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Park board manager latest to go

September 15th, 2009 · 9 Comments

This resignation/retirement has been expected for so long that I actually started to think that Susan was going to hang around. But apparently not, as today’s news release makes apparent.

newsrele

And here’s everyone weighing in on same:

Charlie Smith at the Georgia Straight

Citycaucus

Civicscene

Do you feel like you know enough now about a woman most of you never heard of before?

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Brenton

    Again, without further context these stories are seeming like a litany of “staff running from city hall” pieces. Is it significant that these people are resigning? Is it normal? Are they leaving at a higher rate than before the election or higher than after Sullivan or Campbell were elected?

  • City Observer

    Ms. Mundick’s departure had been in the works for some time. All you had to do was attend a meeting of the Park Board, and see for yourself the contentious relationship she had with the new crew of Commissioners, to realize that in all likelihood her days were numbered.

    Raj was gracious in his comments respecting her retirement, as he might well have been. One supposes, with Ms. Mundick gone that the majority Vision Vancouver Park Board has now “cleared the decks” for a movement toward their much-touted democratization of Park Board administration, and a greater role for the community in determining the future of the parks system in the City of Vancouver.

  • CandyStriper

    It seems that Sullivan had his own staff turnover too, so I would say it is normal:

    http://civicscene.ca/sam-sullivan-regime-departures

  • flowmass

    I don’t think people realize how much power and influence senior bureaucrats have over politicians at the municipal level. If some of the resignations were because of wanted retirement, fine. If there was some house cleaning by Vision, even better. COPE did not clean house in their only majority council and they paid for it. Passive-agressive behaviour by senior or mid-level buraucrats is a fact of life when most of them face a new regime after decades under an older one to whom they owe their offices and power. If Vision felt housecleaning was necessary – good on them. I hope there are still lots of straws left on the broom. If the situation was reversed, the NPA would have rented buses to get rid of the bureacrats who did not share their vision (no pun intended).

  • Not Running for mayor

    I’m constantly surprised by the amount of people that think city hall needed to be cleaned up. It is constantly ranked as one of the best places to live thanks in part to that staff.
    And even with all the loops that need jumping thru it’s one of the best run cities anywhere.
    Was there some changes needed? Of course just like in any organization, but not to the level we are witnessing. I know many of these resignations are not forced presay, but the atomsphere is downright brutal in some depts and a good precentage of staff are actively looking for work elsewhere. What happens in these cases is usally the good ones get leeched and only the lousy ones stay. Hence why I’m still here.

  • A. G. Tsakumis

    What an incredible load of crap…

    Mundick is gone because how many times can the Vision Parks caucus meet separately with Penny Ballem about issues they had an obligation to meet with Mundick about?

    This is all part of Vision’s plan, as they run roughshod through the city.

    As for the people who continue to mindlessly post about civicscene and it’s child at the controls, understand this CLEARLY:

    Jonathan Ross is a Vision organizer and sycophant with no credibility whatsoever as an impartial observer. And he gets the vast majority of observations WRONG.

    The list that he cites of civic employees departing under Sullivan includes people who were well into moving on PRIOR to Sullivan’s arrival as Mayor and those who were openly speculating about retirement.

    Whereas, the Vision inspired departures are all about intimidation. There have been a few that were planned and one, like Estelle Lo, that didn’t agree on the degree of risk with respect to the Olympic site fiasco.

    civicscene manipulates the issue by knowingly comparing apples and toilet plungers.

  • 24HourBS

    Tsakumis has politics’ biggest chip on his shoulder this side of Brian Mulroney.

    Your political choices do not have the most stellar record of accomplishment or achievement.

    Your characterization of Estelle Lo’s reasons for departure is especially creative.

  • Otis Krayola

    Alex,

    Tell us what you know about how many times Vision PB Commissioners met with Penny Ballem instead of Mundick.

    Dates? Times? The entire caucus or just Hundal? Or Jasper? Or others?

    What was discussed?

    Do enlighten us, please.

  • Don Buchanan

    Looking at the PIBC (Planning Institute of BC) website they have 5 postings province wide, 4 of them in management positions. If 80% of the unfilled positions posted are in management, does that imply a demographic shift?

    http://www.pibc.bc.ca/classified/index.php?action=listings&catid=24