Editor:

This letter is in regard to your front-page story entitled “Balfour Project heads for ballot,” about annexing 740 acres to the city’s southwest border; also known as the ULL issue.

I want to inform you that a deception took place when I was asked to sign the petition that enabled this expansion. The petition that I signed was presented to me as “relieving city traffic congestion” or words very close to that. Period.

I know I should have read the petition before signing, but I was loaded down with groceries, exiting a Safeway store, and I took the petitioner’s word for it. I now see it as a ruse, because the heart of the petition is about adding up to 1,300 new houses as well as commercial development. I would not have signed it had it been presented to me accurately.

Now I wonder how many others, like me, thought they were signing a petition simply to relieve city traffic congestion, and if enough people would have even signed this petition to get it to the ballot had they been told the truth.

It also leads me to wonder if the petitioners were paid to acquire these signatures, and if they were coached on how to present this important issue for signing. I am very disappointed and won’t be signing any more petitions.

Carol McInerny, Brentwood