 | Friday, November 13, 2020
Reading this online? Sign up to get this delivered to your inbox every Friday. | | Lots of turnover at the top in B.C. government bureaucracies | | |  | | | If you’re noticing senior bureaucrats across British Columbia leaving their jobs lately, you’re not alone.
This week Burnaby city manager Lambert Chu announced he would be retiring by the end of February 2021, forcing B.C.’s third largest city to start looking for a new person to oversee its staff and operations.
It happened the same day the person overseeing the B.C. bureaucracy, Don Wright, announced he will be stepping down.
TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond is also leaving his job at the beginning of 2021, as is Vancouver’s city manager Sadhu Johnston. When you add it up, there’s a major turnover in civil servant leadership happening in the next couple of months.
It’s easy to speculate why this is happening, or wonder if there’s some deeper link between all these senior departures, but the truth is closer to what everyone is going through: COVID fatigue.
Managing the operations of a city or transit organization is stressful at the best of times. The challenges these groups will face during the 2021 recovery phase of the pandemic will also be difficult.
If you’re a senior manager, who’s made more than $200,000 for several years, your biggest goals already complete, it surely must be tempting to choose a lifestyle that will allow more time with family and less time dealing with the unknowns coming out of a pandemic.
For Vancouver, Burnaby and TransLink, it will bear watching whether the change in management brings a change in strategy, or a change in the diversity of the region’s highest leadership ranks.
As for the rest of us? We can only wish to have such a simple COVID exit strategy. | | |  | | | 1. Kimberley | Speaking of COVID fatigue, the parks manager for the East Kootenay community of Kimberley resigned after being bullying by residents upset that some recreational facilities in the city are closed during the pandemic. Incidents included a person following him around a grocery store, berating him, which, you know, maybe don’t treat people that way?
Read more | | | | |  | | | 2. Langley City | A long-bubbling feud between new Mayor Val van den Broek and six veteran councillors became public this week, after it was revealed council booted her off the Metro Vancouver board. There’s conjecture over whether it’s connected to a fundraising investigation, but a mayor wanting to sit on the regional board and not being given that privilege is a rare thing.
Read more | | | |  | | | 3. Vancouver | While there wasn’t much news out of Vancouver this week, Mayor Kennedy Stewart made headlines in both pushing the province to create a homelessness czar, and saying a full COVID lockdown would be up to provincial health officers. It’s worth noting that in general, cities seem more likely to wait for provincial orders in this wave of the pandemic than they were in March.
Read more | | | | | |  | | | 4. Belcarra | While mayoral elections for Tofino and Mission stemming from the provincial election have yet to be set, Belcarra has scheduled its byelection for January 23, following former mayor Neil Belenkie’s resignation last month during a dispute arising from plans to upgrade the community's water supply. Expect the city’s sizable debt load — and minimal ability to raise funds from its small residential-only tax base — to be a big campaign discussion.
Read more in the Tri-City News | | | |  | | | 5. Sechelt | Finally, council in the Sunshine Coast community of Sechelt had the toughest of choices to make: should it spend $4,500 to install a giant illuminated Santa Claus on the municipal hall roof? In the end, a majority voted No! No! No! to St. Nick — but did give the green light to installing $3,700 of white lights on the building. Never let it be said that city politics doesn’t sweat the small stuff.
Read more in the Coast Reporter | | | | | | We’ll try to answer more emails from now on, and one of them this week came from Charles, who said:
“Love the story on the City of Vancouver and the mayor's unhappiness.
But no mention of the unreal spending by the city on office supplies …”
And it’s true — when we reported on Mayor Kennedy Stewart crying foul over getting $44 million less than expected in COVID-19 bailout funds, we didn’t mention the $300,000 in office furniture purchased for city hall over the summer.
That’s because, contrary to what you might hear on social media, they aren’t really related.
The office furniture was approved by council as part of renovations to city hall contained in the 2020 capital plan budget, which doesn’t come from annual operating funds threatened by COVID-19.
Council then approved keeping that amount of money for renovations after the pandemic began — even when it cut other parts of the budget.
You might say that there are bad optics or poor symbolism involved in their choice of furniture during a pandemic, and you might be right!
But the exact way staff spent 0.0002 per cent of its annual budget when it was already approved by council isn’t as important in the big-picture financial consideration. | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
forwarded to you. | | | | That's it for us today! Check out the latest headlines at cbc.ca/bc and follow our municipal affairs reporter Justin McElroy on Twitter. And if you have any questions, you might want answered in a future mailbag, drop Justin a line at metromatters@cbc.ca. | | | |
