The historic village of Fredonia is at a critical turning point. It is in a new era. This moment in our history is both exciting and challenging.

We face both problems and opportunities. How motivated are we to solve the major issues before us? Well, it begins with knowing and understanding the issues. It will require being informed as a resident and a taxpayer. Just like voting for a candidate running for office, it will require some homework and perhaps a bit of research. I maintain that clearly knowing the facts is essential to wise and common-sense decision-making because facts form the bedrock for understanding the truth. This is so important because myths and half truths will distort the thinking and reasoning process.

As your village trustee, I apply research, homework, listening, and meeting participation to hopefully converge all inputs toward a decision based on truth, logic, common sense and wisdom. I find this works very well in life and as your representative in local government, it has worked very well.

Village residents, please know this. We are in a new time frame. It is a bright and new season of optimism, purpose, intention, dialogue, and freedom from the bondage of past indecision and procrastination. It is now. It is about our very existence and the future of a small village in Western New York that has a rich history and tradition since our very foundation in 1829.

Allow me to focus on current local challenges. Of course, the subject is well known to all: our drinking water. This was my number one campaign issue 2 1/2 years ago. As a retired electrical engineer with decades of applied, hands on engineering experience, I decided to aggressively understand our water issues.

I campaigned door to door with my slogan “A Fresh Voice.” My approach was to bring objectivity and problem-solving skills to my job as a trustee and tackle our issues head-on. This is exactly what I have done and am doing.

Honestly, I can’t hear it any longer. That is, the can being kicked down a road that will no longer accept it. Our precious moment in time has come and it is now. So what does this mean?

On Sept. 10, 2025, our village Board voted to join the North County Water District (NCWD) and utilize potable water processed at the Dunkirk lakeshore facility. This pipeline infrastructure was built a decade ago to service various municipalities in the Pomfret, Portland, Sheridan communities.

What was the reasoning for this switch-over decision? The reasons were many. The village water treatment plant (WTP) is almost 100 years old and the associated reservoir is 142 years old. Though there is much history and sentimentality for a system that has served the village very well for decades, its time has run short. It has been on the sunset of serving the village for some time now.

I do regard that investments have been made into our WTP. In fact, we just completed a major liquid chlorinator system project that is now online, effective March 16. I co-sponsored this project to provide a reliable water purification system for our drinking supply. The previous system was old, feeble and highly unreliable. In addition it has been the primary cause of Fredonia’s water boil notices. This is a huge step and success for the reliability and quality of our drinking water.

However, know that the chlorinator is just a subsystem of a larger water source system. The WTP operates at close to maximum capacity with no ability to increase flow rates and volume production. It is also limited by the man made reservoir that has limited capacity which has been significantly diminished over the decades. Engineering firms consistently advised dredging the water bottom (1960s and ’70s) but no action was ever taken. To highlight this point, the Western New York drought last summer dropped Fredonia’s water supply to a critically low level for our 12,000-plus customers. We were just days from exhausting our supply source. In fact, this is exactly what happened to our community neighbor in Ripley, who operates with a reservoir. They did in fact run out of water.

Nothing in this world made by man is meant to last forever. Everything has a shelf life. Including WTPs and reservoirs. At some point, major actions need to take place to address the issues. Of course, it is also a factor of money required to rebuild or consider alternative sources. This is exactly why the village partnered with the civil engineering teams at Labella Engineering. They were commissioned by the village to look at our infrastructure and provide common sense solutions to our problem. They have done so with clear objectivity while being aware and sensitive to the county department of health water standards.

In fact, we are at the kickoff point to initiate a 3½-year project to join the NCWD at a proposed cost of $17.5M. Since the project qualifies as being intermunicipal, the village will benefit with various loan and grant subsidies that would not be possible if the village operated standalone to “fix” our existing system. Additionally, the master plan includes sharing a 1.5 million gallon water tower with the town of Pomfret as they advance their water system distribution expansion for the town districts. The operative word and concept is “intermunicipal,” which allows applicants (like the village) to apply for and qualify for NYS and Federal funding for this major project. In this case, following an intermunicipal path provides an optimal win- win solution.

In addition to all of the supply issues, we have a water distribution system that is dated to the 1870-1890s. These are mostly cast iron 8-inch supply main feeder pipes buried under the streets of our village. Of course, they have a lifespan as well and they are at the end of life, if not well beyond. Mayor Michael Ferguson has declared a state of emergency for the village water mains. Each time they break, we lose countless gallons of water and time and labor for our streets DPW crews and contractors called to help with our repairs.

In short, the water main problem is worsening significantly, disrupting water supply to homes, businesses and industry.

In summary, our water supply for the village is a system of parts or sub systems. Each part must do its job to provide exactly what we expect when we open that water faucet. If any part in the sequence of delivery is compromised, then it will fail. Modern technology provides the ability to improve performance and reliability but all elements in the system must be robust enough to perform reliably.

Therefore, we need to look at our issues and challenges objectively. This means we need to understand the problems, limitations, reliability issues so that we can develop and implement a plan that is smart, cost-effective and designed for the very long term.

As I recently suggested at the Village Board meeting, the village board would like to offer the residents to join us for a workshop that is open to the public. We welcome questions and concerns. As elected public officials, we serve you the residents. As the leaders need to be informed and educated, so do you. Details of this are forthcoming.

Please remember that Fredonia is great and it will survive the current issues to be where people want to live, work and prosper. And that can? That road has ended.

Paul Wandel is a Fredonia resident and trustee.