MANITOWANING—In order to continue normal winter road operations Assiginack Township has entered a short-term contract with a private company on Manitoulin Island following the resignation of three members of the township public works crew. The resignation of members of the public works department falls in line with two other resignations the township has faced recently, with the former clerk having resigned prior to Christmas (since replaced by Stasia Carr) and the pending resignation of township arena manager/events coordinator Jackie White.
“We normally have five employees on the public works department, plus superintendent Ron Cooper (the latter of whom, despite rumours, has not resigned his position). The township had three members of the public works department resign in January,” explained Alton Hobbs, chief administrative officer of Assiginack last Thursday.
“It was like a chain reaction with the three crew members all resigning within a 10-day period,” said Mr. Hobbs. “You would have to ask those who have resigned why they did so. If any of the employees left for negative reasons or intentions I’m sure they would have called you first as a newspaper.”
Mr. Hobbs said it will be council’s decision as to how to proceed from there, for example hiring three new public works employees.
Being down three members of the public works crew, “put us in a position that we might not have been able to fulfill our obligations, because we didn’t have the human resources to handle the winter workload,” continued Mr. Hobbs. “So, we entered into a short-term contract with Corbiere Brothers of M’Chigeeng First Nation for winter snowplowing, sanding and salting of roads, and other winter public works duties.”
Mr. Hobbs was asked whether hiring the local company and having three public works will mean a cost to municipal ratepayers. “My answer is that we will know at the end of the winter. Depending on the winter we have and to deliver services. For now, we are saving the costs on salaries with three crew members having resigned, but we are paying the short-term contract. Like any yearly winter maintenance operation, it depends on how good or how bad a winter we have, for instance wear on trucks and how much Corbiere Brothers is needed to help out to get us through the winter.”
