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Hostages
Editor’s note: At Tuesday evening’s meeting, Councillor Ernie Margetson spearheaded a motion to send the file back to staff and seek legal advice before accepting terms on a new bulk water agreement with the City of Belleville. A majority of his colleagues agreed.
It is a bad deal. But the 4,000 County households and businesses that pay water bills have had no say. No input. No vote. You’ve been gouged for 30 years by deals made in the dark. Made by folks without a stake in the outcome, foisted upon residents without a word of warning. Without consultation. In Consecon, Carrrying Place, Ameliasburgh, Rossmore, Fenwood Gardens, Bloomfield, Picton and Wellington.
Today you may have been thrust into a slightly less terrible deal, this one to endure another decade. (The water deal was on Council’s agenda on Tuesday night, without prior notice.)
The decision-makers are not you. Most aren’t waterworks users. Their interests aren’t yours. Yet, they have locked you into overpaying for water for 40 years. It is a travesty of governance. And it goes on—because we won’t do a thing to stop it.
The City of Belleville charges Prince Edward County waterworks utility an eye-watering 79 per cent premium on the bulk water it supplies Fenwood Garden and Rossmore. Much more than it charges any other bulk water purchaser. This arrangement has added several millions of dollars of extra cost to your water bill since 1988. More a mass hostage-taking than a municipal agreement.
In recent months, when at last challenged to correct this poisonous deal, the City of Belleville countered by offering a 10 per cent discount. Simultaneously admitting it has fleeced the County for 30 years, and a renewed poke-in-the-eye since the County doesn’t have a ready alternative source of water for these several hundred homes. After all, where is the County going to go?
Worse, Shire Hall has recommended taking the deal. Why? Because Belleville is our friend. And arbitration will incur legal fees.
One, friends do not treat friends like chumps. And two, as a spokesperson for three water bills, I vote to send it to the arbitrator. I am confident that no reasonable, fair or objective observer can look at the facts of this deal and conclude that it is anything other than unscrupulous plunder.
I am confident that no arbitrator will support the hose-your-neighbour-because-you-can doctrine. I am confident that after two decades and millions of usurious dollars forked across the bridge, any fair-minded reviewer won’t abide such a municipal shakedown.
Prior to amalgamation, the Township of Ameliasburgh made the original deal to supply the growing bedroom communities of Rossmore and Fenwood Gardens with water from the Belleville water plant.
Rather than a windfall, the city saw the prospect of more customers as a potential problem. It meant investing in new capacity sooner. Failing to see—or acknowledge—the economies of scale advantage of an expanded customer base, Belleville instead slapped County-bound water with an excessive water surcharge.
The township council agreed. For three decades, County waterworks customers dutifully paid this disgraceful rate. Every month.
When the County amalgamated in 1998, waterworks customers inherited the lousy deal. It was codified early in the aughts when Council decided that all waterworks customers—regardless of how inefficient and expensive their water supply—would pay the same unified rate.
Even when the County took on overall billing and admin in 2006, the surcharge remained. Unchanged. Let me repeat. Neither Shire Hall nor Council shares your interest in an efficient and cost-effective waterworks utility. They don’t pay the bills. You do.
Currently, the City of Belleville charges other bulk water customers $2.42 per cubic metre. It charges Prince Edward County $4.34 per cubic metre. Same water. Same tap. Same everything. A whopping 79 per cent upcharge. Fenwood Gardens and Rossmore draw about 11,000 cubic metres each month. This means waterworks customers pay Belleville a $21,560 premium, every month.
Pushed to renegotiate earlier this year, Belleville countered with an offer to reduce this surcharge by 10 per cent. Instead of $21,560 they demanded only an extra $16,290 per month, $195,480 per year. For the next ten years. That’s just shy of $2 million.
This is the deal Shire Hall says County waterworks customers must accept for Belleville’s water. They concluded this entirely on their own. No one checked with you. And no one ever will.
Shire Hall says it is recommending the deal because “a protracted dispute could have a negative impact on this relationship.” Kind of like how you don’t want to mess with the big kids stealing your lunch money every day.
It lets the City of Belleville off the hook for three decades of shameful behaviour—and perpetuates it for another 10. What relationship is worth this? Unless it isn’t you who is paying the freight. Then you might have a more open mind about such things.
This is the fatal flaw in the governance of the County’s waterworks utility. The user/customer pays all the bills—operational, capital, financing, everything— but has no say in the management or direction of the utility. It is owned by the municipality and governed by County council, most of whom aren’t customers. They don’t pay the bills. They have no direct stake in the outcome of the decisions they make. It’s not their money.
So they make decisions contrary to your interests. So as not to upset grifting neighbours. Because relationship. In few other realms would this arrangement be tolerated. How long waterworks utility customers continue to do so remains an open question.
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