Letters: A year-end plea for a better city

AS THE new year approaches and we try to forget about the bad things that happened in 2013, let's all focus on making this a better city to live in.

There wasn't a day that I could pick up the paper and not read about some kind of horrific crime being committed. There were so many things happening that there are days that I cried for the victims. Muggings, teenagers going around on the street playing a game punching people in the face and robbing them.

This particular letter is also addressed to Mayor Nutter. This has to do with the future of this city, our children. What is going on in this city? School closings, teachers being laid off, no nurses in the schools, but yet an ice-skating rink is being built outside City Hall - and yet another prison is being built.

You better build that prison because, dear mayor, you are going to need it from all the crime being committed because of lack of education. What do you think is going to come out of this? I pray that this situation only gets better. You see, after reading all the negative things, my mind is working to figure out how I can make my city better. I've already testified at the Council meeting held by Jannie Blackwell a couple of months ago, and guess what? The mayor never showed.

The interest that I have in making the schools a better place is that, a little over a year ago, my grandson, who is autistic, was overdosed by the principal of the school he attends because there are no nurses in the schools.

So I plead with the mayor, City Council and whoever else makes these decisions: Please don't take any more teachers out of the schools. Rehire the ones that were laid off and please put the nurses back in the schools, because there isn't a day that goes by that I am not afraid for my grandson to be given the wrong medicine again.

Carol A Piazzo

Philadelphia

No bargain

Apparently 40 million of us were wearing the red bull's-eye when we shopped at Target between Black Friday and Dec. 15.

I wonder if that Nigerian guy who was always trying to "give us money" - yet no one takes him seriously - is behind this cyber crime.

Jim Acton

Collegeville, Pa.