Former Vernon councillor calls for current councillor’s resignation

A former Vernon city councillor is igniting controversy by publicly calling on a current councillor to resign.

The allegation is that Brian Quiring is in a perceived conflict of interest because the company he works for, MQN Architects, won a $520,000 civic contract to work on a major upgrade to Kal Tire Place.

However, Quiring said he has no reason to resign.

“I’m not going to apologize for being a businessman in this community. Twenty families get to live in this beautiful place because of this little company,” said Quiring.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I'm not going to apologize for being a businessman in this community. Twenty families get to live in this beautiful place because of this little company," said Quiring.

Quiring said he has been transparent throughout the arena project process by officially declaring the potential conflict of interest when his company applied for the contract and removing himself from civic discussions of the matter.

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The city had four different bids on the arena which Quiring’s company, MQN Architects, eventually won. The four person committee in charge of selecting the winning bid was made up of city staff.

However, Beardsell said he has concerns about that process because he doesn’t believe staff can truly be independent from council.

“There is too much of a relationship there,” said Beardsell.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "There is too much of a relationship there," said Beardsell.

The city stands by their selection process. The city said the contract for the arena work was awarded based on merit through a formal selection process.

“I can say, because I was one of the people on the team, that we were very independent from council and councillor Quiring was always very good about excusing himself from council any time the arena was being discussed. So we are sure that we were very independent,” said the city’s director of recreation services Doug Ross.

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The arena expansion is budged at $13 million. Construction is expected to start in March.