To the editor:

I fully support Independent candidate Mark Shiffer for city council. Shiffer deserves your vote. Take an extra two seconds to scan to the end of the city council list of candidates on your ballot when you vote. Shiffer will be the final printed name. Check that box first before voting for anyone else.

Three years ago, I ran as an Independent candidate for city council and I came in last. Many Republicans were displeased I didn’t run with them. Many Democrats told me I would have been elected if I had run with them. Party politics defy logic and lead to a government lacking in adequate discourse and ideas.

The past three years have made it clear that both the Democratic and Republican parties exist to serve themselves, and not we the people. I hope I was simply ahead of my time in the abandonment of party ideology.

I hope Alexandria just wasn’t ready for a non-party candidate in 2015. Alexandria needs to be ready now, in 2018. Shiffer is a left-leaning moderate, who has the strong character Alexandrians need and deserve on city council right now. He and I agree on how to address virtually all of the issues facing our city even though I’m a right-leaning moderate.

Democrats started voting for change in their June primary. Their slate of candidates is far from perfect. The time has come for change. The time has come for Nov. 6, 2018 to be known as Independents Day. The time has come for Mark Shiffer to be elected to Alexandria City Council as a true Independent, serving all of us.

-Phil Cefaratti, Alexandria City Council Candidate 2009 and 2015