LETTER: Rick Weston seeks EFUD commission seat

April 25, 2024

To the voters of the Edward Farrar Utility District: 

On Wednesday, May 8, an election for three seats on the Edward Farrar Utility District Board of Commissioners will be held. 

Skip Flanders and Natalie Sherman are running for reelection to the two seats they currently hold. I support their candidacies. I am running for the third seat (like Natalie’s, a one-year term) that had been occupied by Lefty Sayah. Upon Lefty's death, Mark Alberghini was appointed to the seat and he was clear that he did not intend to run for election when the time came. For that reason I have decided to run for the seat. 

Last year I retired from a nearly 35-year career in utility policy and regulation. For 11 years, I was an administrative law judge and economist for the Vermont Public Service Board (now the Public Utility Commission). For 23 years after that, I was a director of a small NGO that advises governments (state, provincial, and national) on matters relating to the regulation of their energy sectors, with an eye toward minimizing their financial and environmental costs.

My wife and I moved to Union Street in 1990 and raised our children there. From 1997 to 2001, I was a member and then chair of the Waterbury Planning Commission when it functioned as both the site plan review and planning entity for the town and village.

My participation on the EFUD Commission, if I am fortunate enough to be elected to it, will be guided by a fundamental principle: that the public good will be best served if the total costs (operating and capital) of providing reliable service and the cleanest water are minimized over the long run. 

This is a planning and decision-making standard that requires the identification and testing of alternatives against likely and unlikely outcomes—that is, to assess risks and then determine a course of action that is most robust against an uncertain future. It’s an approach that I’m sure EFUD’s current commissioners and staff embrace, but it is by no means merely mathematical in its application. 

It requires deliberation and judgment, open-mindedness and dedication—attributes that I will strive to bring to the work, if given the opportunity.

Thank you,

Rick Weston

Waterbury