Yes, The Page is excited! Yes! Indeed!
Wednesday morning last week, we got an email from Warren Buffet. You know, one of the wealthiest men in the world. The head of the investment outfit, Berkshire Hathaway, itself rolling in hundreds of billions of dollars of loose change that Buffet himself says, “It’s really hard to find big enough companies to invest in these days.”
Berk has huge investments in Coca-Cola, Dairy Queen, Benjamin Moore Paint, American Express, Chevron, and Apple, to name only a few.
Well, Warren, soon to be known as “my friend Warren” here is your letter you sent to me:
“This is Warren Buffet, the American business tycoon, investor and philanthropist. I have decided to donate ($1,000,000) one million US dollars to randomly five (5) people around the world. If you receive this email, consider yourself lucky because you have been selected to receive aid benefit funds from my foundation. Please reply by sending acceptance number (hidden number here) for claims. Please visit this website: wwwbrittanica.com/biography/Warren-Edward-Buffett or google my name for more information: (Warren Buffet)
Gee whizzers! We are soooo tempted!
What to do? What to do?

On a more serious note, the North Country Fair folk music festival is coming up this weekend. Check out the ad in this newspaper. As of this writing, we don’t have a long-term weather forecast for the fair, but as the saying goes, “It wouldn’t be the North Country Fair if it didn’t rain.”
So hope for the best but plan for the worst!
The fair takes place south of Driftpile on a beautiful piece of land in the valley right along the Driftpile River. Take in an afternoon or camp the whole weekend. Good food, good folk music and good times!

PostMedia newspaper chains carried a story on the happenings at High Prairie town council last week. In our parts of the land this includes the Daily Herald Tribune, Peace River Record Gazette and the Edmonton Sun.
As reported last week in this newspaper, two Town of High Prairie councillors, Judy Stenhouse and Sacha Martens, were scolded by the rest of town council for several so-called Codes of Conduct violations. The two were also suspended from committee meetings until December of this year.
The PostMedia story was written by former South Peace News reporter Tina Kennedy, who is now senior editor at the Daily Tribune. Kennedy says, in her story, according to a plus $17,000 investigation, Stenhouse and Martens were “shadow leaders” of a petition to recall the mayor and two other councillors. The investigation, called The SAGE Report, also in the Kennedy story, says, “Members of the public whom Councillor Martens and Councillor Stenhouse were known to engage with regularly, in person and by email, have begun to approach council in a verbally hostile and disrespectful manner as public delegations during recent council meetings.”
Which one might assume means the petition, plus the theft of town equipment, misinformation from the mayor about RCMP and charges against the thief, the secrecy at council meetings, the missing council minutes, the behind closed door sessions, the unanswered calls for how the decision was made to not purchase the old hospital land, and even how SAGE got hired is all the fault of Stenhouse and Martens.
Really?
Our opinion of the SAGE Report is the “investigator” was hired by the Town to do a number on Stenhouse and Martens. And they delivered!

Two points on this: The Town of High Prairie supplies mayor and council, and possibly even town staff, with email addresses. Were any people told those emails are not confidential or private? In fact, Martens and Stenhouse emails were viewed by the investigator before they themselves knew this, to collect nasty details and “proof” against them.
Second, the agreement between the Town and SAGE is one page. A third of the page sets out the dates the contract runs, the fees, and address to the town. The last third is signatures, with the Town signed by CAO Bill McKennan. The middle third says that if SAGE happens to get involved in any legal dispute over the report, the Town of High Prairie (meaning either insurance or taxpayers) will pay SAGE’s costs.
The original discussions and/or the contents of “the SAGE proposal” of Feb. 1, 2024, is so far not available. So the public does not know, in writing, what the heck SAGE was even hired to investigate!
Ah yes, but, High Prairie council is all about transparency and accountability. So they said when they all ran for election. These days?

A man at a High Prairie church is preaching to his Sunday School class.
“If you want to phone Mr. Smith, where do you look?” he asked his group of Sunday Schoolers.
“In the High Prairie phone book!” said a little girl.
“Right,” said the minister. “And if you want to talk to Mr. Brown, where do you look?”
“In the High Prairie phone book,” replied another little girl.
“Right,” said the minister.
“Now, if you want to talk to God where do you look?” asked the minister as he waved a Bible in the air in front of the children.
“Aw, c’mon,” said a little boy. “Not the phone book! You know God doesn’t live in High Prairie!”

Have a great week, everyone!