Artful activities abound in Glendale

The Alex Theatre was rockin’, the audience was cheering and the Glendale Pops Orchestra was fantastic. Kenny Loggins, David Benoit and Monica Mancini were magic.

If you missed it back in May, you missed the beginnings of another jewel in Glendale’s crown. I believe the Glendale Pops Orchestra, under the direction of Conductor Matt Catingub (“A new name, a new leader,” March 22), has found a wonderful home in our city.

I’m joining Kenny to “Celebrate Me Home” this new orchestra and all that it brings to us.

You have a chance to join the excitement on June 30 when the beautiful, Grammy-winning Patti Austin joins the Pops on the green at the Americana at Brand for “Summer Night Swing.”

If the premiere in May is any indication of the fun to come, then Patti’s appearance will be a highlight of your summer.

Come early, have dinner at one of Glendale’s fine restaurants, do some shopping at the Americana or the Galleria and make it a great afternoon and evening.

Did I mention that the concert is free?

Great cities have great arts programs, and now, thanks to Glendale Arts, this city is no exception.

I’m looking forward to seeing you there.

Harry Hull¿

Glendale¿

Editor’s note: Hull is a member of the Board of Directors for Glendale Arts.

Garcia has what it takes

Most refreshing to this subscriber was reading that Michael Garcia was appointed our next city attorney come this August (“City Council confirms new city attorney,” June 16).

Also kudos to our city manager for looking within the department, as was the case with Community Development Director Hassan Haghani, thereby saving the city thousands of dollars by not engaging an outside consulting firm to look on a national scale.

Garcia has had the rare experience in working under one of our great city attorneys, Scott Howard. When he takes the helm in August, all of us can rest assured of his decision-making, council opinions, supervising of his staff, being a team leader, working with people, being able to lead, paying attention to detail and lastly, ability to save money, time and resources by carefully evaluating cases where the city may come out on the short end.

There’s no doubt in my mind from his past performances during his tenure in the department that Garcia will make a great city attorney and will be uniquely qualified as an instructor in teaching ethics in government.

Gary Cornell

Glendale

Editor’s note: Cornell is on the Community Development Block Grant Advisory Committee.

Grandstanding political weasels

While most Americans feel bad that Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Turkish government back in 1915, I don’t believe it is the business of our elected representatives to be cleaning up for foreign governments (“Political Landscape: Schiff still fighting for genocide resolution,” June 19). If our public servants truly had an ounce of courage, they would be calling on our government to recognize the genocide of millions of native Americans at the hands of our own government here.

But if they want to continue with these pointless resolutions admonishing foreign governments, why don’t they sponsor a bill that would call on the British Empire to recognize its systematic genocide of my own Irish by starvation back in the 1850s, when more than 1 million innocent Irish people died?

Let’s see if our representatives have a backbone at all — or are all just simply overpaid, grandstanding political weasels?

Tim Ryder

Glendale