The recent resignations, firing and retiring of so many top level District of Squamish staffers is drawing increasing parallels to the TV show Survivor - each week we're left wondering "Who will be next?"
To recap, since the resignation (with severance pay) of chief administrative officer Kim Anema, we've seen the departure of fire chief Ray Saurette, operations manager Gord Prescott, engineering manager Doug French and director of finance Ralph Hughes.
Prescott retired, and French and Hughes have gone on to excellent jobs, according to new CAO Kevin Ramsay. And he goes on to say it's "possible" the district will soon announce the departure of other top level staffers.
(Mayor Greg Gardner declined to discuss the changes with The Chief.)
It seems the writing's on the wall for management. Given the somewhat unnerving level of housecleaning, we think there must surely be a purposeful restructuring going on within Municipal Hall. But don't expect anyone on the inside to put it so plainly.
"No, it's not indicative of anything going on," said Ramsay.
"Our intent is to develop a high level leadership team that is responsive to Squamish's needs, and that's where we're headed."
However he does say: "We're contemplating potential re-organization of the leadership team in the coming months."
He goes on to laud the "three superstars" recently added to the management team - that would be Bob Smith as operations manager, Tom Easterbrook as our new fire chief and Brian Barnett who will be manager of engineering on a temporary basis.
There's no question that Squamish got quality when it took in these men.
This week's waste dumping story is just one indication that we have the right experts on the job.
It's good to know that although our former operations manager permitted tens of thousands of gallons of Whistler sewage to be loaded into local systems for a fee with only a vague policy in place, Ramsay and Smith (who are both top experts in this particular field as a former board member and president of BC Water and Waste Association) are on the case. And municipal insiders are reporting that employee morale is through the roof - another good sign.
We hope to see the same quality in the new director of finance, but Ramsay suggested the manager of engineering job may go by way of the economic development officer and environmental co-ordinator - that is to say elimination. (There's that Survivor theme again.)
In the meantime, Ramsay insists it's "fairly normal" for organizations to changes. Granted, however it will be interesting to review this year's severance packages come next year's budget deliberations.
- Sylvie Paillard
