Editor's note: Ms. Murton Stoehr writes in response to the BayToday article Local Conservation Authority in 'total chaos' says its own HR director and Conservation Authority staff walk out in protest
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To the editor:
Is everyone following the events at the North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority that involve North Bay's Mayor Peter Chirico and long-time city councillor Chris Mayne?
According to newspaper reports, 6 weeks ago the Conservation Authority hired a new HR manager called Mark Bremer. When he arrived he was shocked at how the staff was being treated and said it was the worst working environment he'd seen in 30 years in HR.
He named the CAO and one deputy saying their actions were "dictatorial" and "bizarre" and that staff were frightened, not one or 2 but all 28 staff members. Bremer immediately, privately, reached out to the Board (including Mayor Chirico and Chris Mayne) for support, not once, not twice, but THREE times in a month and a half and the board did not resolve the situation.
Months earlier the Board had refused to meet with the employees, with one board member reportedly telling employees "There is a ruler, and you all have to obey.”
THE WHOLE POINT of public boards is to be a check on senior management to protect the public interest. But in North Bay every public board I know of acts like defending the actions of the organizations' executives is their job regardless of the impacts on the public. The cowardice of board members who won't ask the simplest questions of directors or CEOs, much less hold them accountable when they take a wrong turn, is pathetic and it hurts North Bay in so many ways.
The board didn't fix the situation so Bremer, like a very decent human being, tanked his job by going public, he was locked out of his office and as of Friday his old boss gave him his old job back b/c he's awesome. Bye, Mark Bremer! Sorry we ran you out of town in under 2 months.
I know it's hard to make friends, but public boards aren't social clubs and if you are emotionally unable to ask or listen to mildly uncomfortable questions please, please do not take a place of leadership in our community. Getting kicked off a board for asking questions isn't the worst thing in the world, Mark Bremer *gave up his job* to protect people in North Bay and he's not even from here!
Let's try to care about our community as much as a guy who lived here for 6 weeks did.
*Thanks very much to Jeff Turl and Baytoday.ca for their coverage of this story.
Catherine Murton Stoehr, Ph.D.
Nbisiing/ North Bay, Ontario
