Equipment surcharges, inflation a worry for Antle

By Patrick Newhook

City council continues to grapple with surprise surcharges when trying to purchase new vehicles for its fleet.

The latest case came before council last week when councilor Isabelle Fry announced the City is in the process of purchasing a dual string recycling truck and a rear load garbage truck from Saunders Equipment Limited.

However just like the previous meeting, Fry said the trucks will be more expensive than previously thought.

“The public works department received a letter from Saunders Equipment Limited dated December 21 stating that due to the unprecedented cost increases and vigorous supply constraints over the past couple of years there would be a cost increase or commodity surcharge applied to each of the units,” said Fry.

“The recommendation from our committee is that the commodity surcharge of the dual stream recycling truck and the rear load garbage truck … to be supported in the amount of $10,925 dollars, HST included, which can be accommodated within the fleet budget,” she added.

Councilor Bill Antle asked how the increase will impact the fleet budget, noting that if they keep having to spend more than initially estimated, there’s going to be budget issues.

Infrastructure and public works director Gerry Antle responded by saying the extra charges can be accommodated in the fleet budget and that it won’t have any impact. He also estimated that new tender calls will eventually stabilize and they won’t have to keep having to pay more.

Councilor Antle then followed up by pointing out that two weeks ago it was an overage of $6,000 and now its $10,000 He asked director Antle about when he expects to see the end of this. “This is $16,000. Our budget is finite and we just did our budget,” said the councillor.

Director Antle reiterated that he thinks the situation will stabilize. “I don’t think we’re going to continue to see this with our new tenders… Throughout this spring and summer this will stabilize,” he said.

Councilor Mark Rice commented that the cost increases may need to be factored into new budgets.

“Once we get away from COVID and we get away from the times where a lot of countries and states are not supplying that raw product, I think we might see the trend go down, but right now I’m thinking that trend will stay the way it is because of the supply and demand of the raw product,” he allowed. “You cannot get certain items. This is something we might have to look at, revisiting sometime the fall when we go to look at our budget for next year.”

Fry said it’s not just the City that’s contending with the problem.

“This is something that is unavoidable,” she said. “If we want these vehicles we have to pay the surcharge and we do want these vehicles because on the other side is that we’ll be spending much more money in vehicle repair or maintenance for the trucks that we already have. If we don’t pay the surcharge and get these vehicles now it could be a couple of years down the road before we even get them… At this point this, in my opinion, is our only option.”

Councilor Jim Locke supported the action.

“These are sort of surprises now, these are ‘after the facts,’ these are things that we didn’t budget for, but going forward these surcharges, or any increased costs due to the supply chain issues that councilor Rice mentioned, they will be embedded into the bids, so they won’t be after the fact expenses,” Locke said. “So, I agree that this is probably the last we are going to see because we don’t have any large tender items to come forth. But when we bid on new equipment, if it’s still a supply chain issue, that will be contained in the tender prices.”

Councilor Antle asked how the city can spend more without losing something else in the process.

“We aren’t going to increase the fleet budget by any means, so at the end of the day we are going to lose something, right?” said Antle. “That’s my fear. Are we going to lose a small pickup truck, are we going to lose some equipment out of the fleet budget?”

Mayor Dave Aker assured Antle the city is doing fine financially and won’t need to do anything drastic.

“There’s no doubt this is COVID inflation and the purchasing power of the budget is going to be less,” said the mayor. “What are you suggesting that we do? We have an envelope that’s worth around $1.5 million for 2022. I can’t recall the budget right now for 2021, but I’m assuming we will continue to order the vehicles as we always have. But to your point councilor Antle, we aren’t going to run out of money. Based on $6,000, that’s actually a low inflation rate, but there’s no doubt that we’re either going to order less vehicles out of that budget or Director Antle, you’re going to have to cut back on the specs.”

After more discussion, council voted unanimously to proceed with the purchases.

Metrobus service gets another airing at council

By Patrick Newhook/February 3, 2022

The quality of service and cost to taxpayers of Metrobus got another airing at Mount Pearl city council last week.

The discussion arose during presentation of the Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee Report by councilor Jim Locke, speaking in place of Deputy Mayor Nicole Kieley who was absent. Locke was tasked with presenting a list of invoices that included a bill for Metrobus service.

“Our Transportation Commission fees to St. John’s for Metrobus, is just under $100,000,” Locke noted.

That figure sparked councilor Mark Rice to pose a few questions.

“My second question regards the Transportation Commission’s Metro Bus fees (of) $99,330.28,” said Rice. “It’s a substantial amount that we’re paying out every month for that service, and I’d love to see that revisited and see what we can come up with on a go forward basis. It’s quite an amount and hopefully we’ll get some information back from the City (of St. John’s), even our own interests, what we could do moving forward for the city of Mount Pearl.”

Locke said there have been meetings within Mount Pearl City Hall about the issue and it is still being examined.

“That was discussed at a meeting yesterday,” Locke noted. “We are investigating the busing service. We do pay a substantial amount for Metrobus as well as GO Bus services within the city.”

Locke admitted there are issues concerning the level of service Mount Pearl is getting.

“We’re basically renting or purchasing two routes which some of our users are suggesting are inadequate, that there’s lengthy periods of time (waiting) for buses and it’s not conducive to increased usage,” he explained. “As we’ve discussed around the table in previous councils as well as this one, we are interested in doing a needs assessment. I think the mayor touched on this: is there an increased need for enhanced servicing and if, to Councilor (Isabelle) Fry’s point sometime back (ago), if we build a better service, will that promote greater usage? So, all these issues are on the table.”

Metrobus is a heavily subsidized service.

“My last number was the City is subsidizing it to the tune of about six dollars,” Locke said. “The actual cost of a ride is $8.50, but our users are paying $2.50.”

Another complaint that council has heard from users is that the bus service doesn’t cover the whole city, making its utility limited.

“We don’t get full coverage within Mount Pearl, and that’s some of the feedback we’ve received from residents,” said Locke. “For example, if you’re in Masonic Park and you want to go down to Coleman’s, it’s quite a lengthy bus ride… We will be exploring this further at our committee level and then we will certainly bring it back to the committee as a whole.”  

Councilor Bill Antle questioned how much riders paid per month on Metrobus and wanted to know what the ridership was, saying that both factors are important due to how much Mount Pearl spends on it. Locke reiterated what he previously said, adding the numbers will be fleshed out further in investigations and discussions. Locke added that citizens should be asked how they feel about it too.

“We need to reach out to residents and see what is the perceived need, and is there another way, to councilor Rice’s point, to meet that need in terms of working with Metrobus for better routing or enhanced services?” said Locke.

Meanwhile the motion to pay the Metrobus bill passed unanimously.

Mount Pearl woman competing for international modeling prize

By Mark Squibb/February 3, 2022

Leigh Bursey says his wife Jaida-Leigh Dubois-Bursey blows his mind — and he hopes that voters in an international tattoo modelling contest are equally blown away.

Bursey has entered an Inked Magazine model contest, and as of Tuesday, February 1, she was ranked fourth out of 35 other randomly selected contestants in her group in the first round.

After several more rounds, one winner will be picked. That winner will receive $25,000 in cash, and the opportunity to grace the cover of Inked Magazine.

“Embracing this journey is something her and I have sort of done together,” said Bursey. “I’ve played the role of loving husband, and coordinator, and manager type character, but the truth is, she’s always been beautiful, since the first time I saw her.”

Bursey explained there’s an additional charitable component. Folks can ‘purchase’ votes, with proceeds going towards MusiCares, a not-for-profit that helps musicians during times of financial, personal, or medical distress.

Of Jaida’s tattoos, a tree along her wrist and forearm ranks among her favorites. Many of her tattoos are based upon the popular massive multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft.

The Mount Pearl couple first heard of the contest through a social media ad.

“She has a modelling page on Instagram that has 11,400 followers,” said Leigh. “It’s blown up significantly the last six or eight months.”

The couple saw a promoted post that appeared in her Instagram feed one day, and Jaida decided to enter.

“Between the two of us, we spearheaded an effort to get her face in front of as many people as possible,” said Bursey, who added that modeling has given his wife a major confidence boost.

“Both her and I were at one-point or another homeless youths,” said Bursey. “We’ve both gone through family circumstances… everybody goes through various obstacles, relationship turmoil, personal and professional setbacks, and she’s also had a lot of health obstacles, and many times it’s definitely had a pretty negative impact on her confidence, which I think is tragic, because I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more beautiful in my life. Everyday I wake up and look at my wife, and go, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this is real.’”

The couple, who had been living in Ontario, were married this past September. They made a trip to Newfoundland in August to visit some of Bursey’s family — and ended up moving to Mount Pearl.

They put in a bid on a home after viewing it digitally, and the deal closed during their honeymoon. The couple moved to the Newfoundland in early November, where Bursey found a job at The Gathering Place.

Votes can be cast at the Inked Magazine website.

Alex Taylor poses with a cheque representing the amount of money raised through the Merry & Bright Christmas concert fundraiser for Mental Health. All proceeds go to the Dollar A Day Foundation. This is Taylor’s second year organizing the fundraiser and he hopes to continue doing it picking a different charity each year. The 13-year-old Mount Pearl Intermediate student has a passion for music.

Supply chain issues increases cost of snow plows

By Patrick Newhook/January 27, 2022

Mount Pearl has come up against some issues in trying to replace equipment in its snow fleet.

The original plan, according to the budget, was that the city would spend $2.1 million on fleet renewal this year. “This investment will ensure we can maintain service standards and public safety for important core services such as snow clearing or both roadways and sidewalks,” said councilor Isabelle Fry.

The city put out tenders for two heavy duty tandem trucks, and awarded the contract to Harvey & Company Limited last March. According to Fry, Public Works has since received a notice that the trucks will now be more expensive than tendered.

“On November 26, the Public Works committee received a letter from Harvey & Company Limited stating that there would be a cost increase, or a commodity surcharge, applied to the price of each unit,” said Fry. “This increase is a result of material costs increases due to unanticipated supply chain issues.”

Supply chains have been impacted by the ongoing pandemic, causing costs to rise due to parts shortages. The price hike for each truck is some $4,750 plus HST. Originally, the trucks were tendered at a cost of $598,482, HST included.

“The committee recommends that the commodity surge charge on the two heavy duty tandems purchased under TP-003 be supported in the total amount $10,925 HST included which can be accommodated in the fleet budget,” said Fry.

Mayor Dave Aker said the situation is a unique one. “Councilor Fry, in all my time on council, and yours, we’ve never seen a situation like this have we?” said Aker.

According to Fry, Harvey & Company did offer the opportunity to step away from the tenure, but Fry said that no matter which company the City buys from, supply issues will persist.

Aker asked about retendering, but infrastructure and public works director Gerry Antle said if they did so cost increases would be the same or possibly higher and it wouldn’t improve delivery time. Antle also pointed out the city needs to replace its current fleet for safety reasons.

Councilor Jim Locke said he supported the recommendations for reasons of safety.

Meanwhile, Aker said that the motion could set a bad precedent, and he asked CAO Dana Spurrell what her thoughts on the matter were.

“We’ve looked at our options and we’ve looked at the tender ability period and our next closest bid, and we’re outside our tender ability period,” said Spurrell. “I have spoken to other municipalities. We’re not unique, other municipalities and other organizations are facing the same challenges. We certainly could re-tender, but I’m not sure it would bring any better results or any more favor of the timelines. In fact, as Director Antle said, we’d be held up, and these are two pieces of equipment that we need. So, I think it’s something that we need to allow for and to account for in the future, but right now this is the best course of action to take."

Put to a vote, Fry's motion passed unanimously.

City not interested in salting walking trails

By Patrick Newhook/January 27, 2022

To salt or not to salt, that’s the question Mount Pearl Council were asking themselves.

During the end of the previous Council meeting, Mayor Dave Aker moved council into a round table. Councilor Jim Locke took the floor and began to speak about the city’s salting of trails.

According to Councilor Locke, he has seen numerous people ask about salting the winter trails in Mount Pearl.

“We don’t have an abundance of snow but that has generated some treacherous walking conditions in our trial ways. On social media people are wondering why we can’t clear snow on the trail ways or why we can’t salt our trail ways,” said Councilor Locke.

The city could start to clear the trail ways with salt, but the biggest challenge holding them back is cost

“The challenge with it is cost, we have 60 km of trails which would require addition equipment, addition resources, addition salt expenses, I haven’t seen the calculation but I would suspect the price tag for that, that’s an increased level of service, so either we would have to find more revenue which would result in a tax increase or we’d have to look at reducing level of service elsewhere,”

If council wanted to salt these trails, they would have to find the money somewhere, which would lead to cuts or new taxes. Councilor Lock also brought forward that salting trail ways could affect pet owners, who are trying to take their pets for walks.

Councilor Locke also purposed that they just leave the trail ways as is.

“There’s multiple reasons why we haven’t gone down that path,” said Councilor Locke. “Without further research I’m not prepared to purpose that we do that,”

Council has invested in trail groomers who help level the snow.

Councilor Bill Antle then spoke about he does not support salting the trails. “They’re winter use trails…I’ve talked to many residents, I was on the trail today and the first thing they said to me was ‘Bill don’t salt their trails’ a lot of them were clear, don’t salt the trails their perfect the way they are,” said Councilor Antle.

Councilor Antle also pointed out the environmental impacts, when the snow melts the salt goes into the rivers, which would impact the fish living in it.

 “For the past many, many years Mount Pearl has never ever salted their trails and I think we should continue on the same route,” said Councilor Antle.

Mayor Aker followed by explaining that if the council wanted to start salting the trails, it wouldn’t be a simple move to do. “If we were to consider a change in the level of service, there’s a few hoops we’d have to go through. For example it have to go through committee, we’d have to study it, I’m not trying to make it sound so bureaucratic, but we’d have to fund it,” said Mayor Aker. “I don’t think it would change that easily overnight,”

Deputy Mayor Nicole Kieley finished the conversation by echoing similar concerns that Councilor Antle had. “I one hundred percent agree with not salting the trails specifically within areas where it’s environmentally not prudent and that ultimately when most research would look at because you’re not getting it down to pavement ground every time, it’s not that effective with regards in a way in which it’s going to do what you think it would do say on a road way or a well plowed area,” said Deputy Mayor Kieley.

City finds savings to apply to Smallwood Drive project

By Patrick Newhook/January 20, 2022

Smallwood Drive will be a bit smoother this summer thanks to savings from the city’s Multi-Year Capital Works Programs.

Mount Pearl held its first city council meeting of the year last week. With a new year comes new possibilities, and in the case of the work on Smallwood Drive it’s because of standing funding agreements from previous years.

Since 2014, the city has had two Multi-Year Capital Work Programs. Councilor Mark Rice presented and explained that these programs are three years long, involve construction from a one to two year period, and have carefully managed budgets.

The new project will repair surface coarse asphalt for Smallwood Drive from Old Placentia Road to Commonwealth Ave.

With the closure of the 2014-17 and the 2017-20 programs some $1,135,445 was transferred to a new funding application.

Mayor Dave Aker applauded the program and commended council and staff for their good work, particularly infrastructure and public works director Gerry Antle.

“I guess we see the birth of the new project, largely, director Antle, from savings that we’ve seen from some of our Multi-Year Capital Works over the past six years,” said Aker.

The Mayor and Deputy Mayor Nicole Kieley pointed out the value of the City’s Asset Management policy, which tracks spending.

“It just demonstrates that when we look at investing in something like a traffic survey or how we see the impact of different developments and work around our city or within our city, asset management is a great utilization of that tool to kind of offset some of those things,” said Kieley.

Director Antle estimated the tender for the Smallwood Drive work will be sent out in a month and that construction will start in June or July.

Old swimming pool might come down this year

But it won’t be the site of civic centre

By Mark Squibb/January 20, 2022

Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Mount Pearl Mayor Dave Aker said he’s excited for a number of City projects, some new and some ongoing, that he hopes to see completed in this calendar year.

Near the top of the list is the construction of a $9 million civic centre, an item announced in 2021 and budgeted for 2022.

“We announced it las year, and all the consultation has been finished, so we’ve handed the requirements over to our engineering staff, we are working at modeling the components of the building to meet the needs of the community, and as a result of that you’ll see later in the year an RFP issued for the design and construction of that new facility down at the Team Gushue Sports Complex,” explained Aker.

He is also excited about the completion of new Smart Accessible playground at St. David’s Field, upgrades to Topsail Road, water and sewer upgrades, purchase of additional fleet vehicles, a continued reviewing of the municipal plan, and upgrades to the trail network, including the boardwalk at Power’s Pond.

This might also be the year folks see the old swimming pool finally torn down.

“We’re hoping to see that area redeveloped,” said Aker. “We have decided that that building, in all likelihood, has to be removed, and I think the residents down there will appreciate that. But, what goes there is really going to be the question at the end of the day. When picking out the new civic centre, we basically ruled out that site as the location, so it’s time to move on. We’ve had the new pool, I think going on eight years, and as part of that, we’ve had the old pool building sitting there unused. And it’s time for some change down there.”

What impact the COVID-19 pandemic will have on these projects remains to be seen. Already, the beloved Frosty Festival has fallen victim to the pandemic for the second year in a row.

“I really feel for the volunteers who worked so hard,” said Aker. “They worked long hours this past fall to bring it all together, and they, like us with our budget, made the assumption that Frosty Festival would continue, and things would look a little bit more normal. But frankly, they had to make the decision, and it was well founded, and I believe they plan on doing some of the events a little later in the year.”

As Aker pointed out, this would have been the fortieth anniversary of the Frosty Festival.

“We made the same assumptions in our budget, but we all have to be nimble enough to pivot when we have to,” said Aker. “It’s only a temporary setback, and I’m sure things will start to look like normal soon.”

That said, Aker did admit council passed the budget assuming that recreation facilities would be open at full capacity. That, said Aker, is unlikely to happen now as a wave of Omicron infections has shut down much of the province again.

But, that doesn’t mean people still can’t have fun.

“We want people to be out in the parks and on the trails,” said Aker. “Outdoors seems to be the place to be. Get some fresh air. It’s good for your mental health. It’s good physically.  We’ll be doing things like the snow shoe program and the cross-country skiing program. The outdoor ice rinks of course have been a big hit so far this year. And with minor hockey and the skating club in a bit of a downturn because of COVID, since no team sports are taking place, we’re opening up the Glacier for additional bubble skates, senior skates, and family skates, to allow people an opportunity to get out and get a bit of exercise in the right setting, from a COVID perspective.”

While team sports are a no go, going for a skate with your ‘tight ten’ is still allowed.

Aker said he’s proud of how council and staff worked hand in hand to ensure that essential services were delivered throughout the pandemic.

“We did have to scale back some of our non-core services in our recreation areas, but essential services, we never missed a heartbeat,” said Aker. “It was a challenging year, but I think that’s a real good news story and I want residents to be assured that as Omicron continues to make it’s way across the community, the province, and the country, first and foremost, their safety is the most important thing to think about.”

He said that since the beginning of the pandemic, the City has had to learn how to pivot depending on the provincial guidelines and alert levels.

“When the pandemic started back in 2020, we mapped all of our service offerings to the alert levels that the province had put into place,” said Aker. “So, we could quickly pivot from Alert Level 1 back up to Alert Level 4. We had to tweak it a little bit because the Alert Level 4 that’s in existence is slightly different than when it was back when it was first introduced. But generally speaking, from a recreation point of view, the guidance we’re following is to reduce the people attending your facilities.”

Looking ahead to whatever COVID challenges 2022 will bring, Aker said the question now is one of how municipalities learn to live with the disease.

“We ultimately have to learn to live with COVID,” said Aker. “We can’t shut everything down every time there is an outbreak. We have to learn to manage it. I think what we’ve learned in the last 18 months is going a long way to ensuring those same city services. The key for us is our essential workers. If they have symptoms, for example, there’s protocols in place for them to step out and isolate for a period of time, but then get them back into the workplace, which in some cases could be snow clearing equipment, but get them back to work as soon as possible, but in a safe way. Controlling the spread is key, from an employee point of view. But we can’t take our services for granted. If we don’t manage COVID, it ultimately means we’re carrying too much risk to deliver those essential services.”

On top of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, Mount Pearl City council also had to face the challenge of a number of empty seats around the council chambers last year.

Councilors Andrea Power and Andrew Ledwell were dismissed from council in June of 2020 after allegedly communicating with former CAO Steve Kent about an investigation into his conduct while on the job. As a result of an allegation by Power of unprofessional conduct, Aker himself removed himself from council proceedings while an investigation into his conduct was launched. He was cleared of the misconduct allegations, and took his seat again in October of 2020. Shortly thereafter, long serving councilor Lucy Stoyles announced her intention to run in the 2021 provincial election. Stoyles was successful in her campaign against PC candidate Jim Lester, and traded in her council seat for a House of Assembly seat in March. With the municipal election coming up in October, it was not thought prudent to hold an expensive by-election, so the four remaining members had to hold down the fort until the October election.

Following that election, council is once again operating as a full complement.

“Frankly, the workload is a little bit easier,” said Aker. “As I said to the the new members of council, nobody is more excited, no one else is more happy to see you folks arrive on our doorstep.”

As to the legal battle between the former councilors and former CAO and the City, Aker said it is still ongoing — and may be for some time yet.

“My understanding is that it’s moving along slowly, and it somehow might be inhibited a little because of the impacts of COVID on the court system,” said Aker. “So, those issues are still outstanding. Of course, I can’t comment much more on that except to say that the process is still active.”