Former Avondale town clerk contests comments by former mayor

By Mark Squibb

Avondale’s former Town Clerk is disputing claims made by former Mayor Owen Mahoney in last week’s edition of The Shoreline.
McGrath, who resigned following a public meeting in December, had formerly declined to go on the record about the events leading up to both her own resignation and the resignations of three members of council.
The resignations appeared to stem from a blowup between members of the volunteer fire department and council over funding for the brigade in this year’s budget.
In attendance at that December meeting were a number of volunteer firefighters, and their fire chief Chad Costello.
Last week, Mahoney contacted The Shoreline to insist that despite reports to the contrary, the firefighters were not intimidating, and Chief Costello only spoke for the five minutes allotted to him.
McGrath, however, recalls the meeting differently.
“It was an intimidation tactic, and they pulled it off wonderfully,” said McGrath. “Those members stood in that gallery and stared me down.”
McGrath maintained that Costello, whom she noted happens to be Mahoney’s nephew, spoke for much longer than five minutes.
“I asked Owen, who always sat to my left, ‘You’ve got to make this stop, you need to make this stop,’ because I knew I was being attacked, and he knew it, because he initiated it,” said McGrath.
Costello’s presentation is recorded in the meeting minutes, but are not time stamped, so it is impossible to determine from the minutes just how long he spoke for.
The minutes show that prior to discussing the budget, there was a brief debate on funding for a new smokehouse training facility.
McGrath said Mahoney’s claim that he didn’t agree with the budget because volunteer groups had not been consulted first, though he voted in favour of it anyway, knocked her off her feet.
“We agreed to meet and do our private budget meeting, and because of scheduling conflicts, we agreed to have our meetings with the committees after the budget, after Christmas,” said McGrath.
She added that due to cost increases across the board, some groups may not have received as much as in previous years.
“It wasn’t a year to say, ‘What do you want?’” said McGrath. “It was a year to try and figure out, ‘How much do we have to give?’ Not, ‘What do they want.’ And at the end of the day, everybody got a very good budget.”
McGrath said the fire department was allotted $28,000, down from $30,000 the year before when it needed extra funds to complete a renovation.
The former clerk also disputed the former mayor’s account of her resignation.
Mahoney said McGrath resigned because she had found employment elsewhere, not because of anything that transpired at the meeting.
McGrath said she accepted a position with the provincial government following the December meeting, and admitted she began seeking other employment in June following a number of internal disputes in the community.
McGrath also took exception to Mahoney’s statement that, “The Town Clerk runs the office, but its the volunteer groups who run the town.”
“I’ve had a Town Clerk from the Northern Peninsula call me on that article… They were like, ‘Wow,’” said McGrath. “Volunteer groups are the golden nuggets of the town; however, it is the financial responsibility of the town clerk to make sure they run legally, and that’s a big responsibility.”
McGrath’s resignation as Town Clerk, after nine years with the Town, sparked the resignations of two councillors, who claimed the Town can’t function without an administrator.
Shortly after McGrath’s resignation, the Town’s part-time clerk went on maternity leave and a maintenance person went on sick leave, leaving the Town Hall largely understaffed. McGrath agreed to work two nights a week at the Town Hall in a strictly clerical role to help the Town stay on its feet. The Town has yet to hire a fulltime clerk.
Mahoney, meanwhile, said he quit “for the good of the town.”
There are nine candidates vying to fill the three open seats in a byelection on Tuesday.