The Chair of the Board of the Antigonish Farmers’ Market says, despite criticism from the community, they made the right choice.
They chose a contractor for the new Antigonish Farmers’ Market building without issuing a tender.
Casey Van de Sande says they were never required to.
Van de Sande tells The Hawk, though government groups provided much of the funding for the new building, they’re not a government organization, so they didn’t need to issue a tender.
“We want to give people that do it local, that’s one thing, and we want to have the job done,” he says. “In the farming community he’s been well known, Robert Archibald, and we’ve known personally for work that he done.”
Van de Sande says, despite the criticism, the contractor they chose was the right one.
He says they didn’t expect blowback from the decision.
“We didn’t do it intentionally,” he says. “There was no trying to hide anything because, in the end, we weren’t obligated.”
Van de Sande says they trust contractor Robert Archibald to get the work done on time and on budget.
He says they’ve budgeted $1.4 million for the project, down from an earlier estimate of $2.1 million.
