By Mark Squibb/May 5, 2022
There were only a handful of items on the agenda last week, but Witless Bay councillor Alex Troake voted against two of them.
The Town of Witless Bay council held a special meeting last week to approve an emergency work tender.
Also on the agenda were motions to hire a new town clerk and award a tender for janitorial services.
Troake voted ‘nay’ on both, with another councillor adding his ‘nay’ as well, which, because of limited numbers of councillors available to vote, was enough to scuttle the awarding of the janitorial contract.
Troake first voted against a motion, moved by councillor Ralph Carey and seconded by councillor Jacob Hayden to appoint Katherine Doyle as a temporary town clerk, as town clerk Geraldine Caul is on leave.
“I was just going to ask, for the benefit of everybody listening, a recap of the recruitment process overall,” asked Troake.
Carey said that he himself wasn’t involved in the recruitment process, but as far as he knew, the Town had narrowed the choice down to “three worthy individuals,” and that Mayor Trevor Croft and Town Manager Shawn Kavanagh, “came up our new town clerk, Kathrine Doyle.”
Carey described Doyle as a native of British Columbia, a real estate agent by trade who’s also worked for the CRA and Canada Post and has experience in bookkeeping, customer service and in the travel industry.
While Carey, Hayden, Gerard Dunn, and Croft voted in favour of the hiring, Troake voted against the motion.
Next, Dunn made a motion that the Town hire Trillium Services for janitorial work. Carey seconded that motion.
“If I’m not mistaken there were only two applicants, weren’t there?” asked Troake.
Carey confirmed there were only two bidders, but added there is no guarantee that if the Town put the tender out a second time it will receive any more bids. Later in the meeting Carey noted that one of the bidders back out, leaving only one true applicant.
In a follow up e-mail, Kavanagh clarified that in March the tender was awarded to the lowest bidder, but that that company had since backed out. As far as he knew, the Town has never had a contract with the runner up.
“The previous years that we’ve had our cleaning services out to tender, we’ve only had one applicant, and it was that same service that we are probably going to go with,” said Carey.
“I don’t know if I’m comfortable if we’ve only got one option,” said Troake. “It’s ‘take it or leave it.’ And in that case, I would prefer we put it back to tender and actively recruit because I’m sure there’s others in the area that would apply if they had seen the original job ad.”
The ad was not advertised in the local newspaper.
Carey argued that the Town had put the service to tender, and received only two applicants.
“I’m just saying, that sometimes you might have to recruit, or call people, and get them to participate in the tender,” said Troake.
Council discussed the matter for a few more moments, with councillor Jacob Hayden adding that he agreed with Troake that more choices would be nice.
The motion was put to a vote, and councillors Hayden and Troake both voted against the motion.
In favour of hiring the remaining bidder were Dunne, Carey, and Croft. Both Deputy Mayor Lorna Yard and councillor Nancy Burke, who is on leave from council, were absent form the meeting, and thus did not vote.
The motion, having only the support of three members of council, did not pass.
