With the departure of interim corporate officer (CO) Gerry van der wolf on June 10, communications manager Connie Jordison has been named the new interim CO until a permanent person can be hired.
Van der wolf’s interim contract was up, so he decided to give retirement another try in early June, according to Mayor Bruce Milne, who said the district is still a few weeks away from hiring a permanent replacement.
Milne said council wanted to have the management team in place before seeking a permanent CO and the final management team position was filled with the hiring of director of planning Andre Isakov at the end of May.
Isakov joined CAO Tim Palmer, director of financial services Douglas Stewart and director of engineering and operations Nikii Hoglund to complete Sechelt’s senior team.
After securing the management team, Milne said, the district started looking for a new CO and the municipality is nearly at the interview stage for a potential new hire. If all goes well, Milne expects to see a new CO hired in July.
In the meantime, Milne said Jordison is well equipped for the job: “Connie Jordison was chosen as the best interim CO for all the usual reasons: the district’s trust in her ability to perform in the role, most qualified (university degree plus local government courses), capacity to manage the additional duties, her institutional memory and previous experience in managing council and committee agendas and minutes,” Milne said.
“Her position is also organizationally close to that of the CO position recommended in the organizational and management review.”
That organizational and management review completed in July of last year led to the dismissal of former director of corporate services Margi Nicholas, who launched a lawsuit for wrongful dismissal against the district as a result. The date recently set for the lawsuit to be heard by a judge is Oct. 10, 2017.
Nicholas said she had no comment on the case this week, as it is still before the courts.
Milne said he’d been called in for questioning by Nicholas’ legal team in June.
“The first day of discovery was held on June 16 and that was the opportunity for the former corporate officer’s legal team to question, interrogate and discover one individual from the district and they chose me, as opposed to a CAO,” Milne said.
“It was an interesting day that revealed that they think a great deal of the decision [to dismiss Nicholas] was not about the organizational review, but it was personal.”
Milne maintains the decision was made as a result of the organizational review that deemed Nicholas’ role was one that should be dissolved moving forward.
The mayor and council have been accused by some of causing high staff turnover at the district since they took office at the end of 2014, but Milne said the allegations are unfounded and that turnover is within normal levels.
He noted former CAO Ron Buchhorn and Nicholas were let go by way of a council decision, but three interim senior staff members left as permanent people were hired for their positions or their contracts came to an end.
In addition, former chief financial officer Victor Mema left for a position in another municipality, as did former mayoral assistant Monika Schittek.
Milne said two other departures, human resources advisor Susan Sagman and, more recently, development planner Angela Letman, were due to health reasons.
Finally, manager of financial services Linda Klassen was let go in May for undisclosed reasons, and superintendent of parks and public works John Mercer left after his position was found to be redundant as a result of the organizational review.
Shortly after Mercer left, his wife Susan, who worked as a receptionist at the district, also left to take a job in Chilli-wack, where she and her husband resettled, according to Milne.
That kind of turnover in a staff of about 52 full-time employees isn’t anything to cause concern, Milne said, noting the general turnover for municipalities is somewhere between 12 and 15 per cent.
“I’m actually not concerned about staff turnover. I’m really concerned about staff morale. Because why people are leaving is more important than if they’re leaving and how many,” Milne said.
“I’m quite confident that staff morale is good.”
