Asking "Will you ever hold them accountable?", Bykofsky advocates voting for GOP candidates as a means of sounding a wake-up call to entrenched Democrats that citizens will no longer tolerate municipal corruption.

I agree wholeheartedly with his view that municipal corruption, in all its forms, is a blight that city government needs to work much harder to erase - but I could not disagree more that the answer to a more effective district attorney's office is to elect an inexperienced candidate with few ideas and fewer solutions just to make a political point.

This election, and the office of D.A., is too important to Philadelphia's future and the safety of its citizens. There have been 230 homicides in our city so far this year, and the confidence of Philadelphians in the effectiveness of our criminal-justice system has never been lower. Violent career criminals are released from prison to prey on our neighborhoods, illegal guns can be obtained cheaply in nearly every section of the city, and the victims and witnesses of crime are so afraid of retaliation from criminals that they refuse to come forward.

This is no time to take lightly the impact that an effective D.A.'s office can have on making our city livable again. As Bykofsky rightly points out, "There is no Democratic or Republican way to fight crime, and the D.A. should relish pouncing on corrupt politicians. Democratic D.A. Lynne Abraham, bless her, had little stomach for putting Dems in handcuffs."

I served for two years as the city's inspector general, and, during that tenure, my office investigated hundreds of cases of municipal corruption by city employees and elected officials, a great many of those targets being Democrats. My office was effective precisely because we approached every case in an unbiased manner.

There were many city employees, including appointees of the former mayor, who were terminated as a result of our investigations. When we left the office, incoming Mayor Nutter praised the hard work of the IG staff in our efforts to end the long-standing Democratic practice of pay-to-play politics.

The key to Philadelphia's goal of a more effective D.A.'s office is to elect a more effective district attorney.

THERE MAY NOT be a Democratic or Republican way to fight crime, but there is a right way and wrong way. The wrong way would be to elect a D.A. based on sending a message to either political party. The right way is to elect a district attorney based on a platform of sound ideas and practical, real-world solutions to our broken criminal-justice system.

I hope people vote on Nov. 3, and I hope they will vote for me - not because of party affiliation, but because I am the best candidate to fill this important role at a critical time in our city's history.

Seth Williams is the Democratic candidate for district attorney.