EFUD commissioner Rick Weston seeks re-election to a 1-year term
April 13, 2026To the voters of the Edward Farrar Utility District:
On Wednesday, May 13, an election for three seats on the Edward Farrar Utility District Board of Commissioners will be held.
Three incumbents are up for re-election. Bob Finucane is running for a three-year term, and Natalie Sherman is running for one of the one-year terms. I support their candidacies. I am running for the other one-year seat, which I’ve had the honor to occupy for the past two years.
This year, the elections for the one-year seats will be contested. That’s a good thing. Our public institutions are all the richer when responsive to the public scrutiny and engagement that elections call for.
I ask for your vote for a third term. It’s important work—overseeing the management, operations, and long-term planning of the municipality’s water and wastewater systems that are critical to public health, and I enjoy it.
The commission has work to do. In the past year, we’ve begun capital projects (including a water line extension to East Wind Drive, to be completed later this year), initiated a public evidence-gathering process to inform a decision on recreational uses of the district’s watershed lands, and entered into a multi-year contracting process with our dedicated, well-trained water and wastewater operators.
I bring to the commission relevant training and experience (though I don’t think that they constitute prerequisites if one believes in citizen government). In 2023, I retired from a 35-year career in utility policymaking 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 more than two decades that followed, I was a director of a small NGO that advises state, national, and international governments on matters relating to the regulation of their energy sectors, all with the aim of improving reliability and minimizing long-term 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 development review and planning authority for the town and village. I left the commission when my day job kept me on the road for much of the year. Retirement made it possible for me to volunteer locally again.
My participation on the EFUD Board has been, and will continue to be, guided by an essential principle: the public good will be best served if the total costs (operating and capital) of providing safe, adequate, and reliable service are minimized over the long run. Only then are water quality assured, wastewater properly treated, and user costs kept as low as possible.
This is a planning and decision-making criterion that requires the identification and testing of alternatives against likely and unlikely outcomes. It demands that we assess risks and then determine the course of action that is most robust (i.e., most economical) against an uncertain future. But it’s not coldly analytical. It requires, among other things, thoughtfulness, deliberation, a willingness to be wrong, and a little humor. These are attributes that I hope I’ve brought, and can continue to bring, to EFUD’s work.
Early voting begins on April 23. In-person voting will take place at the town offices on May 13. That evening, at 7:30, EFUD will hold its annual meeting. Please join us.
If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me directly or at Rick.Weston@waterburyvt.com.
Rick Weston
Waterbury
Incumbent Rick Weston is one of three candidates for two one-year seats on the Edward Farrar Utility District Board of Commissioners.