To the Editor:

The high school candidate opposing Mayor Lee for the third ward city commission seat complains that the city commissioners were incompetent in not securing the funding to finish the Lock 9 Project. The new resident candidate wanting your vote has stated that his political mentor and “Bonus Mom” is Past Mayor and current City Commissioner Kazy Hinds. Yet, it was under Past Mayor Hinds that funding was not secured for completion and future maintenance on the Lock 9 project.

Recently, the project has been delayed because of the Covid pandemic that stalled plans, work, materials, and time tables.

It was under Past Mayor Hinds that the current candidate, as a member of the Piqua Park Board, voted to demolish the current Piqua Swimming Pool. Past Mayor Hinds’ neglected maintenance on the safe place for Piqua children to swim with their parents and friends after she ignored maintenance on the pool until it was in a state beyond repair. The Hance Pavilion’s maintenance was also brushed off under Past Mayor Hinds in favor of the unelected elitists’ downtown projects thereby forfeiting the use of the city’s historic Hance Pavilion, perhaps forever.

The high school student’s infatuation with Past Mayor Hinds and what she has done to the city, such as handing the residents the highest utility bills in the city’s history, shows how uninformed the recent transplant is. The youthful candidate, who is encouraged by Past Mayor Hinds, is hopeful for control of an uninformed vote they can count on to put Past Mayor Hinds back into the mayor’s spot. Such a move would put Piqua back into the unelected elitists’ efforts of promoting their projects with little thought to letting citizens vote on issues, keeping those projects at tax payer’s expense, and ignoring on-going maintenance and budgets.

These tactics may fool some new arrivals, like the high school student candidate, but it doesn’t fool the residents who have lived here for years and operated under a select unelected few who could control the city commission and city manager.

With the election of City Commissioners Grissom, Fogt, and Lee the city, and their hiring of a new city manager; Piqua has become more economically responsible, transparent, and citizen centered. It is not time to go back to the ineffective, parochial, self-centered, egotistical limited thinking of a few.

Re-elect City Commissioner Grissom and City Commissioner Mayor Lee to keep improving Piqua.

— Terry D. Wright

Piqua