Star Wars To the Editor, What exactly is your fascination with The Arizona Daily Star? Why is it that every week I pick up your paper I see excerpts and barbs hurled at the Star? If the Star is guilty of "warm and fuzzy" journalism, then you are just as guilty of the same boring tripe every time you denegrate them. Please! We all realize what a bland rag we're getting when we read the Star. We don't need your pot-shots to remind us. Come on guys, it's getting pretty boring. --Bob Tyszko Only The Shadow Knows To the Editor, Regarding "Shadow Mayor" (Tucson Weekly, May 16) by a pseudo-journalist using the name of Ed Cuestas, there are some inaccuracies that need to be clarified. 1. Councilman Leal and I spoke during a recess. I did not drag or pull Councilman Leal out of a meeting or study session. 2. Nor did I state the Prop 200 folks were going to mount a recall against Leal. Water was the least of our conversation. I have worked with and supported other council members, including the Mayor. If memory serves me right, I believe I stated, "I had helped put some of them in office, and I was going to work to get them out of office." I will now expand on my statement to include at least two others on my "get-them-out-of-office" list. There were other issues on the agenda I was interested in, not just water. A bureaucratic journalist wrongly presumed a conversation took place between Councilman Leal and myself. It would appear the phantom would also like to reverse Leal's water votes. It is evident this article is a political hit piece. Does the originator of this article have the huevos to take off his white hood and step forward? In the meantime, we will just regard Ed Cuestas in the same light we would a midnight obscene telephone caller--as a coward. By the way, I will not let this anonymous article serve the purpose of keeping me away from council meetings. I will be seeing you, Ed Cuestas, whoever you are, and I won't be hiding behind a white hood. --Myra L. Jones To the Editor, I wasn't sure whether to be amused or offended by the mean-spirited misinformation contained in "Shadow Mayor" (Tucson Weekly, May 16) about Ward 5 Council person Steve Leal. The cowardly "Ed Cuestas" (why else does he attack an elected official anonymously--protecting a nice cushy job on the public dole, maybe?) spews forth such nonsense and falsehood that it would be difficult to take it seriously, except that it was printed in a widely read local publication. Case in point: The business about the planned multiservice center for Freedom Park, located at Swan Road and 29th Street. The council and the mayoral support for this project was the culmination of several months' worth of grass roots political activity on the part of residents of Corbett Neighborhood (located in Ward 4, just east of Craycroft along the 29th Street corridor) and not from Leal's Ward 5 office. Ultimately, Leal and other council members allied themselves with and supported this effort, but the important fact is that the initiative began and was sustained by common citizens who exercised their rights to take a stand and advocate a position in the public arena. It's unfortunate that Cuestas could not bring himself to acknowledge and celebrate this kind of citizen participation in public life. Cuestas also cynically suggests that Leal's enthusiasm for the center at Freedom Park stems from a belief that it will somehow solve many of the problems Ward 5 faces. It is true that a multiservice center will not magically solve all of the problems of juvenile crime, family stress, and lack of economic and educational opportunities, but the fact is that a multiservice center that provides variety of social, health, education and recreation services to residents living in the service area positively affects the quality of life for all the residents in that area. Why else would the City of Tucson over the years have allocated millions of dollars to expand the facilities and programming at Northwest Neighborhood Center, El Rio Neighborhood Center, Fred Archer Neighborhood Center and El Pueblo Neighborhood Center? The Freedom Park center will primarily serve the 29th Corridor, an area centered on 29th Street stretching from Alvernon Way to Wilmot Road, and an area of high family stress. The center's entire service area will encompass parts of Ward 4, 5 and 6. Far from having manipulated pork for Ward 5, Mr. Leal has supported a facility that will benefit many people in a large area. This has been a turf issue only for those who have opposed the Freedom Park proposal from the start, "Ed Cuestas" included. --Gary J. Bahman Home Is Where The Dough Is To the Editor, In your comments about vanishing reportage in The Arizona Daily Star, you neglected to mention that while other sections grow thinner (on news at least), the Star manages to crank out not one but two "Home" sections every Sunday. One might be tempted to think this represents a shift in staffing priority to emphasize reader interest (we all have to live somewhere, right?), but another, darker thought occurs: Is it possible this section is actually written by Realtors and other commercial interests on the supply side of the housing market? No, it couldn't be. --Dan Parslow We Want Letters! Thrilled by our brilliant insights? Sick of our mean-spirited attacks? 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