Your Voice: The city of Winchester is ignoring us

By Reed Hampton

This arti­cle is part of a fea­ture we call Your Voice. Opinions expressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of WinCity Voices or WinCity Media, Inc. 

Every two or four years, politi­cians have to run for re-elec­tion. They come into our neigh­bor­hoods and ask for our vote. They talk about how the oth­er can­di­date will do things that are not in our best inter­est, and they talk about what they will do to make life bet­ter for every­one. You go to the polls in what­ev­er kind of weath­er to cast your vote. Once they are elect­ed, they get amnesia.

In 1987, the city of Winchester received an urban renew­al grant.  I sold the City of Winchester a right-of-way across my back­yard for one dol­lar so they could install a sur­face water drain. That instal­la­tion would relieve water prob­lems for sev­er­al streets — and it worked.

However, I had been told that the drain would be con­struct­ed in a fash­ion that would enable me to main­tain it with a mow­er. Other res­i­dents who had prop­er­ty that need­ed to be crossed did not believe that the city would do as promised. They would only agree to the project if the drain was installed in a pipe under­ground. The city agreed to their demand, and the pipe was installed. I was told that they did not have ade­quate fund­ing in the project to install a pipe across my land but that it could be com­plet­ed with a swale that would allow us to main­tain it with a lawn mower.

I agreed to allow the swale to be installed; how­ev­er, it was not done in the fash­ion promised. The only way I could mow the oth­er side of the ditch (not a swale) was to pick up the mow­er and car­ry it to the oth­er side. Before the ditch was installed, I could main­tain my prop­er­ty (I have pic­tures of before and after the ditch was done). I tried to keep my yard in the fash­ion that I had always done. However, since the ditch was installed, I have had 18 surg­eries and three heart attacks. I am unable to walk on uneven ground. The area on the oth­er side of the ditch looks like a jun­gle. The com­pa­ny that I have main­tain­ing my yard has indi­cat­ed that the back­yard is over­run with snakes. No one from the city has respond­ed to my let­ters. They could at least indi­cate that they will not fix the problem.

At the inter­sec­tions of Elm, Spring, and Walnut streets, there are stop signs. Cars and trucks are run­ning through the stop signs at high rates of speed with­out stop­ping. My grand­chil­dren and oth­er chil­dren catch the school bus at that inter­sec­tion before day­light. There is also a blind spot at that intersection.

I was grant­ed a meet­ing in 2023 with Mayor Reed. At that meet­ing, I request­ed the city install a cam­era on the pole at the end of my dri­ve­way so that they could see the prob­lem or have an unmarked police car park in my dri­ve­way. I asked for a mir­ror to be placed on the pole so that traf­fic com­ing down the street could be seen by dri­vers approach­ing the blind inter­sec­tion. None of my requests have been addressed. I feel that city offi­cials are treat­ing me like W.C. Fields used to say, “Go away, boy, you both­er me.”

I don’t feel that ask­ing the city to fix the prob­lem they cre­at­ed is ask­ing too much, and I don’t feel that ask­ing them to enforce the traf­fic laws in our com­mu­ni­ty should be con­sid­ered a both­er. The city allowed a con­trac­tor to build a house at the inter­sec­tions of Elm, Walnut, and Spring streets that did not con­form to the build­ing code that cre­at­ed the need for a mirror.

You might won­der why I have wait­ed 37 years to com­plain. Approximately 20 years ago, I filed a com­plaint with HUD about the dis­crim­i­na­tion I have endured from Winchester City Officials. I won’t attempt to detail that com­plaint in this arti­cle, but I did not wait 37 years. I wait­ed until the peo­ple that were in office retired or died.

Now, I am near­ing the end of my own life, but I can­not leave my fam­i­ly to fight this fight. It is obvi­ous to me that Winchester offi­cials don’t care what hap­pens in Poynterville. I am not the only per­son com­plain­ing. I thought that this new admin­is­tra­tion was dif­fer­ent. I don’t expect any­thing to be done to cor­rect these issues, but I want my fam­i­ly and friends to know that I fought this fight myself accord­ing to the rules of engage­ment. I didn’t just lay down and take it. I went down fighting.

We are always told that we need to vote so that our voic­es can be heard. It seems as though the only voic­es that are heard are being spo­ken from the oth­er side of town. There is noth­ing I can do about my con­cerns, but I will not act as though I don’t real­ize what is hap­pen­ing. Maybe I’m ask­ing too much for the tax dol­lars I’m paying.

The next time you vote, ask your­self, “Why am I vot­ing for this person?”