Archived Letter - 895

Re: Guelph-Eramosa Council approves large hike to water rates

While I am not completely surprised at the huge increase in our water rates, given the current mind set of our municipal and provincial governments (double digit increases in utilities are now the norm) I think we should be concerned that the consultants Guelph Eramosa Township (GET) hired in 2011 with our tax dollars were so far off in their recommendations.

I wonder if these same "experts" have recommended this 138 percent increase? Or is it a different consultant?  Can we get our money back from the 2011 consultants?

I recall another consultant GET hired insisted the drainage at the Noble Ridge development was just fine.  Whoops.  They were wrong and many houses on Harris street were flooded.

And in the same development, another consultant proclaimed that all the underground wastewater pipes Charleston Homes installed were wrong.  Whoops.  No they were 100% correct.

This reliance on these consultants that our GET council seems to have great faith in, makes me very uneasy.  While I understand our council cannot be expected to be experts in these matters, certainly a lot can be determined through simple common sense.

My greatest concern, other than yet another huge increase in my water bill, is that GET has once again hired consultants to determine if rezoning the Hidden Quarry site from Agriculture to Aggregate Extraction is good for the community.

Well again, I say how about council just uses common sense??

Peter Hopper
Rockwood

Peter Hopper