What’s the big deal with keeping the name of Fort Worth’s White Settlement Road?
What is the Texas GOP afraid of?
Is unhindered access of U.S. citizens to vote as important as unhindered flow of greenbacks to the U.S. economy by approving a federal budget?
It is unlikely that reducing early voting days and hours, making voter registration and requesting a mail-in ballot more burdensome, will increase election security. Proposed Texas legislation also included a single 24-hour period for early voting and banning drive-thru voting. These restrictions would disproportionately affect minority and young voters.
It serves the interests of both political parties and the voters when laws are simplified to increase voter turnout. In that scenario, the candidates compete for votes based on ideas and policy proposals. Will the majority of Texas legislators and Gov. Greg Abbott listen to broad concerns of the electorate or simply choose the voters they like by enacting restrictive voting laws for short-term partisan gain?
- Subir Purkayastha, Plano
What we’re all paying for
After reading Bud Kennedy’s column Sunday and follow-up articles about the $300,000 bonus paid to retiring Tarrant Regional Water District General Manager Jim Oliver, I now understand why our water bills are so outrageous. (July 28, 1C, “Payouts, hint of cronyism forced change on Tarrant water board”; July 30, 1A, “Tarrant water board in legal talks over revoked pay to ex-GM”)
Obviously, the water department has a surplus of funds. We, the users, are paying the bonus.
- Ann Stewart, Fort Worth
Issues more pressing today
With all the issues we have in our city, the new mayor wants to get input regarding renaming White Settlement Road. (Aug. 2, 1A, “Mayor seeks ideas for new name for White Settlement Road”) I never heard during her campaign that this was a burning issue she wanted to address. Nor do I think it is an issue with residents.
White Settlement was historically a white community as opposed to an Indian settlement, all of which were west of the fort on the bluff of the Trinity River long before we were a city or Texas was a state. Why is it so important to change this name, thus obliterating its historical significance?
Hasn’t the mayor got much more important issues to address than the name of a road?
- Cecelia Gilbreath, Fort Worth
I’m not worrying about voting
In spite of the runaway Democrats, Texans actually can vote. Their dire warnings of voter restrictions are strange, and most of us realize they are grandstanding. We never had drive-thru or 24-hour voting until the pandemic.
I am a Texan and American who takes my driver’s license and voter registration card on Election Day to cast my vote. And I am a 92-year-old woman. Absentee ballots, when I need one, are readily available and easy to mark and send back.
The cut-and-run Democrats are not in line with Texans who see a fight through to the finish, win or lose.
- Wanda Conlin, Fort Worth
Trump wasn’t the loser in 6th
Jake Ellzey won the 6th Congressional District runoff election despite Donald Trump’s endorsement of Republican opponent Susan Wright because Democrats voted for Ellzey to vote against Trump. (July 29, 1A, “Trump support not enough in Texas congressional race”) Ellzey also picked up votes from Republican and independent voters who were turned off by the negative and false campaign ads run by his opponent’s campaign. The result shouldn’t reflect negatively on a Trump endorsement.
If Wright had run against a Democrat, she would have easily won.
- Jerry Fagan, Hurst
This story was originally published August 5, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "What’s the big deal with keeping the name of Fort Worth’s White Settlement Road?."