Conception Harbour, owed hundreds of thousands in unpaid taxes, can't pick up the trash

The mayor of Conception Harbour says the rural Newfoundland town is owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes and municipal grants, and until the situation is resolved, services like garbage collection and town lighting will suffer.

On Aug. 28, the town announced in a Facebook post that garbage collection would be delayed.

In another post three days later, following questions from residents about why garbage wasn't being picked up, Mayor Craig Williams outlined the problems with the town's finances.

Town council doesn't know who owes taxes or how much they owe, he wrote, and under provincial privacy legislation, he wrote, council doesn't have access to that information.

"We are in the process of hiring a temporary town clerk," wrote Williams, who refused an interview request from CBC News.

In addition to the lost tax revenue, said Williams's Facebook post, the town on Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula — with a population of 624 in the 2021 census — hasn't received its operating grants from the provincial Department of Municipal Affairs.

"For council to obtain our municipal operating grants we have to submit audited financial statements," he wrote. "There is a delay in our 2021 and 2022 financial statements due to ongoing issues before the courts."

Williams didn't explain what the legal issue is or if it's connected to former town manager and clerk Bonnie Lynn Wade, who is facing 31 charges of fraud, theft and breaching trust.

Court documents show the fraud charges stem from allegations Wade used a town credit card 10 times, spending a total of $3,600.

Wade is due back in court next week, when she is expected to enter a plea.

Williams's post said council is working with the town's auditor and Municipal Affairs to sort out its financial situation. The town will also be taking residents who are more than two years in arrears to small claims court, he warned.

In the meantime, he outlined a list of expenses the town is having difficulty covering. Garbage collection costs $8,000 a month he said, and street lighting costs $4,000 a month.

"We will be reducing the lighting by at least half," he wrote. Snow clearing is needed six months of the year, he added, and the contract is $7,500 per month, with ice control materials costing an additional $1,500 a month.

According to the mayor's post, the unpaid poll tax owed in 2021 was $251,393, and he said the town expects that number to have doubled in 2022. The town's poll tax — a fixed tax levied on every resident over 18 — is $425 a year, raised by council in December from $375.