This year will be the last year of action for the current Council. Starting early in 2010, the politicians will start thinking even more about getting re-elected than they already do now. Some might say that is all some politicians think about.

Eventually they will become what is referred to as a ‘Lame Duck’ since they will stop making decisions they feel are more appropriately made by the incoming Council. Usually this starts in late spring, but given the track record of indecision by the current Council, it will probably start much sooner.

We have already started the year with the loss of another senior team member, John Gutteridge our Treasurer, leaving just Al Downey as the lone survivor since this Council took office. You would have to look long and hard to find another Council that has burned through an entire senior team in less than 1 term. Quite a legacy!

Hard to believe that the entire team wasn’t up to standards. Somehow the Town survived — and thrived — under the leadership of many of these same people. And this is just the people who are in senior roles. It is difficult to determine what pool of talent has been lost at other levels of the organization — often these are the leaders of the future.

CAO Garbe has a tough job ahead and we wish him the best. He has the job of building a new staff and rebuilding their moral. A tough job at the best of times, but given the current situation it would seem almost impossible. Time will tell whether Council will give him the latitude to make the necessary adjustments.

It will be interesting to see what agenda this Council chooses to pursue this year. Stay tuned.

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Recently the Regional Municipality of York was named one of the top 75 companies to work for in the GTA.

Congratulations are due to both Council and senior staff. Any HR person with even basic knowledge of workplace culture knows that a result like this comes only with strong leadership by the senior team at the organization. When they lead by example and create an organizational culture based on respect, then employee satisfaction and quality customer service is an outcome.

So what about Aurora? It really illustrates just how dysfunctional our own Council is. What is particularly ironic is that the Mayor lists her background in HR as one of her credentials for the job. One only has to look at the level of moral in the town staff and defections by the senior team to realize that the malaise in the town starts at the very top.

One need only look back one term and they can see the dramatic changes. Staff didn’t change, so what was the variable?

Possibly Mayor Morris and her cronies — who seem to delight in embarassing staff as often as possible in public, or intimidating them in private — could start to model the behaviour of colleagues at the regional level and demonstrate some of the HR expertise that she claims.

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