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THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2017
Vol. 5 Edition 9
A tasty fundraiser
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Wesley irate over shame award ’Burg councillor refutes water wells group’s claim of misleading the public
By Mary Beth Corcoran mary@chathamvoice.com
Mary Beth Corcoran/The Chatham Voice
Girl Guide Paige Aitken, 11, was the second place winner in the Cupcake Day challenge at Value Village on Saturday. The event, through the sale of homemade cupcakes, raises money for local charity. This year is Aitken’s third entry in the challenge. See story on page 2.
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Chatham-Kent councillor Jeff Wesley has retained personal legal counsel after receiving a shame award from local activist group Water Wells First (WWF). On Friday, WWF announced the second shame award the group has given out, saying Wesley “misled the public” in a letter to the editor in another publication recently in which he said an independent third party should be hired for the Otter Creek wind turbine project to do baseline water well testing and report directly to the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Control (MOECC), “thus avoiding conflict of interest.” The point WWF spokesperson Kevin Jakubec
said his group was making with the shame award was that when the wind farm company choses and pays for a consultant to do the well testing, that consultant answers to the person who pays them – the wind farm company – and therefore isn’t really a third party. In a rebuttal, after hearing about the shame award, Wesley defended himself, and said his original words show what he was talking about. He has asked WWF to withdraw the shame award and apologize to him. “A qualified third party group that reports directly to the MOECC (and therefore not Otter Creek) is not a consultant hired by Otter Creek,” Wesley wrote in an e-mail to Jakubec, the media and council.
Continued on page 3
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