Abegweit Links

Fear not concerned citizens of Borden-Carleton.

If it is the first time you are hearing about my proposed project in Monticello, it may come as a surprise, however, it has been in the newspaper and online for months.

My company has visions, and they do not involve sitting unnecessarily on the sidelines for years. They involve helping communities provide new outdoor experiences for thousands of Islanders and visitors. They involve helping a thriving Island golf industry that cannot keep up to demand.

The Abegweit Links hat that you see pictured above is a symbol of my commitment to your town. It is a symbol of a commitment to find openness, transparency, and a fair process for the awarding of the fabrication yard. I wore it every day that I worked on my proposed project in Monticello, and as you can see, I am no stranger to hard work.

This hat reminded me of the first time I set foot on your beautiful fabrication yard and saw an amazing project that could help improve and revitalize your town, while remediating an environmental disaster.

This hat motivated me to pour over years of Town Council minutes, procurement laws, and the PEI Municipality Act on evenings when I was completely exhausted from work. It motivated me to submit Freedom of Information requests. This hat kept me focused on becoming a better designer and a better builder of golf courses of the future.

I will not stop trying to get to the bottom of where this process went wrong.

I will not stop trying to reverse what I feel has been done in an unlawful manner.

I WILL submit another proposal to build a golf course on your fabrication yard, if and when there is a fair, transparent, and unbiassed process that involves YOUR input.

Unfortunately, I see how slow things work, and the fine people of Monticello and the surrounding communities will hopefully have a great project for their area up and running by the time all of this gets properly rectified.

When the time comes, I will be more than happy to make my way back down to the fabrication yard with my team.

I have committed to you, and my word is good.

Kris Taylor

There has only been one known source of revenue provided to the provincial government from the fabrication yard in 28 years!

That would be the tax collected from the sales of our Abegweit Links hats and toques.

Initial sales were brisk. But we concede sales have dropped off substantially.

We still wear these hats proudly wherever we go. They are symbol of determination, community support, and the will to never give up.

We truly believe these hats have their best and brightest days ahead them.

The five proposals that were submitted to the fabrication yard RFP were ranked by a 6 member scoring committee.

The province had 5 members on the committee, mostly from finance PEI, but generously allowed one member to represent the town of Borden Carleton.

But who would that member be?

What kind of process would select that town member for the scoring committee?

Through a freedom of information act request and in the town official minutes it turns out there was no public process to select the representative from the town of Borden-Carlton.

The town Council didn’t even get to pick the scoring committee member. But from their minutes, it looks like they did approve the RFP’s only scoring committee selection from Borden-Carleton.

Unbelievably, the person hand picked by the province was just freshly retired Borden-Carleton CAO Jim Wenzel. We believe Jim attended meetings through 2023 with the Mayor and Finance PEI in the planning of an industrial Park for the yard.

This would make him biased.

Jim also told us personally that he did not want a golf course in the fabrication yard.

Does Jim even live in Borden-Carleton? How does this happen?

Things are certainly not as the province would make them appear.

Things are not as the town council would make them appear.

Transparent? Biased? Fair?

Since 2023, we’ve had 3 different provincial ministers in charge of the Fabrication Yard file and 3 changing stories….

Whatever happened to:

“we need to do this thoughtfully, and in partnership with those who live in the area”

“must be aligned with what the people of Borden-Carlton want”

“We will rank the submissions and then we will share that information with the town”

Transparent? Fair? Who knows.

Minister Arsenault, Minister Deagle, and now Minister Compton.

During the spring, summer, and late summer of 2023 while we were preparing our proposal and golf course design, we spent a significant amount of time at the fabrication yard, probably 2 to 5 days a week.

During one of those fall visits we came across 2 new wells that certainly did not exist during our previous visit. These came as quite a surprise and also were very concerning. After some phone calls we confirmed that they were salt water test wells for some aquaculture company that “might be going into the industrial park”.

We called Finance PEI to inquire, and they confirmed that there was some test drilling taking place by a perspective company. We asked if the aquaculture company was paying for the wells themselves or was the government footing the bill.

We were told that the companies were “paying for the wells themselves.” This was welcome news as we had hired a contractor to dig test excavation sites throughout the yard to confirm aggregate depths and the state of the original drainage tile. When we asked for permission to dig these sites we were not informed of any budget allocated to perspective proposals for site work.

However after another Freedom of Information inquiry we received this paid invoice below which confirms that Finance PEI covered the well costs.

Transparency?

By the way, we used local contractor Grant Clark of Clark Backhoe Service, who is a gem of a guy, great operator and has very reasonable rates!

Mt. Borden

Did you know Borden has a mountain?

There is not a single teaspoon of topsoil left on the fabrication yard. It’s an environmental nightmare.

-Nothing to provide essential living seawalls to prevent erosion,
-no place for healthy oxygen/CO2 exchanging vegetation……
-Gravel roads and remaining concrete slabs are falling into the Northumberland Strait.
-Erosion rates on that property are happening at multiples of what they should be.

The topsoil that was completely stripped off the old Reid Farm sits as a mountain on the Maritime Electric land adjacent to the abandoned yard... and it was supposed to go back a long time ago!

In the first of the many Freedom of Information requests we will share with you in the coming weeks, here is the evidence from the 1992 purchase and sale agreement.

When the new electrical cables were installed from NB into the Borden Substation and Generating Plant in 2017, Maritime Electric requested that Finance PEI remove the mountain of topsoil that had been sitting on their property for 20 years. Their cable project had essential infrastructure that had to go in that area of their property. Finance PEI refused to move it. The infrastructure went through it. The topsoil mountain was never to be used again.

Finally, in 2022, when the province promised to clean up the yard, Finance PEI issued an RFP to put topsoil back. Estimates to reinstate topsoil were over $2 million! How can our government be allowed such mismanagement? So what did Finance PEI do? They cancelled the RFP! They figured they would put something in there that wouldn’t require any topsoil. And so they will.

We would not be going out on a limb to say that Abegweit Links was the only proposal that would pay, out of their own pocket, to remediate the topsoil in the yard. We were the only proposal to allocate $22,000 for an environmental consultant to conduct an environmental assessment and develop a plan for the yard.

Will anyone be held responsible for remediating the fabrication yard?

In the early spring of 2023 we heard that Finance PEI was going to be putting out a RFP (request for proposals - a fair, transparent, and open process) for the future use of the fabrication yard.

It took only one visit to the fabrication yard, to see that this special waterfront property - the welcome mat to our Island - could make one of the most amazing golf courses in the country and something incredible for the community of Borden-Carleton and District 19. We worked tirelessly through the following months to build a solid development concept, business plan, and design that could turn this vision into a reality. We were told that the RFP would happen in the fall of 2023.

Let’s dive into the official Borden-Carleton Town Council meeting minutes from 2023, because, little did we know at the time, the following things were happening in the background…..

The screenshots of the Town minutes shown below give evidence that…

-In January 2023 finance PEI requested a special meeting with the Borden-Carleton town council. They wanted to establish a working group for the development of plans for the fabrication yard. They wanted the Mayor, and no other town counsellors to come work with them in this group.

-Mayor Randy Ahearn or his designate (we believe that then CAO Jim Wentzell also attended these meetings)were singularly chosen to represent the Town of Borden-Carleton on the Department of Finance working group in respect to the development of the fabrication yard.

-This working group met regularly through the winter, spring and summer of 2023.

-In September 2023, the working group indicated to council that they…

“will have preliminary plans for Council to review by the end of September 2023 for the future plans of the Fabrication Yard. The department hopes to have finalized plans by the end of the year.”

We saw these plans which outlined a full scale industrial park. We were also told by an employee of Finance PEI that the yard was going to be divided into lots and sold to businesses, many who they were in discussions with from the “Expression of Interest” of 2021.

So I guess our questions are:

Why would they even issue an RFP if they already had plans for an industrial park?
Was an RFP mandatory?
Why would they encourage other businesses, like ours, to submit proposals that cost time and money to develop, if they already had other plans?

We believe this evidence shows that Mayor Randy Ahearn and his then CAO Jim Wentzell were actively planning an industrial park concept with Finance PEI in 2023 for certain companies before the RFP was even issued.

Additionally, the CAO told us on Sept 11, 2023 that both he and the Mayor had heard the rumours of our proposal and were both not in favour of a golf course going in the fab yard.

It never feels appropriate to criticize a community volunteer, but for the following 3 reasons…

1) For not insisting that Finance PEI complete their fabrication yard plan without him, and make them take their application to council as a whole. Was he going to be on the applicant side and the “Authority Having Jurisdiction” side at the same time?

2) For then leading his Town Council through the RFP process while being personally biased.

3) For not attempting to make any effort to receive public input for any of the RFP proposals before the government made their final decision.

…we feel that it would be reasonable if the residents of Borden-Carleton asked Randy Ahearn, their elected Mayor, to step down or resign his duties.

Still much more to come.
Stay tuned.

UPDATE ON THE FUTURE OF ABEGWEIT LINKS:

Hello everyone.

We know it’s been a long time since our last update. We would like to thank everyone for the tremendous amount of support and interest over the past 8 months.

We have been contacted numerous times in the past few days since the article was published in the press this week regarding the two proposals selected by the province for the fabrication yard.

All we can say is, despite the amount of public support, we are not one of them.

We concede that our proposal might not be the top proponent for the fabrication yard in some people’s eyes….BUT….
We can only assume that the Borden-Carleton Town Council must be furious with the province for dismissing 3 proposals and selecting 2 final proposals for the fabrication yard without getting public input!

See the Council's stance from their official council meeting minutes from last year (Sept 10, 2024 - screenshot), where they promised to get public input on rated submissions.

Still, the community does not know what any of the proposals are. (Nor do we.)

We would like to think they are wondering how they can get the province to “walk it back” and let them get public input, since they would not attend the only public input forum on the fabrication yard held by their MLA, Matt MacFarlane, Green Party Of Prince Edward Island, last September.

We would also like to think that they feel compelled to gather input from the people they represent.

Read below….
Stay tuned….
More unveiling to come….

Well, we officially submitted our proposal before Wednesday’s deadline to acquire the former Fabrication Yard land and build Abegweit Links 🌁⛳️🏗️

Over 18 months of time, work, and money have brought us to this point. We are grateful for the outpouring of support and words of encouragement from Borden-Carleton residents, Islanders, and the greater golf community.

It will take some time to know when and if we are successful, but we remain optimistic.

Let’s do this!