Open Letter to Squaw Creek Petition Signers

I am writing to all 240-plus of you to ask: Did you really mean to stop Willow Park’s plans to rebuild the dilapidated Squaw Creek Road and the leaking 50-year-old water line that runs under the road? The petition you signed last January and February that was circulated by council candidate Marcy Galle, in effect, did just that. 

The city council was a day away from authorizing Willow Park to borrow $10 million to pay for the long-needed project when the petition was submitted and stopped the process in its tracks. Yes, the petition calls for an election to put the question before voters. But the city council had publicly weighed that option and decided, since no tax increase involved, to OK the certificates of obligation and get the road work under way. 

Now, the soonest possible date for an election is November. So if you want Squaw Creek fixed, you will have to hope that voters will make their way through the long general election ballot and vote for the project. And hope that so-called “low-information voters” don’t just see the “$10 million” proposal and automatically vote “No.” 

If the vote fails, then what? Did the petition organizers tell you that if the proposal fails, the project cannot be brought back to voters for THREE YEARS. 

Did they tell you the city loses one million gallons of water a year from the old water lines, which city staff explained were laid in the 1970s on a bed of rocks with the road on top? 

Did they tell you that the city already had paid engineering fees of over $300,000 for the project? (I doubt we can come back next year and pick up the old plans if the voters OK it. Would your contractor agree to do next year’s job for last year’s cost?) Did they tell you the city was so far along in its planning that it had held town halls and notified residents along Squaw Creek about how construction would affect them in coming months? 

Did they make it clear that the city’s borrowing plan did not include any tax increase? That’s right, zero tax increase. 

I sat in the council meeting on Feb. 10 and watch this petition ploy play out. I was stunned. If you petition signers had been there, you should have been, too. The bond attorney stood at the lectern and made it crystal clear to everyone that his company had been ready to sell the bonds the next day (Willow Park has good credit), but legally the four city councilmen could not vote to give the OK. 

Under city rules, the mayor does not get a vote, but Mayor Theresa Palmer had, in effect, already voted — she signed the petition. So did the three challengers in next month’s city council election — Marcy Galle, Roy Kurban, and Houston Wingard. 

I hope when you go to the polls on May 2, you will soundly repudiate this kind of back-channel maneuvering. Please return to office COUNCILMEN NATHAN CRUMMEL, SCOTT SMITH, and BUDDY WRIGHT.

- Libby Afflerbach
Willow Park