The Record published a story today about concerns expressed by the New West Progressives regarding the shelving of a report by city hall outlining serious human resource challenges at city hall. I couldn’t agree more with mayoral candidate Ken Armstrong when he says we need to focus on the basics and make sure city staff are not being pulled in multiple directions.
Here are some excerpts of the story…and a link to the entire story below:
The City of New Westminster’s staffing challenges highlight the need to focus on core civic responsibilities, say the New West Progressives.
On Monday, council received a staff report and memos from several department heads outlining some of the staffing challenges being faced by the City of New Westminster. In response to “higher than anticipated” staff vacancies due to retirements, departures and challenges with recruiting staff, some department are changing up their work plans and delaying work on some projects.
The reports prompted some councillors to comment that council has heard staff’s concerns, is concerned about the issue, and will do what it can to support staff and city projects.
Ken Armstrong, mayoral candidate for the New West Progressives, issued a press release the following day stating that the NWP team has heard city staff “loud and clear” and is committed to addressing staff’s concerns rather than “shelving them” in a report. He said the report to council showed that city staff are impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, short on capacity due to the tight labour market and are overburdened with city council’s strategic priorities.
“First and foremost, our thought is that we acknowledge that the city hall staff are singularly the most valuable resource the city has, and we want to be as supportive as possible with them,” Armstrong told the Record. “A clear meta message from this report is the staff are either burnt out or on the verge of being burnt out. I think everything that can be done needs to be done to support them through that. And that’s a challenge for sure.”
Armstrong noted staff have identified various opportunities and priorities for addressing staffing challenges.
The New West Progressives have consistently called for a “back to basics” approach to running city hall – a message they’re reiterating in response to the staffing challenges currently being faced by the city.
…The New West Progressives have consistently called for a “back to basics” approach to running city hall – a message they’re reiterating in response to the staffing challenges currently being faced by the city.
“We would really encourage our city council to direct the city staff to really focus on the basics, the core responsibilities that city hall has with potholes, with repairing the sidewalks, with maintaining our parks, and these kind of topics, ahead of some of the other sort of special projects,” he said. “Not that the special projects aren’t valuable, but when you have finite and taxed resources you sort of need to consolidate around the core responsibilities.”
Click here to read entire story
