Heated debate at council meeting

Ken Johnston

There was heated debate at Monday’s Rainy River council meeting about the newly installed heating system at the town office and a proposal to move the town hall to the public works garage.
Early in the agenda, Councillors Glen Armstrong and Brent Anderson questioned the way the contract to replace the heating system in the town hall was handled.
Armstrong specifically asked Mayor Gordon Prost if proper procedure was followed when council held a special council meeting on November 15, 2002 to re-award the contract for a new heating system. Three days prior council had voted to award the contract to Allan Olson Heating of Rainy River.
Mayor Prost said that Mr. Olson had declined the contract so he called a special meeting at which time council voted to award the contract to Webb’s Custom Gas Works of Fort Frances at a cost of $14,703.94.
That according to the Mayor was about $3,400 less than Olson’s tender and Webb was able to get the work done sooner.
Armstrong wondered if the job should have been retendered.
Armstrong explained that council considered other facts in the matter noting that Olson is a qualified gas furnace installer where Webb is not. “Safety should be considered,” said Armstrong.
Prost rebutted that Webb can get it inspected. “We have to get the best bang for the (taxpayer’s) buck,” said Prost.
Anderson said that he would stand behind his vote to award the contract to Olson. “I will answer to the taxpayers of Rainy River,” echoing Armstrong’s concerns about having a properly qualified contractor do the work.
Armstrong accused prost of being a, “leader that undermines the democratic process.”
Prost fired back saying, “When (we) have councillors that are more concerned about their own personal business, (the) democratic process is undermined.”
Armstrong questioned whether it is taxpayers money. “Is it an insurance claim (from the flood) or taxpayers money?”
Prost said, “The issue is not only money but time (of installation).
Councillor Gerry Marchuk backed the mayor on the time issue noting, “Olson said he could not get the furnaces installed by December 10th.”
Not to far down the agenda $3,500 of the taxpayers money came up in another discussion.
The Property Committee put forward a motion to spend $3,500 to hire Pwi-Di-Goo-Zing Ne-Yaa-Zhing Advisory services for the production of drawings to redesign the public works building.
Anderson immediately asked how much will the taxpayers save by moving into that building from the current town hall.
Mayor Prost could not give concrete figures but batted around $25,000 being spent to house two employees per year at the town hall, which is located in the old CNR station.
Prost said that the designs are needed to approach the federal government and access a job creation program to do the work. However, “We might get the costs to do it and realize we can not even do it.”
Anderson said that he would like to have more solid cost savings figures before he would consider voting in favour of spending the money on the study. “We have already decided that $3,500 is a substantial amount of the taxpayers money.”
In the end the motion was defeated with only councillors Gerry Marchuk and Larry Armstrong voting for it.
Other Business
•Council unanimously voted to give each town employee a $50 Christmas bonus.
•Council paid the town’s bills as follows: Town General: $620,187.01, Water $32,241.84 and Sewer $17,173.29.