Strathroy-Caradoc Council continues to struggle at times with the notion of moving two steps forward as opposed to one step back, and that was again evident this week at council as Councillor Willsie brought a notice of motion forward for Council to direct staff to provide a report of all Sole Sourced contracts for the past 5 years, including the values for each individual contract and the total spent with each contractor. The notice of motion also requested the values of total contracts for each department where Sole Sourcing is used for the purpose of calculating the percentage of Sole Sourced Contracts. Sounds confusing?
Councillor Steve Pelkman took the time to chime in.
Councillor Willsie did site bylaws were approved by previous council to give sole source to one contractor to do multiple projects including the public works yard, the Mount Brydges arena, and the Station 1 fire hall. Willsie added the projects were given to the contractor and did not go to tender.
That was not the case as Councillor Pelkman, and Director of Community Services Rob Lilbourne spoke to the fact that the firm A-Link was selected by council through the tender process to be the contractor for a series of projects rather than tendering out each individual project. The notice of motion was defeated by a recorded vote.