We don’t have to imagine very hard what at least some taxpayers were thinking when the Hewitt City Council this week voted to buy tracts of land for future facilities, including for police, fire and library services: “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

Just eight months ago, more than half of Hewitt voters rejected a proposed $9.8 million bond package, including $8.13 million for a public safety facility. Most scuttled, too, the idea of purchasing land for any of it. Irony: Even some of those voting “nay” agree current public safety facilities are nothing less than a civic embarrassment.

Flash-forward to Monday’s council vote to spend $950,000 in general obligation funds purchasing land for numerous future uses, including for police, fire and library services. Half of the 30 in attendance at City Hall were uniformed police and fire personnel supporting the move. Some were supporters of library expansion, including one who fainted during an analysis of the budget. (We understand!) A couple of others were taxpayers crying for the heads of public officials.

All this doesn’t bode well for a city ranked by Money Magazine in 2007 as one of the top places in the United States to live. Hewitt was picked using criteria such as economic opportunity, good schools, safe streets and things to do. Of course, that was before the bottom of the economy dropped out and the political environment turned testy.

While we earnestly caution city leaders to always bow to the will of voters, we also respectfully ask that Hewitt residents consider the poor state of police and fire facilities, the growing morale problems among our most valuable public servants — those in uniform — and that all grasp the reality of the situation in Hewitt, a landlocked city where property is fast being gobbled up.

Eventually, Hewitt residents will want to do right by police and firefighters. And the council, by buying land now, lays the foundation for that day by getting it at a cheaper price and setting it aside for future growth. City Manager Adam Miles told a member of the Tribune-Herald editorial board that the price of the land for purchase was about to rise — and that this is not the land considered during last fall’s election. Parts of that have already been sold, and houses are being built on it.

“I think they’ll be sitting on it awhile,” he told us of the council and land. “We don’t have the money (to build facilities). And I don’t see another bond election in November or May. When the police were asking me about it, I told them to celebrate the fact that we’re looking toward the future, but don’t look for any building on it.”

We respect the council’s wisdom and foresight, even as we urge it to avoid recklessly straying from those dictates of the ballot box.