Confusion rages over private agency
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $205*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/07/2009 (6212 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
WINNIPEG — The decision to include a private partnership in Winnipeg’s proposed utility continues to haunt administrators and politicians at city hall, as confusion rages over a plan to create a stand-alone agency to handle water, sewer, garbage and recycling services.
Mayor Sam Katz’s cabinet is expected to spend four to six hours hearing public concerns about the utility plan this afternoon at the final meeting of city council’s executive policy committee before the summer break.
Two dozen union leaders, activists and ordinary citizens have registered to address the committee.
While questions remain about the role a private engineering consortium will play in approximately $1 billion worth of sewage-treatment upgrades and sewer replacements, some utility opponents are expressing concerns about outright privatization and the possible export of water to international markets.
Katz, utility project developer Bryan Gray and chief administrative officer Glen Laubenstein have repeatedly dismissed these charges. But their decision to write a potential private partnership into the proposal has muddied the waters, charges Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt, an EPC member.
"I couldn’t imagine rolling this out in any worse way than the way they rolled it out," he said Tuesday, stating he supports the general idea of a corporate utility. "There’s no doubt the strategic partnership has clouded the issue of the water utility and vice versa."
Ironically, the city has spent $250,000 on a communications strategy for the utility. It is supposed to allow Winnipeg to more nimbly complete its ongoing $1.8-billion sewage-treatment upgrade, offer water-and-sewer services to neighbouring municipalities and possibly create a green-energy subsidiary.
If approved by EPC today, the utility proposal will proceed to city council as a whole on July 22.
bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca