To the Editor:

To the candidate running for the 3rd Ward Piqua City Commission seat, your letter requesting votes based on: 1.) improving the downtown and, 2.) more home owners vs tenant occupancy sounds like the same empty gong we have been hearing from the unelected elitists who controlled the city manager and most of the city commissioners for years.

You stated in your letter that you have only lived in the town for not quite three years. You need to check and learn a little about the way the town has been pushed into situations that will cost the tax payers for years to come without a thought to even letting those tax payers vote on those issues.

You talked about the downtown. The unelected elitists and complacent commissioners and city managers they could control, focused entirely on the downtown for years at the detriment to the city’s parks and municipal pool, which was under their charge. The quest for the downtown promotion has taken precedent over city infrastructure for years.

You mention more home owners vs tenant occupancy. The unelected elitists and their cronies in city government have kept industries and businesses out of this town for years through over regulation. They did not want wage competition and any firm moving in that they couldn’t control. New Industries and businesses coming to town would have brought jobs paying a viable wage with a tax base that would have off set infrastructure cost and helped with the enormous utility rates for which we can thank Mayor Hinds. I was born and raised here and I can tell you there were at least 19 different large industries located here when I was growing up. The jobs kept out of Piqua are the home owners who would have filled the properties.

You have shown, in your letter, that you know nothing about the town and simply want to go back to the same unelected elitists’ power and control which got us into this enormous debt while tax payers are burdened for years of projects’ cost and maintenance charges for which the residents weren’t even given a chance to vote for or against.

— Terry D. Wright

Piqua