The recent letter from Keith Livingston showed yet another attempt at political spin.

In the letter, he dares to suggest that a mayoral candidate who talks about public safety is “fear mongering.” He apparently wants the readers to forget the fact that public safety is the stated and agreed upon number one priority of our city government. Maybe safety doesn’t matter to him, but it matters to most of us.

And it should, considering the 25 percent increase in burglaries and 14 percent increase in car thefts in Federal Way, in just the past year. And we must not forget that Mayor Skip Priest has repeatedly cut the number of police officers in our city and rejected funding for three more in 2011 without input from the council.

Then, when announcing his re-election, the mayor used old numbers to try to claim that this is a safe city. He simply assumed no one was paying attention.

By the way, Mr. Livingston, the second priority of government is to provide infrastructure (roads, etc.) so that everything can work — not to spend all the tax dollars on an extravagant $32 million Performing Arts and Conference Center (PACC) project that a small group of citizens wants to force onto the rest of us.

Remember, it’s not just the cost to build the thing — it’s also the cost to operate it. And those dollars would come out of the same fund that pays for our police department. For those paying the bill, the $32 million PACC would be far and away the most expensive project this city has ever undertaken: twice the cost of our City Hall and 50 percent more that our Community Center, and we would be responsible for the salaries and any cost overruns.

I think Mr. Livingston has shown us very clearly why we need Jim Ferrell as our mayor. Ferrell won’t twist the facts and mislead us about the issues facing this city.

Dave McKenzie, Federal Way