Council Fires CAO in 4 - 3 Vote

Council held a special meeting Tuesday, August 1^st and, after a short closed door discussion, fired Dorian Wandzura who has been the County’s Chief Administrative Officer since last May.  The vote to fire Mr. Wandzura was 4 – 3, with Reeve Kissel and Councillors Boehlke, Kochan and Schule supporting the decision and Councillors Hanson, Samra, and Wright in opposition.

From what was said by Samra, Wright & Hanson before the vote, it sounds like at least some of those supporting the firing decision were impatient that the CAO wasn’t moving quickly enough on the changes they desired.  We hope that there was more to the decision than we can decipher from those public comments.

From our perspective, faster change would have been nice.  However, shifting a heavily entrenched bureaucracy that has done business one way for decades is not an easy task.  The last thing we need is to duplicate the chaos that Chestermere residents suffered due to a council that pushed for too much change too quickly. 

In Rocky View, there was clear evidence that things were improving – nonsensical land use applications supported by staff are largely a thing of the past; steps are being taken to improve communications with residents; a gravel policy is moving forward.  The CAO initiated a huge number of projects to deliver on this council’s strategic priorities.  Those projects promised further massive improvements. 

This isn’t to say that things were perfect.  There were still many administrative decisions that raised concerns, such as their approval of the Bingham Crossing Costco and the current draft Springbank ASP, which continues to ignore most resident input.  But in our opinion, none of these appear to warrant throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

We can only hope that the positive momentum will be maintained and that this decision won’t set things back.  In the interim, Byron Riemann will be keeping the lights on as acting CAO – but residents need far more than a caretaker for this council to live up to the expectations set in the last election.