By Mike Moore | The Irish Loop Post (Vol. 12 No. 2 - January 24 2019)
Last Monday marked the official beginning of the new year for the town of Bay Bulls’ town council, and the agenda during the public council meeting reflected a beginning of innovative ideas and some status-quo.
The town will be one of the last to pony up roughly $7,000 to help fund the Southern Shore Arena. Witless Bay and Cape Broyle have already submitted their contributions to help with the upkeep of the regional ice surface and stadium.
Bay Bulls is also hoping to issue a tender to install new LED lights around the municipal building as soon as possible. They are now open to bids for an electrician or electrical company, with the contract going to the lowest bidder. However, the town is leaning toward keeping the job local to businesses paying business tax within the municipality.
LED lights are known to cut down on energy emissions while also saving money, something the town is working towards as council has also voted unanimously to go paperless in the near future, a move spearheaded by Deputy Mayor Wendy O'Driscoll.
In other news, the town will be seeking legal advice on how to immediately deal with the removal of a standing structure on private property. While it wasn’t disclosed during the public meeting where the structure is located, O’Driscoll did step out of council chambers claiming a conflict of interest, indicating it may be located on the same street where she lives.
The town will seek to either remove the structure at the owner’s expense, or have the owner handle the demolition of the building themselves.
The snow clearing process will be getting a bit of a shake up for the remainder of the winter season of 2019.
Residents will be asked not to park on the shoulder of any roads within the community during a heavy snowfall, and up to 24 hours afterwards to allow for snow clearing equipment to properly clear all streets.
“This cleans up the policy a bit, and it can always be reviewed in the future,” said Mayor Harold Mullowney.
Rounding out the first council meeting of 2019 is the search for an added town councillor. A seat in council chambers still remains vacant, and the town is actively searching for a member of the public to throw a hat in the ring for nomination.
Mullowney said the town had received only one response to the call for nomination so far.
However, it later turned out, as the Irish Loop Post was growing to press, that no formal nomination papers were filed. With one seat vacant, council still has enough members for quorum.
