Dear Editor:
In reading the “Community Notes” section of a different local newspaper, I see that Union City is to honor Pietro Di Donato on Saturday (unfortunately there was no location included.)
It is good to see that the city may be paying more attention to honoring “our own.” I have for years attempted to get the city to do so with the latest, though failed, attempt to honor our Nobel Prize winner and double Pulitzer Prize winner with plagues at their respective schools. A few years back I worked with Jessica Rosero from the Union City Reporter on a series of articles about the notable people with ties to our city; all of which should be recognized and honored by our city. Mr. Di Donato was in fact the subject of one those articles.
I’ve always said that while it is very nice to honor some of the people that have been honored in our city with school naming, park naming etc. etc., those people never set foot in our city much less lived or schooled here and all the while these people were being honored the other; or own; were being ignored.
Union City has the bragging rights for MANY notable people that made important contributions to the world in many areas including science, literature, art, sports etc…I hope to see more of the people that Jessica and I covered get their due recognition – they deserve it and it is long overdue. (While they’re at it, I hope they will recognize certain “locations” in the city as well.)
Kathie Pontus