Two items on Bruce County Council’s Corporate Services Report have caused some debate.
Councillors were set to approve a one percent salary increase for non-union staff that also included a one percent hike in the per diem pay that councillors receive, but that idea did not sit will with all of them.
Councillor Ron Oswald says their pay should not go up, and Councillor Charlie Bagnato agrees.
Oswald and Bagnato introduced an amendment to still give non-union staff a one percent increase, but not members of council.
The amendment carried unanimously.
Bagnato says one percent is not much of a sacrifice but it sends a good, strong, message.
He says asking raises at this time sends the wrong message, noting it only encourages both non-union and unionized workers to ask for increases when belt-tightening is needed.
The other controversial item was awarding a contract to Bell Aliant to improve broadband internet coverage in rural areas of the county.
Councillor Gwen Gilbert introduced a motion to have it deferred, she’s upset that the work is not being awarded to a local company.
The amendment was defeated and the original motion to give the contract to Bell Aliant carried
Gilbert says the funding for the project was from the province’s Rural Economic Development program and could have gone to local companies that have been working in the area for years.
She says now the money is going to a big company and the small local ones might not survive.
Gilbert says the local companies set up shop when no one else would and provided internet for people, and now when funding is available, a large company has suddenly arrived on the scene.