Downtown has the potential to offer great entertainment

Downtown has the potentialto offer great entertainment
EDITOR:
As I write this, I have just returned from a most wonderful evening at the Cedar's Restaurant and Lounge, where I was treated to world class entertainment. Yes, WORLD CLASS entertainment.
There have been so very many times when I have promised myself to go downtown to partake of what is offered. I made it a reality the evening that Kathy Chiavola and Beppe Gambetta, singers and guitarists, were performing. In the past I have had wonderful evenings having dinner at the Cedar's and attending a Youngstown Symphony concert at Powers Auditorium. This, obviously, is not an unknown venue to me.
I had the good fortune of living for 10 years in New Jersey, an hour (when traffic was heavy) out of New York City. This means that I attended many events in the city, Greenwich Village, Soho and other areas of NYC. I remember so clearly being at the Felt Forum in Madison Square Garden for a benefit concert for migrant workers. The jazz concerts, the New York flute club, the N.Y. Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera. To compare tonight's entertainment with what I have experienced in NYC leads me to believe that those in attendance this evening were treated to world class entertainment. It can't get much better than that!
And how exciting that late next year, Youngstown will have a convocation center where, hopefully, I will be able to enjoy arena football and concerts, which means not having to travel to either Cleveland or Pittsburgh to enjoy the best there is to offer.
Kudos to the Youngstown Arts and Entertainment District Association and David Simon for helping make all this come to fruition.
SHIRLEY A. BARTLETT
Boardman
Sweet should follow exampleset by other universities
EDITOR:
In the past couple of weeks, the boards of trustees of Miami University of Ohio, Ohio University, Cleveland State University and Ohio State University have approved full benefits to same-sex domestic partners of faculty and staff.
Why is David Sweet taking so long to fall in line?
Where is the faculty union's negotiating team on this matter? Is Sweet waiting for contract negotiations so that he can, through John Habat and Tom Maraffa, bargain, or better yet, sell this benefit to the faculty negotiating team? And is that team waiting to purchase it? They all would probably agree to having faculty and staff pay 10 percent of their health-care premium as the right price.
If this is what they're all waiting for, then they are wrong. Other Ohio state universities have simply granted this benefit to their faculty and staff -- no bargaining, no selling. Sweet and the union's negotiating team ought to grant this benefit because it is the fair and right thing to do. And what is fair and right is not negotiable, not for sale. You just do it.
GABRIEL PALMER-FERNANDEZ
Youngstown
XThe writer is director of the Dr. James Dale Ethics Center and a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University.
Patience sometimes pays off
EDITOR:
It is unfortunate that we citizens of Youngstown and the surrounding area must read and hear about one more fellow citizen who was in a position of trust with the ability to uphold the law, but instead chose actions that caused him to have his law license suspended. I am referring to Mr. Mark Colucci.
The only thing more unfortunate about this is that his license was not suspended before he played his part in ruining the reputation of a local parish priest, the Rev. Dennis Bliss. Well, we all have heard that the Lord works in strange ways, and somewhere I have heard, "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." Doesn't it make you wonder?
GERRY VASKO
Youngstown