Great Gulf VP chides BWG council for water shortage

By Meade Helman AWARE News Network September 9 2012

Learned a few things at Tuesday night’s town council meeting.

 1.      It is OK for the VP of Great Gulf  (a certain Ms. Beth Halpenny) to come in and chide the council for not having enough water for new houses right now because building permits are down and the town needs the income.

2.      The town is using 2,100 units of water “borrowed” from Innisfil to get the developers to sign new advance agreements which will help the town finance the Line 5 Interchange and Bond Head / Employment Lands infrastructure. (Borrowed water????)

3.      Once a developer gets “draft approval” the developer can start pre-selling houses (This surprised me Council did a draft approval for Bond Head and that wasn’t to go forward until the employment lands were substantially under development)

4.      If you can’t get enough development money to pay off a debenture in five years, borrow at a higher rate for ten.

5.      Don’t worry about interest rates going up, we (BWG) will handle it. If that were the case everyone would have to worry about taking out a mortgage. (They don’t?)

6.      Building permits and development fees are the most important income a town has….

7.      Once you decide to do something, NEVER reconsider, reassess or question, just charge forward. To do otherwise is embarrassing.

8.      And my all-time favourite, “Don’t worry, when we need it the money will be there.” (Guess I should run right out and buy the Rolls.)

Going to council can be an exercise in wondering how people think. Do they run their own lives like this? Do they know that we elected them?