Questions raised re: role of city corporate director
When Richard Hare was introduced to council March 18 as the city’s new corporate services director, he found himself the subject of a heated discussion about him.
During a finance committee meeting, Hare, who had taken up his duties a day earlier, was introduced prior to a discussion of the city’s monthly variance report.
Coun. John (Jake) McLaughlin wanted to know more about Hare’s responsibilities with regard to the variance report, as well as his other financial duties.
City Manager Doug Chase said Hare would be involved, but pointed out it was only his second day on the job.
McLaughlin then asked who in the future would take the lead role in that area and Chase told him Hare would.
On hearing this, McLaughlin asked if Hare was a chartered accountant.
Coun. Smith tried to raise a point of order, but McLaughlin spoke over him.
“When we got into this here, I fully supported what this whole process and what we did with human resource,” McLaughlin said, referring to a new humanresource strategy developed for the city by CompassPoint Management.
“But when we came down to the night when we were talking about our financial director, it wasn’t clear who that person was going to be.
It wasn’t clear to me that our new corporate director was going to take the lead role.”
Chase, looking concerned, asked if the discussion of Hare’s job duties could be moved behind closed doors.
“I would recommend strongly that this go into committee of the whole,” Chase said, to a chorus of agreement.
Committee of the whole meetings are closed to the public and the media and no recordings are made.
However, rather than go into committee of the whole, and because the subject was not on the agenda, chair Ned Manderson suggested that the item added to a future agenda.
That appeared to be the end of the discussion until Coun. Lisa Harris asked to speak prior to council going into committee of the whole on two other items.
“I’m not feeling very happy about what took place here a few minutes agI feel that we welcomed a new member of our staff here this evening and we got into a dialogue that I don’t feel sets a very nice pace for him to come into this building. And I also sense that our staff feels very uncomfortable,” Harris said. “So I just would like, as a point of information, [to say] that our new director of corporate services is extremely qualified for the position that he holds and that I personally am very happy that he is here. As another point of information, Mr. Chase has been our treasurer for quite a while and I don’t believe he has a CA.”
Manderson then called for the motion to go into committee of the whole.
Falconer unhappy with new variance reports Prior to the discussion of Hare’s qualifications, Coun. Reg Falconer also raised concerns over the council’s monthly variance reports.
Until recently, council received a report outlining all expenditures in the city. This report was often a frequent source of aggravation for Smith, who said council should only get such reports on items that are off by five per cent.
Council agreed and voted to move to that system.
On Tuesday, Falconer announced he doesn’t like the new system.
“This is only what they want to give, and I don’t like this at all,” Falconer said. “I know we agreed. I’m just expressing my opinion. I don’t like the way we’re doing it. I liked it when we were getting the whole package. I knew what was going on.
I could look at it and decide what I wanted to ask questions on. I didn’t have to have yellow tags here, yellow tag there, yellow tag here. All I had to do was go into the office here and ask. I didn’t have to stand here at this table and hound everybody to do what I wanted for the next two or three hours. All I had to do was go in here and ask. And that’s what I used to do. I didn’t bring it to this table. I don’t like the system we got here now, we don’t see where the money is going.”
Smith too exception to Falconer’s words.
“I’m the yellow tag man! Why don’t you use my name, if you have enough guts,” he said. “All he has to do is ask the manager to get all those documents handed to him personally.
If he wants to go through it and ask all the questions, he can do it. This [the five per cent system] is a recommendation from a business practice that’s done outside. We’re big-picture people. We’re supposed to think at the level of a corporation.
You’re [Falconer] a director, so it’s time you learned to use your skills,” Smith said.
Manderson asked staff to make a note so that in the future Falconer would get the entire document.
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