Senior City Managers Fired In Ft St. John

Thursday, June 14, 2007 09:13 AM

Ft St John Mayor, Jim Eglinski, has not responded to calls to confirm that the City Manager, John Locker, City Clerk Carol Susak, and Director of Recreation, Patty Murray, have all been terminated from the City of Ft St John.

While the information is not yet public, it is known that a severance package of in excess of $600,000 dollars for the firings will be paid to terminate the trio’s contracts.

The former Arena Manager, Jim Rogers, is now the acting head of the City.

The three involved in the firings have also not responded to our phone calls.

Some residents have expressed concern over the direction of the new council: taxes increased by 8% in 2006 and are set to increase by 13% in 2007.

The City of Ft St John had been the envy of other communities in BC of similar size. It had been debt free, other then sewer and water funds, up until the new council was elected.

The new council of Ft St John had run on the platform that they would look into the areas of responsibility of the three now fired.

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Posted on Thursday, June 14, 2007 09:13 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Chadermando on June 14 2007 9:21 AM

I wonder if this is Olympic Ice Oval blow back? It seems it would be the result of bad administration rather than fraud otherwise why the compensation package?

Posted by: Palopu on June 14 2007 3:32 PM

We'll have to wait until we get some details, who knows maybe this will be a template to be used for other Citys.

Posted by: owl on June 14 2007 3:40 PM

I wonder who will be the acting Arena Manager?

Posted by: owl on June 14 2007 3:45 PM

�Some residents have expressed concern over the direction of the new council: taxes increased by 8% in 2006 and are set to increase by 13% in 2007.
The City of Ft St John �.. had been debt free, other then sewer and water funds, up until the new council was elected.
The new council of Ft St John had run on the platform that they would look into the areas of responsibility of the three now fired. �

Reading that, it sounds to me that the 3 individuals were fired because they did not like the spend thrift ways of the new Council and Mayor.

I assume the three were there from the previous Council, who, from what is stated above, left the books in good shape.

Or did they?

Posted by: owl on June 14 2007 3:54 PM

http://www.cityfsj.com/pdf/INAUGUARAL%20SPEECH%20DEC%205TH.pdf

Sounds like a "we will be spending your dollars" inaugural address to me.

Posted by: wowsa2008 on June 14 2007 4:45 PM

looks like this "blog" has a source that doesn't care about the facts, but is quick to say that the old council was perfect. Look into the facts before announcing something like this, and being so quick to praise the old council. Also, look into the current titles of the "former" arena manager. According to the City's website, Jim Rogers is the Director of Protective Services. Not the Arena Manager. Journalism 101.

Posted by: editor on June 14 2007 5:28 PM

Jim Rogers was the former Arena Manager. That is a fact.

The fact is the three people in question were fired, and sent out the door at around 2 p.m. yesterday. That is a fact.

Is the city now trying to skate around the issue by suggesting the three have an appeal , or are they afraid to say they were fired ,terminated, let go or whatever,and at what cost.

With someone with such knowledge, perhaps you can explain how much municipal taxes will rise in order to pay off those contracts, given, you seem to be able to get a better response from City Hall then me.
Journalism 101 is to ensure that the truth is told , it is very easy to hide behind a fictitious name

Ben Meisner

Posted by: lunarguy on June 14 2007 6:56 PM

Does anybody know if Fort St. John has actually paved the city streets there ? When I lived there 5 years ago about 50% of the residential area still was not paved due to some old bylaw concerning sharing the cost of paving. It was funny to see $300,000 homes with gravel roads out front.

Posted by: owl on June 14 2007 8:27 PM

Some places have lower taxes for a reason. Unpaved streets could be one.

Posted by: thereasonableman on June 14 2007 8:50 PM

Ha ha, Ben Meisner afraid to ask the tough questions ?

Blow me another smoke ring ! That's funny !

I can tell you from personal experience that Ben will dig deep with both hands if he smells so much as a tidbit of factual information.

Ben has sometimes caught ME by surprise with the information he is able to dig up. He is very persistent, and does a very effective job in his reporting.

Lastly, this isn't a blog, it's the NEWS.
Pure, unadulterated, freelance news.

Conrad Black doesn't sit behind Ben and dictate how to write the story so that it shines positively on his political and business associates.

Ben writes it the way he saw the world today with his very own eyes. No bullshit.

Posted by: spooked on June 14 2007 10:21 PM

Sounds like these staff were all on board when he last council was there - must have been them that negotiated the generous severance?

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on June 15 2007 7:24 AM

They were fired. That doesn't sound like some personal disagreement over philosophy.

There is a shake up needed in our fair city too, but just because someone is being a jackass doesn't mean the city can fire them.

Posted by: spooked on June 15 2007 7:28 AM

The radio talks about an internal review - my guess is there is much more to the story than meets the eye.

Posted by: skabowl1 on June 15 2007 8:22 AM

lunarguy, the unpaved streets in areas like Mathews Park in Fort St John relate to subdivisions that were done years and years ago. If you put in a subdivision now, the streets must be paved to start with. The old ones, that was not the case. Thus in the new subdivisions, the new residents pay for the street paving in their purchase price. On the pre-existing gravel streets, it is fair that the residents on those streets pay for the paving. I used to live in FSJ back in the late 70's and early 80's and a group of us campaigned to pave some of the Mathews Park streets. In the end, only the residents of one street would go along with the costs. That's democracy at work