Turning point?
A commitment has been made. A commitment to rigour and discipline. A commitment that County residents won’t pay another dime toward the developers’ infrastructure—not without a guarantee of payback in an acceptable time frame. It is a good outcome. We are in a better place. The County’s manager, Marcia Wallace, stood up for residents and […]
Imminent
The vote will be done by the time this column is printed. The next chapter of the waterworks saga will have begun. So, let’s tidy up a couple of things. First, let us all be clear about what was on the table: We—waterworks customers—are lending millions of dollars to developers from our own pockets. We […]
Four things
ONE A warm thank you to everyone who left their homes last Monday night to join your neighbours in voicing their worries and concerns about the quarter-billion-dollar waterworks plans in Wellington. More than 500 of you! Your presence sent a loud and clear message to decision-makers that you want them to stop and re-evaluate their […]
Not adding up
It doesn’t work. It will be over a century and a half before existing water users are paid back for the biggest infrastructure spending ever undertaken in this community. The project size and costs are grossly oversized for the rate of population growth expected by Shire Hall’s experts. It bears repeating: existing water customers in […]
Who will pay?
Who do you think will pay? When thousands of new homes don’t emerge from the fields surrounding Wellington and Picton over the next 20 years? When the County’s population fails to double in size? Who will pay the $300 million needed to fund the waterworks expansion? Shire Hall is building waterworks as fast as it […]
Terminal failure
It is hard to see how Mayor Ferguson and a handful of council members could have managed things worse—how they twisted a moderately challenging issue into a pure fiasco. We tend not to see public inquiries in local politics, but if municipal leadership ever warranted third-party scrutiny, it is around the Picton Terminals’ settlement. There […]
Adrift
You are wrong, said Mayor Steve Ferguson. Occasionally shouting. Always indignant. He spent much of the past year telling Wellington residents, nervous waterworks customers, and this newspaper that we were wrong. Mayor Ferguson went so far as to take out a full-page ad to explain the various ways we were wrong. Lately, however, Mayor Ferguson’s […]
Flushed away
When the book is written on the largest infrastructure expansion ever taken on in the County, last week’s audit committee meeting will surely mark the chapter where the plot fell apart. Fully and completely. The committee learned last week that there is no basis to believe thousands of homes will be built here or that […]
No. Thank you.
Give it back. Should the province approve an $18.3 million grant for County waterworks expected this month, I pray, as a water customer, Council says: No, thank you. It is not as though the water utility couldn’t use the money—it can—but rather that Shire Hall is likely to hold up this pittance as a reason— […]
Bravery
From an imagined conversation between Premier Doug Ford and Mayor Steve Ferguson this past Monday. “Thanks for the money, Doug Ford. Every little bit helps. And I really can’t imagine anything littler. This cheque is so puny that it won’t even cover the sales tax we’ll eventually have to pay on the infrastructure we have […]