Gibsons Mayor Wayne Rowe is trying to deflect the heat from the highly unpopular chip seal program away from the head of the department that maintains roads and on to councillors.
In a statement posted this week on the Town’s website and Facebook page Rowe said: “In recent months our staff have been publicly criticized for the Town’s chip seal program that was implemented in the Hillcrest neighbourhood. This criticism, directed primarily at our Director of Engineering, has been in person, on social media and in online publications. Not unlike any other employee/employer relationship, Council, as the employer, makes decisions and staff implement those decisions. The decision to use chip seal on those roads was made by a unanimous vote of Council and, as a Council, we cannot condone staff being villanized (sic) for our decisions.”
Rowe told Coast Reporter he felt it was necessary to send the message, even though council has already said at public meetings that it was their decision to go ahead with the project in order to try to stretch the road maintenance budget, and they accepted blame for the fact it hasn’t worked.
“There had been some rather intense postings on social media that were calling into question our staff in terms of their professional expertise and their motives and in my view there’s no place for that sort of personal attack,” Rowe said.
“Our staff bring advice to council and recommendations about how we might do things, but ultimately council makes those decisions and it is council that stands by the decisions. There’s just no place in our community for personal attacks on staff. They don’t have the ability to defend themselves, council does. When we’re on this side of the table, we accept that’s what happens.”
During the recent budget deliberations, council included money to redo Seacot and Mountainview, where the problems with the chip sealing have been the worst, with asphalt. Rowe’s statement confirms the other roads will remain chip sealed as the Town works to address the problems. Town officials have also said some of the remediation work could be covered under warranty provisions in the original contract.
Rowe’s statement also reiterates the reasons for trying chip seal in the first place.
“In 2016 Council was faced with the daunting task of finding funds to maintain our 32km of roads. An external engineering firm was engaged to provide advice as to the investment required to maintain the Town’s roads to their current standards. The consultant’s report indicated that an annual investment in excess of $500,000 would be required to adequately maintain our roads. Without raising taxes significantly, a Town the size of Gibsons cannot sustain those costs,” Rowe’s statement said.
“I agree, in Gibsons we did not hit a home run with this process in all locations… We do understand the frustration that has been experienced by residents on some of the roads that we attempted to improve, admittedly with less success than we had hoped. We will continue in our efforts to minimize their inconvenience having regard to the constraints of the Town’s resources and finances.”
