Letters: Don’t scare people away from downtown Columbia

I take exception to the advice in the May 6 article about all the events going on in downtown Columbia: “if you don’t have a good reason to be there, you might want to avoid the area altogether for a couple of hours.”

Why not just report the facts and put your advice in the Opinion section where it belongs?

The message you are sending is that Columbia is not equipped to handle more than one large event at a time. USC graduation ceremonies and the Crawfish Festival are annual events. I have confidence that Columbia officials responsible for safety and traffic control were aware of these events as well as other concurrent events, and were coordinating resources to manage traffic.

Why not reassure the public that every effort will be made to keep traffic moving, rather than telling people that, in your opinion, “It all should make for a memorable, albeit street-clogged, Saturday.”

Rather than discouraging people from coming to the city, let’s send positive messages about Columbia and invite people to come and enjoy everything the city has to offer at any time on any day of the year.