VP of communications for Powerstream disputes some of CAO Brown’s claims

TheEnterpriseBulletin.com
Sept. 8, 2016
JT McVeigh

The waters between Collingwood council and Collus Powerstream continue to be muddy as the two work toward a new shared services agreement.

At last Monday’s council meeting, town CAO John Brown updated council on the negotiations of a new agreement that started in July of last year.

Brown reported to council that despite best efforts of the town’s lawyer, Jean Leonard, Powerstream has still not responded to the town’s request for satisfaction on the working of the shared services agreement.

More surprising, Brown told council that a number of staff have been transferred.

“It has come to my attention as CAO that certain key staff of Collus Powerstream Solutions Corporation may have been transferred from that company to work for its parent company, Collus Powerstream Utilities Corporation,” Brown said to council.

“It may have occurred as early as May of this year. I find it strange that such a large scale (moved) out of Collus Powerstream Solutions without the town being advised.”

Eric Fagen, vice-president of corporate communications for Powerstream, disputes some of the points Brown has made, particularly that there has been no communication between the town and PowerStream.

Fagen claims that there have been emails exchanged between Powerstream President Brian Bentz and Brown over the past several weeks.

Other than Collingwood’s challenge to the confidentiality clause in the shareholders agreement asking for disclosure of employee salaries and benefit information, the two parties are very close to an agreement, Fagen says.

“We are still working through the shared services agreement, there are a few loose ends to tie up and we don’t think there is anything major,” says Fagen.

“We are hoping to have this signed off in the next few weeks.”

Fagen continued by saying that the shareholders directive to disclose salary information would have to be discussed by the Powerstream board of directors when they meet on Sept. 30.

“That would be coming back to the Powersteam board of directors either way,” says Fagen.

According to Fagen, because of earlier provincial legislation, Collus Solutions is a corporation that was set to house employees who were performing services for Collus Powerstream, specifically billing.

The province’s legislation at the time the partnership was formed stipulated that a separate entity was required for all Local Distribution Companies (LDC) that had any LDCs working for any third party.

In this case, the third party was the Town of Collingwood.

Last year, the legislation was lifted by the passing of Bill 112, the Strengthening Consumer Protection and Electricity System Oversight Act, making Collus Solutions Corporation no longer relevant and it held no financial assets, according to Fagen.

“So, some employees were transferred over to Collus Powerstream because they no longer had to supply services to water or town operations,” says Fagen.

The transfers were strictly an administrative matter, said Fagen, that did not require the approval of either shareholder.

“As a matter of fact, this was passed unanimously by the Collus Powerstream board of directors and approved back in May,” says Fagen. “The board directors, of which there were two from the town, were aware of it. There was nothing hidden here.”