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NATURE Sea, land, river   ECONOMY Regional   PLACE Books+   PEOPLES Community REALTY	SQCRD in CHAOS?   1: Fire Administrator   2: terminate SQCRD participation in Seafood and Biotoxin program (see here) "There may be minor changes in the offing at the SQCRD "but nothing major" says Chairman Ed Wampler.-- - (he) added: "There will be no major structural changes or changes in programs, or anything like that, so far as I know." (Daily News Aug 30) With little warning the personnel Committee fired the long time employee, Planner and Administrator, Greg Fletcher (see the memo dated Sept 7th, but Fletcher fired “2 weeks before” Presumably then the board must have fired him at an in-camera meeting held on August 24th in Port Clements". . From Aug 24 minutes: 199-2001 MOVED by Director Pages, SECONDED by Director Greene that the meeting be adjourned to an in-camera session. CARRIED --E. Wampler J. Beil Chair Deputy Secretary ADJOURNMENT --  20:05		SQCRD on WWW   Agenda & minutes   SQCRD Board members (dated)   Services (Including Seafood) September 7th Memo announcing Fletcher firing signed by Beldessi Oct 11 press release signed by Beldessi

WHY did SQCRD suddenly fire Fletcher??

Story 1: “He got caught up in Queen Charlotte politics”. This was said with mild disgust by a longtime local politician. Implicit was ‘let them fight among themselves, and try to keep out of it’. I am told a planner working for the SQCRD and living on QCIs was the immediate cause of the strife. She left. Whatever it was she was doing irritated local politicos (I am told by several sources this had to do with zoning issues)

 

Story 2: He did not mange staff closely enough. ‘The Seafood people just told him what they were going to do; he did not set out clear boundaries of give direction’ (told me and several others by a PR Councilor last week.) ‘The board warned him, perhaps they acted precipitously, but (it had to be done).

Whatever; the staff immediately UNION-ized

CUPE local 105 Prince Rupert have applied to be certified for a unit of employees at the Regional District office The application was received on September 11^th and a hearing was held on September 18^th before the Labour Relations Board in Vancouver. At that time 24 members were applying; this has subsequently been narrowed down to (17?). There is now a three month hiatus as management and Union try to negotiate a first agreement. In the meantime no one can be let go.

Paddy throws his weight around

Council appears to let Paddy have his way in anything to do with Fisheries issues, and more generally any resource extraction issue e.g. LRMP process

Soon after arriving at SQCRD (Jan’01) he got onto the Seafood Advisory Committee
 and the SQCRD Personnel committee’s.

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I suggest if he had not maneuvered Paul Kennedy off the SQCRD last December
 (and took his place)
Fletcher & Seafood would still be with SQCRD and the employees would not now belong to CUPE. Of course Greene could not do all this on his own. I am told he is a close ally of Beldessi (who many observers believe is jockeying to replace retiring Ed Wampler next year as Chair).. Meanwhile, the SQCRD gives both Beldessi and Greene more unfettered ‘tools’ to control resource issues debates than City Councils etc

(The above is an opinion piece;
 if I have made any factual errors, or misunderstood an informants point, I will gladly correct them as soon as pointed out to me. LG