Editor, The News:
Re: Pitt mayor accepts city insurance contract (The News, June 17).
I would like to express my disdain over the way that Pitt Meadows Couns. Deb Walters and Tracy Miyashita handled the award of the City of Pitt Meadows insurance business to Sharpe’s Insurance, which is owned by Mayor Don MacLean.
This reeks of political grandstanding. I have not always voted for Mayor MacLean. In fact, I haven’t voted for him during the past two elections.
But politics aside, I would have to say that the political knives were being brandished with self-gain being the motivation.
First of all, the mayor’s agency has owned and paid property taxes on a business and building in Pitt Meadows for 55 years. The other two insurance businesses that put forth proposals to handle the City of Pitt Meadows insurance portfolio do not have solid roots in Pitt Meadows.
Meier and Company is a New Westminster-based insurance business and Johnston Meier (no relation to Meier and Company) owns 35 offices, with only one office leasing space in Pitt Meadows.
Is Mayor MacLean not allowed to put in a bid for the city’s business?
If that were the case, then Coun. Doug Bing, who is a Pitt Meadows dentist, should not allow any of the City of Pitt Meadows staff to get their teeth cleaned by him, nor should Coun. John Becker, who is a Pitt Meadows lawyer, allow any City of Pitt Meadows staff to use him for conveyance or wills services.
Should city staff have acknowledged that Mayor MacLean’s insurance business put in a bid for the city’s insurance business?
Absolutely, they should have.
But I firmly believe that this was simply a mistake.
Couns. Walters and Miyashita seized the opportunity and spun it into a political circus for their own benefit.
Shame on them.
I, for one, will not vote for individuals who put their own political gain ahead of the facts.
Sharpe’s Insurance is a pioneer business in our community and deserves the insurance business of the city.
Michelle Danielson
Pitt Meadows
Editor’s note: Pitt Meadows Mayor Don MacLean did violate a section
of the B.C. Community Charter
regarding disclosure of
municipal contracts.