Paradise councillors vote to keep the business at home

By Mark Squibb

A provincial policy which allows municipalities to apply a discount to local bids has enabled Paradise to contract work to a local company rather than look outside Newfoundland.

Staff were in the market for a mobile message sign, complete with speed feedback, to help share messages with motorists, and received bids from three companies – Construction Signs, Barricade Traffic Services, and ATS Traffic.

While Construction Signs is based in Paradise, Barricade and ATS are based out of province. Councillor Erin Furlong, during the February 24th public meeting, explained that as per public procurement regulations, Paradise was able to apply a 10 percent reduction to Construction Signs’s bid for evaluation purposes.
The discount knocked the quote provided by Construction Signs down from $26,926 to $24,233, plus HST, bringing it in under the quotes provided by Barricade and ATS, which were $24,700 and $24,850, plus HST, respectively.

All told, the sign will cost $30,964, HST included.

“I fully support this decision here tonight,” said councillor Tommy Maher. “It’s a great benefit to the residents of the town, and another big reason is that we’re getting this particular piece of equipment from a local, Paradise company, and that’s very important. The other two bids were out of province, so at least we’re keeping it in province, and more so, we’re keeping it in our town, so this is a reason why I fully support it for sure.”

The rest of council showed their support with a vote in favour of the motion, and the purchase was approved unanimously.