I AM WRITING TO TAKE issue with the import and some of the statements contained in your piece on the law firm Wilkes, Artis, Hedrick & Lane (“Whayne’s World,” 3/31).

As the president of the Burleith Citizens’ Association at the time of the negotiations with Georgetown University and a current member of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E for the Burleith area, I had many encounters with the Wilkes, Artis attorney who did most of the negotiating on behalf of the university, Maureen Dwyer. I found her to be honest and straightforward on every issue.

It is true that some of the activists on the cogenerator issue had an abiding and unexplained hatred of the law firm of Wilkes, Artis, and it is true that the cogenerator will never be built, but it is also true that the dormitories will probably never be built either. As representatives of the university and Dwyer made clear to us thousands of times, the dormitories, which the communities saw as saving our neighborhoods, depended on funds from the cogenerator. The activists (and there only was a handful of them) made a choice: fight the cogenerator or help to build dorms. They chose to fight the cogenerator, and in an election year, the outcome was clear. It had little to do with the effectiveness of the lawyers involved.

Burleith