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Have faith

Posted: September 28, 2023 at 9:19 am   /   Comment

Nothing to see here. Kindly move along. The experts are on the job. The rest of you are just in the way. The story emerging from some corners is that waterworks is complicated. Therefore, it is best left to the experts. You, as a layperson, have nothing to add. Nothing to contribute. You won’t understand […]

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No consent

Posted: September 25, 2023 at 12:21 pm   /   Comment

This is not how to engage with a community.” Christina Zeidler likely hadn’t intended to go to the microphone at the Wellington Community Centre last Wednesday. But when she did, her words echoed through the room and into the broader community. They echo still. Ryan Guetter is a pro. He is smart and charming, and […]

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About governance

Posted: September 15, 2023 at 10:15 am   /   Comment

How did we get here? How did we get to a point where Shire Hall has already spent tens of millions of your dollars and is gearing up to spend $100 million more on works that few understand? Or want? The 6,000 County families who will fund this massive borrowing don’t know why it is […]

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Wishful thinking

Posted: September 7, 2023 at 9:24 am   /   Comment

It was always just make-believe. ‘Build it, and they will come,’ Shire Hall said. Five hundred folks came to a meeting in Wellington, hoping the story was plausible. They wanted facts. They wanted evidence to support the assumption that Wellington is about to grow fourfold. They wanted to know why they should pay $100 million […]

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Wait and see

Posted: August 31, 2023 at 8:38 am   /   Comment

What’s the rush? Shire Hall seems intent on plunging waterworks customers into a deep pool of debt. Why? Where’s the urgency? $100 million in spending in Wellington alone. Perhaps another $100 million to bring Wellington water to Picton. Maybe farther? What is driving this breathtaking and unrelenting ambition? The only bit that is clear is […]

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Storylines

Posted: August 24, 2023 at 9:19 am   /   Comment

I read reports. For 20 years, I have read, considered, asked questions, and written about the reports, studies, and ‘preferred solutions’ emanating from Shire Hall. I have no particular expertise—neither engineering, legal, or planning. I have a few decades of finance experience—but more in the marketing of rather than administering or managing money. That’s it; […]

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Start of a conversation

Posted: August 17, 2023 at 10:32 am   /   Comment

An argument is beginning to emerge from the sturm and drang, from the crippling anxiety gripping Shire Hall over waterworks this summer. Indirect and incomplete for sure, but like brave emissaries carrying messages across the valley from the king to his masses—while not ideal—it’s better than the alternative. So far, the instinct in Shire Hall […]

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Trust us

Posted: August 10, 2023 at 9:27 am   /   Comment

It’s a question of confidence. It took more than a century for Wellington’s population to double to 2,000 people. How confident are you that it will double again in the next nine years? Or 30 years? How confident are you that Shire Hall knows? If you pay a water bill in Prince Edward County—in Picton, […]

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Invitation

Posted: August 2, 2023 at 1:58 pm   /   Comment

A reader wrote last week complaining of “reading incessantly” my comments on the County’s waterworks. There are two sides to a story, the reader wrote. Why not give Mayor Steve Ferguson some space in the paper to state the case for the other side? It’s a good suggestion. Leave aside that the reader seems to […]

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Not me

Posted: July 19, 2023 at 10:01 am   /   Comment

The facts, as we know them, are these. Wellington’s water is Wellington on the Lake’s water. It is drawn from Lake Ontario, stored in the water tower, and distributed to all Wellington residents. One water source. Wellington on the Lake owns and manages the pipes that distribute the municipal water through the subdivision. This is […]

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