CommunityCouncilTop Story

Water meter objection places Harbour Grace councillor in possible conflict

By Mark Squibb/February 3, 2023

Harbour Grace councillor Terry Barnes was none too impressed this week with a motion that was passed at council’s first meeting of the new year from which he was absent.

During that meeting, held January 9, council voted to write the Division of Small Craft Harbours in the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to inform them that a water metre will be installed, at their expense, to measure the amount of municipal water supplied at their premises in the harbour.

The Harbour Authority, which manages the premises, was to be billed at a rate of $2.50 per 1,000 gallons of water once the meter was installed.

“I’ve done some investigation into this myself, and I wanted to give the Town some clarification on the stuff that they’re doing,” Barnes told the other councillors who had voted in favour of the policy once the public meeting got underway.

Barnes said he had reached out to two other communities, Brigus and Old Perlican, regarding the issue. “What they’re telling me is that trying to put a metre on a non-profit is not going to work,” Barnes argued. “The other thing is the policing of the water. So, what these other towns have done, and I’ll use Old Perlican as an example, down in Old Perlican there are six companies there operating on the wharf. And what the Town decided to do, was where there was no way to police how much water was being used, because these wharves are open to the public… what these towns have done is they have come up with an agreement of a number of dollars per year that they would pay council.”

Barnes reiterated that policing the water metre would be impossible.

“A non-profit is not going to pay someone to sit on the wharf 24 hours a day to see if anybody else is using the water,” said Barnes. “In the Town of Old Perlican, between the six proponents using the water on the wharf, they are charged $3,000 a year.”

Barnes suggested that council and the Harbour Authority meet and come to a financial agreement, rather than install a metre.

Mayor Don Coombs acknowledged that the chairman of the Harbour Authority of Harbour Grace, Ross Green, reached out to him following the last council and the group is open to meeting with the Town regarding the matter.

Coombs, who noted he also talked with Old Perlican Mayor Clifford Morgan, allowed there will be more discussions on the matter.

“We’ll see where this goes, and we can discuss this further,” said Coombs. 

Meanwhile, it turns out Barnes may have broken municipal conflict of interest rules in raising and discussing the issue at council. Barnes works for one the largest seafood companies in the province, Barry Group Inc., and is personally involved in collecting crab for the company at the wharf in Harbour Grace.

When contacted by The Shoreline, Barnes denied being in a conflict of interest, but admitted he won’t vote on the issue the next time it comes before council.

“If I thought I was in a conflict, I would have declared myself or I wouldn’t have even brought it up,” said Barnes. “If the mayor or the CAO thought I was in a conflict they would have stopped me right from the start.”

Under the provincial guidelines for municipalities, a councillor who is uncertain about his or her status regarding a potential conflict is supposed to declare it to the rest of council and ask for a vote on whether there is a conflict. Barnes did not do that.

He allowed the situation was a bit of a catch-22.
“Some may perceive it as a conflict, but I don’t get any personal gain if a water metre is installed or not,” said Barnes. “I don’t get anything out of it. I’m just an employee, like you are with The Shoreline News.”

He added that, should the water metre matter come to a vote, he would refrain from voting.

“I would step aside,” said Barnes. “I Just wanted to bring up the clarification.”

By way of example, he noted he is secretary with the Masonic Lodge, and said that if the Masonic Lodge came to council requesting financial assistance, he would declare a conflict.

“I wouldn’t want people to say, ‘Oh well, he’s working on the docks down there, and so he influenced the council’s decision to overrule this,” said Barnes. “If it went to a vote, yes, I would step aside.”

Barnes admitted about 90 per cent of his work time is spent on the wharf in Harbour Grace.

He reiterated the Harbor Authority is a non-profit, and he doesn’t believe the metre should be installed.

As at the council meeting, Barnes raised the issue of policing the metre, contending that members of the public use wharf water to do everything from cleaning cod to filling swimming pools.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *