CENTRE WELLINGTON – Staff negotiations to find a new pest control expert and deal with the township's termite troubles could delay the project another year if not figured out quickly.
While council approved staff recommendations to begin discussions with Toronto-based Aetna Pest Control and determine opportunities to "effectively address" termites during a Centre Wellington council meeting Monday afternoon, other councillors were concerned the new negotiations may delay the project again.
A staff report in the agenda also recommended giving staff the option to survey hundreds of properties with active termite activity identified in 2021 to determine the program's viability based on the pest control vendor.
Aetna Pest Control is the third vendor the township has approached to take on its termite management program.
The township's managing director of corporate services and treasurer Adam McNabb said negotiations failed with the most recent vendor because licensing availability for the product "cornerstone" to the previous vendor's strategy introduced "complications to the proposed project scope, timelines, cost and administration of the program."
But while Coun. Barb Evoy was supportive of the township staff's efforts to move forward with a new group, she had questions about what would happen if negotiations fell through again.
"I'm genuinely concerned about how long this could potentially take," said Evoy, asking for an approximate timeline during the meeting.
McNabb said the opportune time to begin the project is between the spring and fall seasons but that it will "require a bit of time" to engage with the vendor to "determine whether or not there is a viable program available."
When asked whether the project is likely to start this season, McNabb said it's too early to tell.
"With anything I would level that it would be predicated on the best efforts basis but it'd be too premature for me to determine whether there is viability without having had conversations with these vendors," said McNabb, during the meeting.
As soon as staff have more information, McNabb said they'd bring a report back to council for clarification.
Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.
