Tantramar hires consultant to work on new Dorchester fire hall
At their regular monthly meeting last week, Tantramar council approved spending $67,000 on a consultant to take the next steps on building a new fire hall in Dorchester. The decision moves Tantramar forward on a long process started by the village of Dorchester years ago to replace the current 77-year old building.
In January 2021, the former village spent $100,000 on two lots on Cape Road for the new fire hall. This latest decision will see Catalyst Consulting Engineers take on coordination of a geotechnical investigation, a net zero analysis, putting together an RFP to find a design consultant, and other negotiations with “third party stakeholders.”
Tantramar CAO Jennifer Borne is the former CAO of the village of Dorchester, and spoke with CHMA last week about the project. She said the replacement of the current fire hall has been talked about for years:
“We certainly got our use out of it,” says Borne. “But certainly [it is] time for a new facility, well-deserving of all of Tantramar, of Dorchester specifically, and certainly the members of Dorchester Fire as well as really all members of Tantramar Fire Service.”
Dorchester Fire Chief Greg Partridge says the current facility was built in 1947 and has been expanded on twice since. Even so, says Partridge, “we’ve outgrown that years ago, and have been wanting a new hall, and needing a new hall for quite some time.”… Continue
Tantramar finally gets a look at its budget, but it lacks details
It was six days into the existence of the new town of Tantramar before staff received the first budget for the town, and the document remains “incomplete” according to mayor Andrew Black. “It’s just a bunch of numbers,” said Black after a first Tantramar council meeting on Tuesday. “There’s no separation of services. There are some services that we know are shared services within our community, there’s some services that are local. But with just a number, we have no idea where we’re at,” said Black.
Black says that five different tax rates are listed in the budget document, but there’s no specifications about which rate applies to where. He says the budget is devoid of comments or explanation.
“We have requested more information as rapidly as possible,” said Black, so that he and town staff can, ”figure out where we stand, where everybody stands.”
As with the initial bylaws governing Tantramar, the first year’s budget was created by amalgamation facilitator Chad Peters. Though provincial deadlines for budget date back to mid-December, Tantramar staff did not get their first peek at the budget until Friday, January 6.
“We’re working with the province to receive what we’re calling the working documents,” said CAO Jennifer Borne on Tuesday. “Right now it kind of just gives a high level overview, so we’ll be working to kind of dig into each cost centre and get more information on line items.”… Continue
Allain dismisses Sackville council concerns and affirms appointment of Jennifer Borne as Tantramar CAO
Note: This story was updated at 5:45pm to include comments from Sackville councillor Michael Tower.
Local Government Minister Daniel Allain has turned down Mayor Shawn Mesheau’s request for an independent review of the process behind hiring a new Tantramar CAO. In a letter to council this week, Allain said he was sticking with his appointment of Dorchester CAO Jennifer Borne to head up the staff for the new municipality of Tantramar. The only other candidate for the job was Sackville CAO Jamie Burke.
Mesheau wrote to Allain about two weeks ago after Sackville town council asked him to do so at their regular July meeting. Mesheau called the process which resulted in Borne’s appointment “fundamentally flawed”, and asked for a meeting with Allain and a review of the whole process by an independent HR consultant.
The minister and the mayor met last week, and this week, Allain sent his reply to all councillors expressing his “confidence in the recruitment process leading to [his] decision to appoint Jennifer Borne to the role.”
Allain’s letter mentioned the province’s contract with Jennifer Murray Consulting of Moncton, whom he said were “responsible for overseeing a biased free [sic] recruitment process leading to a fair and objective evaluation of candidates.”
The letter reads, “The position advertisement, essential qualifications, competencies, and candidate evaluation grid were based on an objective assessment of the position requirements and all candidates were assessed based on the established criteria.”… Continue
Resignation and call for review after Dorchester’s Borne recommended over Sackville’s Burke
Before a three-person HR committee appointed to recommend a CAO for the soon-to-be-amalgamated town of Tantramar could complete their work, the member representing Sackville resigned over concerns that the process was unfair and rushed. Despite that resignation, consultant Chad Peters passed along a recommendation to hire Dorchester’s Jennifer Borne for the top municipal job.
This week, Sackville mayor Shawn Mesheau wrote to Peters’ boss, Minister Daniel Allain, calling for a review of what he called the “fundamentally flawed” hiring process, and a spokesperson for Allain’s department says a meeting will be scheduled.
‘It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t reasonable’: Andrew Black on why he resigned from committee to hire a new CAO
Sackville Deputy Mayor Andrew Black says that in mid-June, when it became apparent to him that his original misgivings about the CAO hiring process were well-founded, he decided he had to resign. “I felt that it was an unfair process,” says Black. “I felt that it was fairly biased. It wasn’t reasonable, which is, you know, terminology that has been used by the minister and his department for this process, that it would be ‘fair and reasonable’, and it was not,” says Black. “And so I left.”
Black’s resignation left the committee with two members, Dorchester Deputy Mayor Robert Corkerton and Sackville local service district resident Chris Milner, who remained on the committee for the rest of the process and recommended that Dorchester CAO Jennifer Borne take the top job in the new municipality.… Continue