Council has agreed to engage the same consulting firm that assisted with a recent staff reorganization and the replacement of a public works director to help out with the search for a new CAO.
Following a lengthy in-camera meeting on July 28, council passed a resolution in open session to “accept the proposal from N.G. Bellchamber and Associates for CAO Recruitment Process subject to satisfactory reference checks.”
Mayor Neil Driscoll told the Community News the firm’s fee to help with the process to replace former CAO/Clerk Patty Sinnamon would be approximately $15,000.
Sinnamon was terminated on July 2 after being employed by Mapleton Township and the former Village of Drayton for nearly 18 years.
Driscoll said three other proposals were received; one from The Ravenhill Group, Ward and one from Uptigrove and Prime Management Group Inc.
Though he said the applicants consider their price quotations “confidential,” Driscoll said N.G. Bellchamber and Associates submitted the second lowest price.
The mayor said other factors came into play in the selection process, noting the selected company is “used to working with what we call a rural municipality.”
In March 2014, Mapleton council hired the company, headed by former municipal administrator Nigel Bellchamber, to assist with a staff restructuring process following the November, 2013 dismissal of former public works director Larry Lynch.
That process resulted in the June 2014 hiring of current public works director Brad McRoberts, who was appointed acting CAO/clerk after Sinnamon was let go.
In October of 2014, four public works management positions were eliminated and three new positions created as a result of the restructuring.
Driscoll hinted in a July 30 telephone interview the current process could also go beyond finding a replacement for the CAO/clerk.
“That’s something that, honestly, he might recommend to us too … when we go through this process maybe he’ll say, ‘This is what your structure could be,’ and that’s what led us to making a decision to go with him versus some of the others, because he understands municipal organizations,” the mayor said.
Though the municipality has worked with the firm previously, Driscoll said the resolution made the hiring conditional on references because, aside from the mayor, none of the other council members were in office when the township last engaged Bellchamber.
“We just want to make sure that he did the right thing for other municipalities,” the mayor stated.
Bellchamber has indicated he will involve council in determining, “what we want in a new CAO/clerk,” Driscoll said. “Really there’s no sense going through the process and he brings us candidates and we say ‘Well, they don’t suit us.’”
The search for a new CAO/clerk is expected to take until early November.
