The Town of Athabasca's council has terminated its contract with chief administrative officer Josh Pyrcz after a vote at a special meeting held Aug. 10 regarding his resignation letter.
The Town of Athabasca's council has terminated its contract with chief administrative officer Josh Pyrcz after a vote at a special meeting held Aug. 10 regarding his resignation letter.
Town of Athabasca councillors were notified last week that Pyrcz - who has been the town's CAO since October 2014 - had tendered his resignation.
At the special meeting, council passed a motion to “pay out the five weeks for the CAO's time at the town in exchange for his immediate departure and waiver the buy-out clause in the contract. ” The motion passed with Mayor Roger Morrill and Councillors Tim Verhaeghe, Shelly Gurba and Steve Schafer in favour, following a seven-minute in-camera session.
Councillors Joanne Peckham and Nichole Adams arrived a minute into the in-camera session, and voted against the motion.
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After the meeting, the Athabasca Advocate asked for clarification on the exact wording of the motions as recorded in the minutes.
Town development officer Rachel Ramey said she could not clarify the motion, since only the CAO and the mayor have that authority - Pyrcz was not present, and Morrill said he had questions that needed to be cleared up with Municipal Affairs before he could confirm the motions.
The following day, Morrill provided a copy of the meeting minutes, clarifying that they were the “not yet approved minutes ” from the meeting.
A final motion passed with support from Gurba, Adams, Peckham and Coun. Tanu Evans - who arrived halfway through the 30-minute meeting - which asked Municipal Affairs to appoint a municipal administrator as laid out in the Municipal Government Act.
In the meantime, the town does not have an interim CAO or an assistant CAO to run the town's administration, organize meetings and agendas, and hire new staff.
Two years ago, when then-CAO Ryan Maier resigned and the search began for a new administrator, assistant CAO Melody Wolansky took over on an interim basis. However, Wolansky resigned earlier this year and was not permanently replaced.
At a town council meeting on Feb. 16 after her resignation, Pyrcz said an organizational review was taking place, and that the town would not be rehiring an assistant chief administrative officer. He said he would bringing back “a modified position description for council's information. ”
“Before, we had the assistant chief administrative officer, ” he said in an interview after that meeting. “So now we've reviewed that position, we've changed it from assistant chief administrative officer to a director of finance position, and in the interim, Rodney (Boyko) is filling it. ”
At the time, Pyrcz pointed out it was under his purview to fill the position, and town council does not have to approve his decision.
Boyko's last day as the interim director of finance was July 27; as such, town council has no one to fill the CAO temporarily as they search for a permanent replacement.
In addition, Ramey said that once the summer student leaves, the town will only have three staff in the office - a full roster is six staff, including the CAO, director of finance, and four administration staff, plus a summer student.
“The MGA states that every council must appoint one or more persons to carry out the powers, duties and functions of the position of chief administrative officer, ” said Jerry Ward, public affairs officer for Municipal Affairs. “Therefore it is a mandatory responsibility for council to appoint somebody to fulfill the duties, either on an interim or permanent basis. (The) timeline would be upon acceptance of the resignation, an interim must be appointed. ”
Ward later added that, “there is no provision in the MGA for the minister to appoint a ‘municipal administrator' for a municipality. ”
“Council is required to appoint somebody to fulfill the legislated duties of a CAO, ” he said.
The meeting
The special meeting started promptly at 5 p.m. Wednesday night with only three councillors and the mayor in attendance. Council went into an in-camera session to discuss Pyrcz's resignation letter. Within two minutes of the in-camera session, Adams and Peckham arrived.
Once council came out of camera, Gurba put the motion on the floor to accept Pyrcz's resignation, which passed 4-2.
Shortly after, Verhaeghe put his own motion on the table to hire former-CAO Doug Topinka as interim CAO.
“Former CAO Topinka has a good working knowledge of the town, the town staff, our finances, and everything else, ” Verhaeghe said. “I don't even know if he would be in agreement with it, but in the interim, I think he could pick up where he left or pick up where things are at, and he could get this into shape quickly. ”
Gurba said it would be best to have the province appoint a municipal administrator.
“I think we need to get someone in totally that has no connections to the town, and they will come in with a whole different perspective, ” she said. “When they do come in, they will look at things from afar, rather than being involved in previous councils and previous terms of councils. Things have changed quite a bit since Mr. Topinka has been involved with the town. ”
Verhaeghe later withdrew his motion, saying he did not think it would get support from around the table. Instead, he put another motion forward to appoint Ramey as interim-CAO. The motion failed, with only Verhaeghe, Morrill and Schafer voting in favour.
“It's been deplorable the treatment the CAO has received, ” Peckham said, who voted against the motion. “I am not comfortable with anything other than Municipal Affairs coming in and placing someone here until we can get a CAO. Our CAO is still our CAO, and in conversations with him, the cancer has not been removed from the office. ”
Coun. Evans agreed with pursing the Municipal Affairs option, and noted that the town's reputation could hinder the search for a new CAO.
“In my opinion, the press and certain councillors have not been very fair to the previous CAO, which resulted in his name being dragged through the dirt, ” he said. “I think a lot of CAOs looking for a job are going to be looking into this, to look and see how this council treats CAOs. They're going to look at the past media history of the CAO and the media history on this council. I think it's going to really hamper this council's ability to find a qualified and good candidate to run the town. ”
Peckham put forward a third motion to have Municipal Affairs appoint a municipal administrator as specified in the Municipal Government Act, which Coun. Schafer voted against.
“(Municipal Affairs) are now employing and invoking preliminary discussion to have an inspection, and this whole matter is much greater than the CAO, ” he said. “It pertains to much around this table, interaction and lack of around this table. This is not a matter of just this CAO. This is a matter of the way it's been through most of this term. ”
- With files from Allendria Brunjes
