Operational services director Steve McInnis and planning manager Nathan Petherick were among seven Mountain View County employees terminated on March 10 as part of a corporate reorganization, chief administrative officer Tony Martens said.ìThe October election results made it clear that the county ratepayers wanted a change, so I took a look at the operations,î said Martens, who was appointed Feb. 1 after serving as interim CAO following the termination of Doug Plamping in late October.ìChanges needed to be made and these are changes that I think will address some of the concerns that the residents had. We can't just ignore what was said last October in the election.îIn particular, Martens said, ìpeople said there were inefficiencies in operations, so we had to deal with those inefficiencies.îAlso let go were the road maintenance supervisor, one operational services administrative support person, two equipment operators and one IT staff person.With the road maintenance supervisor position deleted, Martens said the county ìwill be able to use foremen and lead hands a lot better. I want them to be involved more in the day-to-day operations.îOne of the problems with operational services, Martens said, is that ìthere were two people directing outside staff. The lead hands were given quadrants to look after, but in my opinion had no authority to act on their own in those quadrants.îThe reorganization is intended to shift county operations away from a top-down, compartmentalized approach.ìWhat I want for Mountain View County is an empowered workforce,î Martens said. ìI want people to come in to their work and have some say in what's going to happen. I want it so that it's not all controlled, not all from a departmental perspective.ìParticularly outside staff needs to have a little more autonomy, and with autonomy comes accountability.îThe operational services director position will be replaced, and two new planners will start at the end of the month to take some workload pressure off that department. As for the manager of planning, ìI think down the road we'll be replacing that position, but that may wait because we're still having a planning and development review,î Martens said.ìThere could also be a few more shakeups or moves that come out of this, but there won't be any more terminations.îAs part of the reorganization, Martens said, ìwe moved people around the office and there's some managers that aren't managers now,î but besides McInnis, the other directors remain in place ñ Diana Hawryluk in planning and development services, Greg Wiens in corporate services, and Jeff Holmes, acting as interim director of legislative and community services.Martens said he met with council prior to the reorganization to outline his plan, but did not give details on which employees were being terminated.ìThe CAO is responsible for every one of these moves and the CAO made the move on every one,î Martens said.ìThese were my decisions. There was no direction from council.îReeve Paddy Munro confirmed that Wednesday, adding: ìWe support the CAO. We support the work he's done.îCounty peace officers were present in the building while employees were given their pink slips, but they did not escort staff out the door, Martens said.ìSome of the staff drove up in county vehicles that they used, so we needed to drive them home. That's another reason why we had (the peace officers) here.î
