Citizens of New-Wes-Valley

Councillor Howell has been unjustly suspended from her position as Councillor with the Town Council of New-Wes-Valley, Newfoundland and Labrador. Her removal was the result of a misunderstanding regarding Council rules. Despite this lack of clear communication, she has received one of the most severe punishments - a 2 month suspension when other options for punishment were brought forward to Council by the investigator. (See the full story HERE ) Councillor Howell has always been a dedicated and hardworking representative for our community. She has shown unwavering commitment to addressing community issues, supporting local initiatives, and improving the quality of life for all residents. Her suspension not only undermines her efforts but deprives New-Wes-Valley of a valuable and passionate public servant. We believe that the decision to suspend her from council was both hasty and unjust. It is imperative that she be reinstated, allowing her to continue her vital work for our community...

The above message has been copied from Brenda Howell's personal Facebook page and shared with us through the 'have your say' posting directions found at the top of this blog. The Town of New-Wes-Valley has posted a message from Mayor Tiller (see link HERE ), as well as the findings by the third party investigation of this matter (see link HERE ). Concerned Citizens would like to hear your thoughts on this matter, and would like to start the conversation by asking: How often do Councillors get investigated by a third party on conflict-of-interest complaints? We have seen many instances of other Councillors voting on topics of personal interest in the past without any mention nor investigation- what have you noticed? Do you think that all Councillors are being treated equally and fairly with regard to conflict-of-interest inquiries? What is the cost to tax payers for the fees paid to third party investigators?  Is it worth the cost?  Or could this be solved without added ...

Minister of Municipal Affairs & Provincial Affairs Department of Municipal Affairs  P. O. Box 8700 St. John's, NL A1B 4J6 Dear Minister Haggie, We are writing to file a formal complaint concerning serious and long-standing failures by the municipal government of New-Wes-Valley to protect public health and meet its obligations under the Towns and Local Service Districts Act and relevant provincial water quality regulations. It has come to our attention that for at least ten years, the municipality has failed to adequately inform residents about dangerously high levels of trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs) in our drinking water.  Based on available water quality reports, these levels are consistently 3 to 5 times higher than the Health Canada Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality. This situation raises extremely serious concerns, including: 1. Failure to notify the public: The Town Council has not made residents aware of the elevated toxin levels...

We kindly request your support for Concerned Citizens representatives to present the following proposal to the council on behalf of all New-Wes-Valley residents. A resident at the recent council meeting expressed concerns regarding water quality.  Although funding for a treatment plant has been approved, its completion will take several years, leaving residents without immediate assistance or compensation. The concerned citizens group proposes the following interim measures: Establish free local filter and fill stations providing filtered water. Reassess water fees by exempting/reducing rates due to undisclosed toxins and health risks. Regularly post publicly the test results showing fluctuating levels of THMs and HAAs in our tap water. A majority “Yes” vote indicates we will proceed with this request. A majority “No” vote indicates we will not proceed with this request. Your opinion is important! Please share your thoughts. Anonymous votes will not be counted, as we cannot tell if...

Mr. Donald Sturge gave a very informative presentation regarding our drinking water at last night's council meeting.  Below is a summary of his presentation. The data he presented at the meeting went back as far as 2014 (Mr. Sturge is not associated with this group) and we received permission from Mr. Sturge to post. ________________________________________________________________ If you would like to have your post published here on the Citizens of New-Wes-Valley blog, please email it to newwesvalleycitizens.haveyoursay@blogger.com without any attachments. Posts are moderated before publishing in order to prevent spam, hate speech, etc.

  ________________________________________________________________ If you would like to have your post published here on the Citizens of New-Wes-Valley blog, please email it to newwesvalleycitizens.haveyoursay@blogger.com without any attachments. Posts are moderated by the blogmaster before publishing in order to prevent spam, hate speech, etc.

Hello all you citizens of New-Wes-Valley, I am shocked to see so many comments on this blog in the last few days- with quite a few inappropriate comments mixed in with some really helpful words of wisdom, prompting me to introduce a few guidelines to help keep this blog going as an effective tool, and not a source of stress for its users. Guidelines for 'Have Your Say' posts and all comments: Keep your comments focused on the post.  Do not comment on something not linked to the topic of the post.  If you want to introduce a new topic, write an email and send it to newwesvalleycitizens@gmail.com. I want your voice to be heard, but make sure you're not distracting the discussion from something else that some of us might feel is important. Keep your message friendly.  Even when bringing up a new challenging topic, criticism needs to be constructive, and not meant to harm nor bully.  Comments of a bullying nature will be deleted, hidden, or marked as spam. There are way ...

What would trigger council to make an amendment to meeting minutes that had been reviewed, approved, and adopted by them 7 months ago? According to the Jan 21, 2025 meeting minutes: June 4th, 2024 Minutes Amendment: CAO noted that there was a discrepancy in June 4th minutes,  motion # 2024/162-A was not reflected in the minutes.  Motion was put to the table, as per scribe. Motion was brought by Councillor Smith, seconded by Deputy Mayor Stagg and voted by ALL. Councillor Hoyles declared conflict and exited chambers. RESOLUTION 25/37 - DAWN STAGG/ANDY BEST Be it resolved to amend June 4th Council meeting minutes to include motion number 24/162-A, as presented at June 4th meeting. In Favour 6: Mayor Tiller, Deputy Mayor Stagg, Councillors: P. Vincent, C. Smith, A. Best, B. Tucker Opposed 0: Abstaining 0:  RESOLUTION CARRIED The June 4, 2024, meeting minutes show as amended and include the following motion as outlined above. ...

We've been asked many times about the slides that the Chief Administrative Officer spoke about at the beginning of the March 18th 2025 Council meeting, and we'd like to explain what that was all about. For those of us who know the previous CAO, it was obvious immediately that an attack was being made against her without an opportunity for her to respond.  For those of you who are still in the dark, prepare yourself with a cuppa and read on.  The first set of bullet points blames the previous CAO for mismanaging the town office and the budget, hoodwinking the Council into doing things they didn't want to do, overspending, and even hiring a family member without the Council's approval. The second set of bullet points boasts of savings and underspending, a CAO tough on rules and procedure, and a better qualified office staff in general since the resignation of the previous CAO.  It also makes the Council look guilty of not taking their jobs seriously. Look at the heading d...

As a concerned citizen of NWV I have questions around th e qualifications of the current CAO, as seen below in a post from the town of NWV   in   May of 2024 it is stated that she is a project manager. According to the Gardner Centre "Fundamentals of Project Management" is a 2 day course and is only one small part of becoming a "Project Manager" with many more requirements to get your Project Management Professional (PMP) designation and be considered a Project Manager. Next is the statement that she is "currently completing her MSc in leadership for Sustainable Rural Development through MUN". I decided to reach out to MUN for some clarification-  this is a copy of the response.     This raises a couple of questions for me. •   Are these the qualifications that were used to promote from the inte rim   CAO position to the full time CAO position? •   Is this individual the one we want representing our town as we are goin...

  Can anyone tell us what this meeting was about?   We know who was there & when it was, but what was the topic? Keep in mind that these minutes are all confirmed by the Council before they are posted publicly. An excerpt from the Towns and Local Service Districts Act  Chapter T-6.2, Part III Town Council, 41. Closed Meetings: (2)  Where a meeting is a closed meeting,              (a)  members of the public shall not be  present;              (b)  a resolution or by-law shall not be adopted other than a resolution                       (i)  giving instructions to the lawyer for the town,                 ...

We have had many people reach out identifying their disappointment over this. We would just like to say we appreciate your support and let you all know this was done in light of negative comments posted on social media. As we have stated before our intent is not to be negative or cause grief. We just want to support people in their quest for answers to some legitimate questions/concerns. We have sent an email to our elected council members to request a face to face meeting where both parties can converse openly. We have not received any response to our request thus far. We do however plan on having a public meeting and will post the date once it has been decided on by the group. If there are any questions please reach out!  You can email us at newwesvalleycitizens@gmail.com, or you can comment on this post. Thank you again for your support and understanding in this matter.

A Special Meeting of Council was held on March 11th, lasted almost an hour, and consisted of a privileged session, with members of the public barred from the Council Chambers. We think the topic of conversation was about a possible conflict of interest with Councilor Brenda Howell with regards to an organization that she is known to volunteer with, known as the Ray of Hope, a group trying to provide services for people who are affected by addictions.  (If that is incorrect, please let us know) If that is what the topic was, then what makes it a private issue?  It doesn't seem like something that would lead to a problem for the community to know what's happening.  This is an example of the decisions made by council that make us wonder why there are so many privileged meetings. Do you have answers about this?  Please leave us a comment sharing information to let us better understand. Here are the minutes from that meeting: M I N U T E S  SPECIAL MEETING OF COUNCIL...

Hello Citizens of New-Wes-Valley, Your blogmaster has taken down a couple of posts, and here's why: 1. We had planned to have an open public meeting next week to discuss ongoing issues within our community, but there has been so much negativity over on Facebook that some citizens felt it would be dangerous to hold the meeting now.  So the meeting has been postponed for now.  That post has been removed.  That post has since been republished. 2.  A comment copied from the Facebook page (NWV Concerned Citizens) had been posted here, with a positive comment for our Mayor.  Comments appeared that were not meant to be helpful when commenters have been asked to keep it friendly, and so the whole post is now hidden.  Nasty messages will not be tolerated.  And to be clear, those are the first comments on this blog to have been hidden.  I will still ask you to keep your comments constructive, but that post has since also been republished. Comments are now r...

Post shared from the NWV Concerned Citizens Facebook Page ________________________________________________________________ If you would like to have your post published here on the Citizens of New-Wes-Valley blog, please email it to newwesvalleycitizens.haveyoursay@blogger.com without any attachments. Posts are moderated before publishing in order to prevent spam, hate speech, etc.

For those of you who do not have Facebook, here is a link to a Google Form where you can express your concerns regarding our town. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfOXrfIIq-VL3XPyaIryIrwmdu5lf6wHjh_OrF1hP_rZ5yB8A/viewform?usp=sharing All responses are anonymous.  Thank you!

We found a very relevant article on NTV News from December which speaks very much to what our citizens are concerned about.  Check out this video to see that this is an ongoing issue all over the province, not just New-Wes-Valley. NTV News story December 2024 This is why we feel that our say needs a platform.  We can be considered an ethics committee, or filling the role of an opposition party in a government body that does not include that option.

Summary of Council's address to our Newsletter   The Mayor expressed that it felt like the Newsletter was an attack, and we believe it is crucial to address this concern. We want to reiterate that our actions were not intended as an attack on any individual or group.   Purpose of this Summary: The information provided by council included many details not directly related to the newsletter inquiries, which may have caused confusion for residents. Therefore, we have decided to simplify and clarify this information.   Positive take aways: Mayor agreed to address newsletter in their public meeting on March 18 – Thank you Reason for privileged session held on March 18 provided (labour relations) as per our suggestion – Thank you   Newsletter Questions: Request made for community newsletter by seniors not actioned. No explanation from council   Why does NWV require so many closed meetings/privileged sessions? No direct response provided by council The Mayor did tell u...