Community: Loo on Lake upgrades nearly done. 3
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Sports: Softball scholarships. 26 Friday, November 20, 2015 · mapleridgenews.com · est. 1978 · (office) 604-467-1122 · (del ive r y) 6 0 4 - 4 6 6 - 6 3 9 7
Three more Pitt staff leaving Councillor blames changes in culture By Neil Corbett ncorbett@mapleridgenews.com
Three more city staff members have announced their intentions to leave Pitt Meadows, and at least one councillor says politicians must consider the effect their leadership style Miyashita is having on top employees. Coun. Tracy Miyashita says council has never worked harder, holding more and longer meetings, which also puts more demands on staff. She also accuses her council colleagues of meddling in city affairs that would previously have been left to administrators. This week it was learned that manager of development services Anne Berry is moving to Vancouver Island for a promotion, and engineering services coordinator Ike de Boer and deputy clerk Linda Kelly are both retiring. Last week, the city announced that CAO Kim Grout is leaving to become the CEO of the B.C. Agricultural Land Commission, and legislative services manager Kelley Kenney will be doing the same job for the Comox Valley Regional District. “What we do at the council level has impacts throughout the organization,” said Miyashita. “Council has to work more as a council, rather than operational.
Amalgamation resurfaces
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Pitt Meadows Mayor John Becker doesn’t think residents in his city would support a merger with Maple Ridge.
Mike Murray makes suggestion to both cities By Neil Corbett ncorbett@mapleridgenews.com
Amalgamation of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows will be on the agenda of both city councils, in the form of a letter from school board chair and former parks general manager Mike Murray. He says “the two cities are essentially one community with several neighbourhoods,” and points out that they share a school district,
hospital, health authority, library system, chamber of commerce, policing and an airport. “The vast majority of the sports, arts, business and faith-based organizations, social service agencies, seniors groups, veterans groups and service clubs in Maple Ridge and Pitt Murray Meadows provide support to citizens and include participants/ members/customers/clients from both cities,” Murray says in the letter. “One has to ask why the citizens who provide leadership to these
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recreation. In the three-page document, he proposes each city hold a referendum on amalgamation, as Abbotsford and Matsqui did in 1995, “following years of joint service delivery.” He suggests a single council of nine members, with a ward system for equal representation for various areas. “An amalgamation would address the current inability to reconcile the two councils’ differences, and avoid duplication at the governance and administrative levels,” he writes.
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groups see the benefit of working as single entities serving all of the residents of this area so clearly when our city governments seem to be heading in the opposite direction.” Murray said he is writing as a private citizen, and was clear that this is not the position of the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows school board. Murray is school board chair, and worked for the City of Maple Ridge from 1977 to 2010, retiring as the general manager of community development, parks and
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