Mr. Howard Taliaferro stopped by my house last week while I was working in the yard to request my signature for his petition. After engaging me in a discussion about the wastewater system upgrade, I informed him that we need to maintain our infrastructure.

Trying to hold the sewer upgrades hostage as a form of punishment for the city buying the park land is stupid. What’s done is done.

As for me, I say, “thanks” to the City of Chandler for maintaining our wastewater system. Having commodes that flush and a sewer system that runs properly is important to me.

Was the land acquisition a necessity? I don’t know. But I do know I do not want sewer problems because of a faulty system. If Mr. Taliaferro doesn’t like the way the City of Chandler operates, then voting out city council members is the best way to change things. Creating an election for every kind of infrastructure upgrade is not what our founding fathers envisioned for our country.

With current voter apathy, these petition elections present too great a risk for special-interest groups to accomplish an agenda. It is much easier to sit on the bleachers and hurl insults than to actually get out on the field and play.

If this matter goes to a vote, I will always vote for a properly operating wastewater system. Punishing the City of Chandler by voting “no” for sewer upgrades is not the answer to the land acquisition issue.

Mr. Taliaferro needs to stick to the subject of his complaint, which is the land acquisition. Making a power play by holding the wastewater upgrades hostage is not the right thing to do.

Galen F. Morrison

Chandler, Texas