In response to Ronnie Kel- ey's letter to the editor printed Oct. 26 in The Post-Standard: Conservatives and liberals alike have enough differences to 3e concerned about without at- taching emotionally charged 'enemy of America" labels to one another. We may reasonably believe that the policies of different par- ties arc harming this country, but let's not resort to attacking their patriotism. In a recent poll, the residents of our community voted 2 to 1 in favor of the Destiny USA proj- ect. And as always one of our elected officials, this time a Syr- acuse Common Council mem- ber, Stephanie Miner, has spo- ken out against the poll stating that the residents don't know the true facts of the Destiny project. How can our elected official be against a project of this mag- nitude? Have you not witnessed the economic decline of our city? There is nothing being buil t here, there are no jobs, ;md the fact is our city residents are moving elsewhere. The bottom line, there is no investment into our community. During a recent telephone poll, I hung up after about six questions. I said to myself. "This has to be a Mahoney ruse." I was offended by the slant of the questions. Moreover, for Joanic to say the race wil l get negative is a joke. The negativity started with the Mahoney camp! The Mahoney people arc doing their best to impugn the charac- ter of Matt Driscoll. They do not want the real is- sues to surface — the issue of who controls the "destiny" of Syracuse, whose money speaks volumes in this town, develop- ment controlled by personal in- terest and greed vs. the needs of the community. Gel real. The people need to know that the Congcls and Falconcs of this world have us by the wallet — our wallet as taxpayers lor their PILOT interests. Driscoll is doing a good job bucking this and needs to be congratulated: not sniped at.

Maurice Kaufman was at the store for just a few minutes. Thursday, but by the time he re­ turned home, smoke was pouring out of every cranny pf his house. "I wasn't gone that long," saio. man, 45, Sill a s n e watched firefight­ ers work to extinguish the blaze. "I get back and I see smoke and I come flying through here. I thought it was the neighbor's house, but it was my house." Kaufman's wife, Dee Washing­ ton, and the couple's three young children were in the home, which they rent from the Grassy Creek Mobile Home Park, when the fire broke out. The fire was started by one of the children who was playing with a lighter and caught a bed on fire, said Capt. John Huddle, Rocking­ ham County assistant fire marshal. Washington was getting ready for a doctor's appointment when she noticed smoke, gathered the children, evacuated the house and called 911, Kaufman said. Emergency officials received a call shortly after 2 p.m. of a struc­ ture fire at 1668 Stockings Circle in the southeastern part of the county, Huddle said. Huddle said there was damage throughout the home but he could not give an dollar, estimate