Wow! Thanks so much to City Newspaper and Rochester for selecting M & T Clothesline Festival as #1 in Best Outdoor Art.

GOLISANO as the best visionary? You have GOT to be kidding me! True, his philanthropy is unquestioned and his foundations accomplish great things. However, the honor should have gone to KaeLyn Rich. As current director of the Genesee Valley Civil Liberties Union, as well as involved in other local non-profits, she selflessly works to promote the civil and human rights of EVERYONE in this area. Just because she does not posess the funding that Mr. Golisano has does NOT diminish the quality and the necessity of her work. Next time you're in the voting booth, thank the gods for people like KaeLyn who commit themselves to ensuring free expression and legal representation for ALL.

The Best Place to Take an Out-of-Towner is a SUPERMARKET???? There's the Eastman House, the MAG, GV Park, Corn Hill, Highland Park, Artisan Works, the big cemetery, ALL of Park Ave, NoTA, The Public Market, a myriad of summer festivals, and you're telling me that people voted to show out-of-towners a supermarket? I've lived in this place all of 3 years, and I have barely begun to explore this city, but I KNOW that if I went up to someone and asked what the best place to see in town is and they said Wegmans, I would have moved a week later.

I seriously smell shenanigans in this year's "Best of"...

Chris: There are no shenanigans. I'll clarify this again, since there always seems to be confusion about this. The readers' poll results are determined exclusively by popular vote. City Newspaper has zero say in the matter. The Final 4 choices were determined by the open-ended Primary Ballot, which ran online in September and received thousands of responses; people could write in whatever they pleased in the 100 categories. The top local choices from the Primary Ballot became the Final Ballot, which ran in print and online during most of October and received more than double the number of votes as the Primary Ballot. All we do is tally up the votes, and we watch for ballot stuffing and suspect ballots very closely.

City realizes that people don't always agree with some of the decisions (frankly, WE don't always agree with them). But this is simply how the people who took the survey voted. I'm glad that people are taking the opportunity to put their thoughts on the best of Rochester in the comments on these articles. But please do not allege some kind of conspiracy or shenanigans. We work very hard to make sure the balloting is as ethical as possible.