STEPHEN RICCIO
MUNICIPALITY OF PONTIAC Oct. 13, 2020
The Municipality of Pontiac (MoP) held their monthly council meeting on Oct. 13, hosting it virtually via Zoom.
The meeting was partially characterized by multiple disagreements between some councillors and Mayor Joanne Labadie, who was the subject of a protest demanding . . .
her resignation at town hall earlier that evening.
There were three citizens tuned into the video conference.
Quyon Lions Club
In September’s meeting, most of the council supported giving a five-year contract for space to the Quyon Fitness Centre. This meeting, a resolution to give the same contract to the Quyon Lion’s Club passed with majority support.
Because of the municipality’s standing financial contribution agreement with non-profits, the Lions Club will be granted access for free as a substitute to a direct contribution.
The resolution also included the club’s plan to install a bar in the centre. The centre already has a bar installed, but the Lions Club told the municipality that they wanted to install one to make hosting their own events more convenient, thereby avoiding having to worry about swapping out its contents were people to rent the centre and preferred use the pre-existing bar.
The opposition to this motion came from Councillors Nancy Draper Maxsom and Scott McDonald, with both being against the idea of installing a second bar in the facility.
Along with Councillors Leslie-Anne Barber, Susan McKay, Isabelle Patry and Mayor Labadie, Thomas Howard voted in favour of the resolution, but added that he has reservations.
While typically only voting if there is a tie to be broken, Labadie asked that her vote in favour be documented as a sign of support to the resolution.
Speaking after the meeting, she said that council had previously received feedback from an architect who said that the bar was built in a less than ideal spot. At the time, the Lions Club had asked for the bar to be stationed elsewhere, but the architect said that the bar was already built and that they were lucky to have an initial bar included at all, as it was not in the original building plans.
“The Lions Club are there to support residents in the Municipality of Pontiac, and the running of the bar is one of their primary sources of revenue and other events,” she said. “So I feel that it is in the best interest of the municipality to allow the Lions Club to continue to offer the service that they offered for over 50 years to the community.”
McDonald said that he voted against the resolution not because he opposes the work that the Lions Club does, but because he doesn’t see why an additional bar is needed.
“I’ve got the utmost respect for the Lions Club, but you know, on a business sense, it already comes with a bar and they’re more than perfectly welcome to use it free of charge whenever they have an event,” he explained after the meeting.
Asset Management Program
Councillors had lively disagreement over whether to pass a resolution to apply for a grant from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) that would allow them to purchase a Municipal Asset Management Program, with the discussion consuming at least ten minutes of the hour-long meeting.
The program, which is offered by FCM, would manage the MoP’s assets, including roads, buildings, culverts and bridges. Through performing assessments, creating a strategy by collecting GPS markings of the assets and then keeping track of them with a computer software, the municipality would hypothetically improve its ability to do infrastructure repairs and maintenance.
Draper Maxsom, McDonald and Howard all voiced their opposition to what they viewed to be spending money on a program that would not get used.
The resolution, which ultimately passed with only McDonald and Draper Maxsom voting against, stated that the municipality would contribute $12,500 towards the $50,000 program, as the FCM would subsidize 80 per cent of the program’s cost.
Howard begrudgingly voted in favour of it, along with Barber, Patry and McKay.
“I’ll support it, but if it doesn’t work out, you’re gonna wear it,” Howard said to Labadie.
McDonald spoke with THE EQUITY after the meeting and explained his vote against the program.
“I think they were saying there was about 80 per cent of it that was supposed to be funded, we were gonna kick in an extra $12,500,” he said. “So there’s always that issue, well most of it’s being funded yeah, but are we really gonna get a bang for our buck?”
He added that public works employees typically know which assets do or do not need maintenance and repairs, but he admitted that he’s not very familiar with how the program would work.
Labadie said after the meeting that she disagreed with opposition to the program, saying that it’s always cheaper being proactive than it is being reactive.
“We have something like 340 km of road network to maintain and observe … over 300 culverts,” she said. “They need to be inspected, maintained and we need to have them on a schedule to know that they need to be replaced [and] when they’ve outlived their lives.”
Labadie added that this program would assist the municipality in avoiding tragedies such as the April 2019 one when flooding caused a culvert to give way and wash out a Quyon road that resulted in a woman’s death.
Safety Officer hire
The municipality announced a resolution regarding the hiring of Cheryl Hardwick as a safety officer for its fire department. The resolution was passed unanimously.
Howard explained that Hardwick will help take the safety burden off Interim Fire Chief Kevin Mansey’s shoulders when it comes to analyzing the scene for safety threats.
“[The position] is an assistant to the director, or a captain or a lieutenant, for the safety of the firefighters because the director himself cannot be walking around and checking on this so he has to count on his captains, his lieutenants and the firefighters,” he said. “This position will allow the safety officer to overrule the director if he was to put something that would put them in a precarious situation.”
Hardwick will join Mansey as one of two fire captains.
Mansey told THE EQUITY after the meeting that he is pleased to have Hardwick join the department, as he knows her from working together in the past.
