Reporter’s Notebook: Virtual Meeting Works Well; New CAO Hired

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By John Francis

The Municipality of Northern Bruce Peninsula has moved quickly to keep things running smoothly. With the entire community on lockdown, staff and council have improvised ways to get work done and keep communications open.

The Council Meeting on Tuesday April 14 was a nice illustration of that.

The Meeting was held on Zoom. Mayor Milt McIver was present at Council Chambers but the other four Council Members attended from home, as did several staff members. Your reporter logged in from his home office.

It was no surprise that the remote system sort of worked. The surprise was that it worked better than a regular meeting. All participants could see the page of the agenda, the page of the supporting information and the face of the person speaking.

Everything was audible. Everything was visible. It was just plain slick.

The high point of the meeting came at item 17: Municipal Clerk Recruitment Process. Mayor McIver quietly dropped the news that “we think we are successful in the CAO recruitment process.” The new CAO’s start date was tentatively scheduled for April 21 and a formal announcement should be ready soon.

Councillor Megan Myles asked if the Clerk would be willing to delay her retirement by two weeks or a month so that the new CAO could be involved fully in the Clerk recruitment process. Mayor McIver echoed this request and Clerk Mary Lynn Standen agreed without hesitation that she “would be honoured to extend”. Councillor Myles suggested that MNBP “needs to issue a press releasee” about the new CAO. (It was issued April 17.)

With Ms Standen’s agreement to extend, Council decided to defer the issue of Clerk recruitment to the April 27 Council Meeting — this way the new CAO can be involved from the outset, beginning with the job description. On April 17, MNBP announced that the new CAO is Peggy Van Mierlo-West. She will begin work on Monday, April 20.