To the Editor:

As owner of a Main Street business with a perfectly functioning septic system I have the following questions:

1. Will Main Street connections be made mandatory even though I have a septic system?

2. Will I be required to remove my functioning septic system?

3. What does the Village of Salado project as the cost of connection to the new sewer system?

4. When the septic system is expanded to service the residential areas will connection be mandatory?

It must also be noted that to physically remove a functioning septic system will be thousands of dollars.

It is my observation that much of the negotiations between the Village of Salado and the Sanctuary have been conducted with little input from the businesses and residents of Salado.  I understand that negotiations can not be done totally in public.  I also understand those negotiations with little input from the residents and businesses of Salado are wrong.  It is wrong to present the deal as a “done deal” without additional input from the residents and businesses of Salado.

A sewer system will enhance the value of Main Street Property and I will benefit from this.  However, the main beneficiary will be those that have a high volume of sewer use, such as restaurants, wineries, breweries, etc. that can not now open due to septic tank restrictions.  My business does not need a sewer connection.  Other businesses do.  In effect we will be subsidizing those businesses by our bills for a sewer connection we do not need.

Please bring my concerns and questions to the attention of our city government.

Respectfully

Charles Dunifer

To the Editor:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;  but who doses actually strive to do the deeds; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”    Theodore Roosevelt

The road forward is never an easy one.   For the Village of Salado over the last several years, it has been the stuff of nightmares.   In the Table of Contents for this digest of bad dreams are:  (*) a seemingly never-ending Interstate construction project   (*) the closing of the single most identifiable landmark in our village, the Stagecoach Inn   (*) the on again, off again Sanctuary saga,  (*) Sewer and Wastewater Treatment Plant issues.  (*) There are street maintenance projects in every direction, (*) long needed revision of arcane and unworkable ordinances, and (*) the encroachment of several projects surrounding our boundaries that threaten land-lock.

The list of town needs, new and deferred, is endless.   We un-load the responsibility for all these issues (and more) squarely in the laps of a non-professional, un-paid, and all-volunteer work crew.     We call them “Aldermen.”

Most of us who fall into the “We the People” category (myself included) are guilty of practicing the skill of harsh critique from the safety of our tidy little cocoon outside the arena.    We do little and expect much.     We’re not in the fight day after day.   “We’re not marred by dust or sweat or blood” and we do not expose ourselves – either to failure, or to inevitable criticism (failure or not) as do these folks who labor freely in our behalf.

With Mayor Blancett at the helm of our little town ship, we’ve navigated through some pretty choppy and shark infested waters the last couple of years.   Even with the delays of some mid-course corrections, we’ve still come a long way.   I wonder if any of us in the wheelhouse could have done as well.    I wonder if any of us would have done as much.

I believe that this crew  –  Mayor Skip Blancett, Aldermen Frank Coachman and Amber Preston Dankhart, deserve our thanks, our continued support and our vote.    Now is our next best chance to get in the arena and become doers.

Tom McMahan

Salado, Texas

See Letters, Page 3A