Today’s #GoodNewsFriday is about bad news. Actually, it’s about how good people in #StamfordTexas respond to bad news. If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you probably saw that Stamford had a major water leak that left the community without water from late Wednesday afternoon until late morning on Thursday. To be clear, people were frustrated and had every right to be. I was frustrated too. This incident disrupted everyone’s evening and morning plans. Stamford ISD had to delay and then cancel school. Businesses were unable to operate as usual.
But amidst the frustration, I received countless messages of support for our public works employees. It was a chilly evening and our guys worked through the night. Some got very limited sleep, others got no sleep. Throughout the outage, our citizens constantly voiced encouragement for our employees. Thursday morning, Melissa Velasquez offered breakfast from her food truck and Councilman Robert Wingrove assisted with delivery of the food and drink. Today, another citizen provided pizza for lunch for our public works employees. She wished to remain anonymous, but she was deeply moved by the time our guys spent away from their families trying to fix a massive problem.
Stamford’s water and sewer system is very old and deteriorating. We are not unique in that regard. Water and sewer infrastructure in Texas and across America is shockingly poor. I’m not elected to state or federal office, but I’m elected here in Stamford. We’ve got to plan for a long-term rebuild of our entire system. It won’t be easy or cheap, but if we want a lasting, high-quality place to live, we’ve got to get it done. In the meantime, I’m grateful for our employees who worked so hard for our citizens—Jeffrey Pippin, Joseph Molina, Tim Sageser, Junior Cantu, Victor Silguero, Casey-Paula Chambers, and Alan Plumlee—and I’m proud that our citizens have our employees’ backs when bad news strikes.
“Good News Friday” is a weekly feature spotlighting positive news and activities in the Stamford community as a part of our quest to build a #BetterStamford.