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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2015
VOL. 27, NO. 63
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Three manager positions axed from city hall
I
EFFORT MADE to reach zero-per cent tax increase in four-month provisional budget. BY TAMARA CUNNINGHAM THE NEWS BULLETIN
CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Towering toys
Nicole Hutzkal, Save-On-Foods Woodgrove general clerk, left, Danielle Low, front-end coordinator, Ian Conn, assistant store manager, and Tammie McKinney, front-end coordinator, stand in front of the store’s tower of toys, representing just a portion of more than 1,000 gifts for children the store collected for this year’s Great Nanaimo Toy Drive. The toys were purchased with customer donations collected by cashiers at the store’s checkout lines and will be delivered to the toy drive Saturday (Dec. 19).
Election sees former chief return to Snuneymuxw council BY CHRIS BUSH THE NEWS BULLETIN
At least one familiar face is back on the Snuneymuxw First Nation band council following an election held Saturday. The band council consists of Chief John Wesley
and 10 councillors, five of whom are elected every two years. The election for the chief is held every four years. Former chief Doug White III was elected to council with 165 votes and was the vote leader. White, who was defeated
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by Wesley in the 2013 election for chief, said he will bring issues he undertook as chief back to the council table. “We did a lot of great work in the four years I was chief and I’ve been concerned about how that work has been, in some ways, aban-
doned over the last couple years,” White said. He said he wants to focus on the future development of the Wellcox rail yard, which is an opportunity for every level of government and industry to work together. See ‘WATERFRONT’ /3
There’s no longer a need for general management at city hall, according to interim city manager Tracy Samra, who plans to axe three positions this month. Samra announced a plan Monday to save $816,000 a year by downsizing the senior leadership team at the City of Nanaimo by eliminating the remaining general manager positions. It reflects the desire by Samra for a “flatter” organization where department directors and managers have the authority to lead, but it’s also part of an effort to reach a zero-per cent tax increase during a four-month provisional budget next year. A staff report shows additions to the budget could have seen taxes rise by 1.9 per cent in 2016 before changes were made. There’s still room for the tax rate to change, however, after council completes a core review in March. The move comes just weeks after the appointment of the interim CAO, amid the start of the city’s core review and a new communications protocol for media that restricts direct access to the mayor and acting mayor. This is the second change to the senior leadership team since 2013, when a reorganization saw seven high-level positions axed. Samra said as city manager, it’s her responsibility to carry out the will of council, which said it wanted no increases in service or staffing levels during this interim period and wanted to reach a zero-per cent tax increase. She said this made sense to do now for cost savings in 2016 as it saves four months’ salary. See ‘ONE’ /4
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