Council’s mid-term review of priorities
Administrator | Nov 01, 2012 | Comments 37
During November, Council will conduct a mid-term review of priorities.
As preparation, Council will meet in closed session on the evening of November 20 and morning of November 21 for an education / training session to discuss Council / staff, Council / Council and Council / Mayor roles, relationships and responsibilities. Such a closed meeting is permitted as long as specific County business is not discussed.
On the afternoon of November 21, Council will meet in open session to conduct a mid-term review of the strategic priorities established earlier in the Council term, presumably to consider if any changes should be made. County residents may attend this session as observers only (no deputations). Location: Isaiah Tubbs Resort. Time: 2:30 pm (approx.).
Subsequently, any proposed changes will be brought before a Council or Committee of the Whole meeting, at which time County residents and groups will have the opportunity to make deputations.
Reference: http://pecounty.on.ca/pdf/Nov20and21specialeducationsessionandmidtermCouncilreview.pdf
-Gary Mooney
Filed Under: Letters and Opinion
Well there is dirty laundry but then there is laundry that just can’t come clean anymore and needs to be thrown out lol ….
Neighbouring municipalities are not without their dirty laundry either and some of their employees have jumped ship in the past to come here. Didn’t Mr. Braun come from Trenton?
Shire Hall may be tired but it’s also historic. Let’s keep it. We don’t want to lose any more historic buildings. Moving our municipal offices to Wellington would be just one more backward step for what was once known as the county town.
Mark, Wow I had no idea. And the Mayor and Council were unaware of all of this???? Like I have always said if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, smells like a duck then its a DUCK…. It dosn’t take long for information to seep from other municipalities down to here, it may not happen in a month or a year but eventually it does make its way down the path…
We also have a tired Shire Hall. Let it go to Wellington and just perhaps the poisoned culture could be removed. Oh,on second thought you would have to replace those in power that allow outdated and discrimatory practices to thrive. Employees in neighbouring municipalities are not treated in such manner. But then that is why any senior manager worth his or her salt have headed to Belleville and Hastings at first opportunity.
Louise, if they ever build a new county office building I’m willing to bet it will be in Wellington because it’s “central”. We lost the archives and we will probably lose more over time. Picton is losing its clout. Nobody fights for things here. We have a tired old arena and look what Wellington got.
marnie put two and two together and get while Wellington is going ahead. The Mayor lives in Wellington and he and Dewing are the M and M’s. Whatever Lisa Lindsay was hired to do she is going to be working out of the Wellington Arena. so it will get things instead of Picton. Also keep in mind that all the winneries are up that way (or at least most of them)
Just keep an eye on things and make sure that Shire Hall does not move to Wellington. The archives moved from the Picton Court house to behind the Wellington Library awhile back. It was rumoured that the Wellington Times contributed to Mertens campaign.
Oh well time will tell
Picton seems to be going backward while Wellington is moving forward by leaps and bounds. Look at all the empty store fronts on Picton’s Main Street. Wellington is a vital community with a new arena, a new housing development underway and a new liquor store and mini plaza coming while Picton lacks affordable housing and decent apartments at a reasonable rent. If Picton does not pull up its socks it will be playing second fiddle to Wellington before too long.
Re Fire Station
Why put a fire station at the traffic circle on Prime agricultural and pay a fortune for it. There are 4 market gardeners in the area. We could put it in the Indusrial Park which is serviced land and land the County owns. It seems that Wellington is the new Picton and things move closer to it.
Why are doing things to spend more money, when we do not have any and the country may be going into a recession.
Come on wake up council and stop the spending.
M.York; If you desire more interesting reading just google “Merlin Dewing,Bomanville Land Deals”. I am not making a statement just providing you further background.
Nelly, These are MY views and obviously others as well and its a free world to say what we/others have witnessed personally. Feel free to voice YOUR OWN OPINIONS…
Nelly, if you have access to that please post it as i do not??? And if you read the article i was not pertaining to that charge, read on….
M York…why don’t you post the link to the article that shows that he was found not guilty??…
From reading your posts over the past few months, I’ve noticed that you tend to only show one side of the story…the side that supports your view on things.
Mark, This was sent to me this morning making for interesting reading. http://www.rrj.ca/m3922/
Mark, I do know that things are being looked into but to what extent I’m not sure. I for one would like to see change immediately due to the circumstances that have been unfolding. Council is and has been aware of these issue’s and are doing nothing(I believe) about it making them just as liable. Their job is to protect the taxpayers in this community and I don’t believe this is being done anymore.
Sounds like this chap from the north will not have a chance in PEC. How fair is it to allow someone to be parachuted in to a community with no ressemblance to his own and to promoteit, when many other locals might be more suitable? Someone was not thinking through this one.
There is an investigation body that can be accessed to look into Municipal wrong doing such as the former CAO receiving full salary for part-time work. All taxpayers dollars. Everyone should be asking their municipal representative.
Louise and Marnie, Ya I agree and I for one did vote for Paul and I know about another hundred or so who are wishing they had as well. Today I noticed a company was working on Downs Ave. on the water pipes, they were not from the County but the County truck sat there watching ALL DAY. When I inquired today at the Water dept. I was told that they are no longer doing this work, however they oversee it. So one more brilliant idea which is going to cost us millions. The money the County pays this company is going to be spent in their municipality not ours, our employees are loosing work,and anyone with half a brain knows it costs a lot more to contract out. So where is the savings here???? Election time can’t come soon enough for many of residents here in P.E.C.
Well Marnie is right in the broader aspect of how some jobs get filled. Anyone want to research where our two current Commissioners came from and what their past working relationship is or was. Interesting! While some would praise their administrative accomplishments I like to look at the bottom line since their arrival under the leadership of a CAO drawing full salary while working part-time. All approved by the prior council.
Paul would have been a good mayor. He was the Reeve of Ameliasburgh in the pre amalgamation days and has had a lot of experience amd lived in the County most of his life except being away for awhile with his job.
He was determined if he became Mayor that he would clean house.
However he did not have a big organization behind himlike Latchford and Mertens and was running on his own merit which does not always work.
As someone said in one of these posts it is not what you know but who you know.
I thought Veronica Leiskie could have moved up to CAO as she pretty well ran things when the last CAO only worked part time.
But no the powers that be had to hire a consulting firm–more money wasted.This is a municipality with a small population. I does not need a lot of fancy stuff.
The winneres are our big attraction and Waupoos winnery got them started–most of the credit going to Ed.
I hope council gets around to reducing its size
Why not one councillor from each ward and one from Wellington and Picton–that is the simple way to do it
Pre amalgamation each township had a Reeve and Picton a Mayor and they made up County Council. The County worked much better in those days
Well, we had our chance. Mayoral candidate Paul Boyd vowed to stop the spending but did not garner many votes. I heard him speak at an all candidates meeting and he expressed a lot of the same concerns that are mentioned on this site but did not get the support he needed to try and make a difference.
What do people in Sioux Lookout have in Common with PEC?
They are different types of communities.
Are they still talking about building a fire station near the round-about. What a stupid place for a fire station.
John Thompson mentioned prime agricultural–he is correct. Someone said they could put it on the foundation that was built for a solar panel plant that is not to be.
I wonder why we are talking about spending more money all the time when we have none.
Now we have to pay for some employees or something to go to the Carribean. We had to pay for Harper and his wife to spend a lot of time in te East. All this spending by different governments leave us the taxpayers with no money to anything.
A lady on the radio today said she had to choose between paying for heat or food–so she chose heat and then went to the food bank.
In case you haven’t noticed the TSX has been going down all week and there is a posibiity of the US going into recession but we the people of PEC have lots of money to
waste.
I thought the last election was about cutting spending?
Well we are spending more than ever.
I don’t think Prince Edward County is unique in its hiring practices. Even in the private sector a lot of jobs are filled before they are ever posted. It may not be right but it’s the way of the world. Lots of people land plum jobs not because they are the best qualified but because they happened to know the right person or belonged to the right political party.
Mark & Marnie, Yes, you are both correct but one could only hope that our new CAO and Mayor would at least try to stop the dirty politics. Individuals hired (who you know crap) only proves to the public/employees that nothing has changed at Shire Hall. Especially when you have the top dogs promoting it SHAMEFUL !!! Lets start cleaning house at Shire Hall and get a hiring committee that includes at least one councl member because if they want to clean off their step then they need to be accountable for their actions.
You are correct in that it didn’t start with Mr.Dewing. And Mr.Dewing is the CAO, the Mayor is the CEO.
So, what’s new all of a sudden? For years the county has handed out jobs to insiders. Remember the old county council? Several of these reeves and deputy reeves went on to jobs or committee appointments with the county when they retired from municipal life. Former clerks and councillors also became the county’s new hires. Politics have also played a big role. There is a reason for that old saying that it is who you know not what you know. The trend that you mention did not originate with Mr. Dewing. It is a situation of long-standing and I suspect it is the same in other communities. If you believe it would magically change with a different CEO you are mistaken.
Gary , You couldn’t be more wrong as this conversation has taken place before and neither council or the Mayor is involved in this hiring practice. The only time they are involved is when they hire the CAO position FACT ! Some council members have asked to be involved in the hiring process due to the issues we have been discussing here, but to no avail.
Mark, EXACTLY and anyone who says this is not the case obviously is ill informed… or serving their own needs to say the least. In the business world aka Shire Hall is under a lot of scrutiny these days and by many who see whats been going on as nothing more than unprofessional at the highest level. For the CAO to hire a previous employee who worked directly under him all the way from Sioux Lookout is nothing more than WRONG. I would challenge anyone to figure out the population from PEC, Belleville, Trenton,Kingston,Deseronto,Napanee (a few) then you show me how NO ONE QUALIFIED for this position.
Well my prior knowledge would tell me that the County has refused to even interview longterm inside employees with excellent performance records who held all of the qualifications required for the management position. This after the County (taxpayer) had invested greatly in their training and experience. I know this as absolute fact! You really have to understand the culture within Shire Hall.
In any organization, when a job becomes available, there are three places to find the new employee:
* Within the organization.
* Outside, someone you don’t know.
* Outside, someone you do know.
Best practices include:
* Considering people from within and outside the organization, and selecting the best candidate.
* Making sure that, over time, some candidates are selected from within the organization; otherwise, morale suffers.
* Not hiring relatives.
In the business world, it’s very common to hire someone that you do know who is presently working elsewhere – including hiring someone away from your previous employer.
Based on my prior knowledge of the County’s hiring practices at senior levels, the process is thorough and involves several people, including the CAO, Councillors and the Mayor.
Mark, I agree and it should be important to everyone here that is looking for a job. I am not saying that Neil Carbone isn’t a qualified person by any means what I am saying is how the hiring is taking place in P.E.C. (best hiring practices). This has been a LONG time battle and many council members are in agreement with this. So my question is, why is this continuing and especially on such a high level as this? Especially when we hear things from the Mayor and CAO about hiring and promoting from within, well this isn’t happening and we have so many people that are qualified/experienced right here in Picton and the surrounding areas. When are we going to start looking out for our own?
I think M.York’s comment is on topic and is useful in determining if best hiring practices were adhered to. If as the article states taxpayers may offer suggestions regarding priorities it seems abundantly clear that this issue is a priority to M.York. How this County has been run and how it is being run moving forward seems to be priority to many.
http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/neil-carbone/41/b31/4b2
Here is the link…
Gary, He was working directly with the CAO as an acting CAO but once again let the people decide if this isn’t relevant than I don’t know what is. And me like others on here will not get caught up in all your drama. Because as everyone has seen if they don’t agree with you then everyone else it wrong.
Gary,Thanks for the information.Unfortunately I am unable to attend these session due to being away. However I am interested in voicing my opinion do you know if we just forward it to Council email’s or somewhere else? I was absolutely dumb struck last evening when I read on-line about Neil Carbone and his connection with the CAO. This is not right and if someone were to tell me that this person was the only one qualified i would tell them that they were absolutely full of sh**. This in my opinion is a huge conflict of interest and only tarnishes everyone’s halo even more at the horseshow for allowing it, and if they were for whatever reason unaware thats still no excuse as its public information.
m york’s comment is both completely off topic and lacking in useful information. To rectify the latter, here is a link to a Sioux Lookout news release about Neil Carbone’s qualifications at the time of his 2008 appointment as Community Development and Communications Officer, and his new responsibilities. See http://tinyurl.com/a9gzj5w .
If you read it, you’ll see that his prior experience is directly relevant to community development responsibilities, and the to communications function as well.
As clarification, I wrote the above article. It might appear that County government is encouraging input both prior to, and following, the sessions on Nov 20 and 21. In fact, I was just pointing out opportunities already available to County residents to influence Council.
County government may, or may not, decide to set up a specific opportunity after these sessions for input from residents on proposed changes to strategic priorities.
Well here is an idea for all council to take into consideration at these sessions. Check out Neil Carbone our newest County employee hired by our CAO both from Sioux Lookout because when I googled his name it came up as the following on LinkedIn
Mr. Carbone’s experience – “Acting” Chief Administrative Officer who “Worked closely with the CAO on recruitment initiating for senior management positions.” In BLACK AND WHITE
Now explain this to the taxpayers??????????