.

But she says, "The voice of the environment is getting increasingly lost" when locally it has never been louder, more influential, and more impacting on our lives. Roads, trash, recycling, historic preservation are just four areas we read about week after week.

She says, "The voice of preservation and appreciating what we already have is not being heard" and as we all know that voice dominates our party, our newspapers, our TV news, sometimes our mail box. In Charlottesville it is clearly being heard and heeded.

It wasn't a great surprise that Alexandria's positions didn't fare well. Could the voters have sent the message that extremism in preserving mundane 1920s buildings is no virtue; being in favor of the Meadowcreek Parkway is no vice?

Rey Barry (electronic mail, May 9, 2002)