Barrick fired, rehired, then named NPCA CAO
In what was to be its twilight hours, the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority leadership was thrown into disarray worthy of a Shakespearean drama.
As old political alliances crumbled in the wake sweeping electoral change, one top manager fired another, only to be terminated himself by a board of directors who undid his final act in office.
Now the NPCA is set to announce former
Port Colborne regional councillor David
Barrick — fired on Nov 23 and reinstated on
Dec. 6 — will be the beleaguered agency’s next chief administrative officer, replacing the man who fired him, say multiple sources familiar with the inner workings of the NPCA.
Barrick — whose 2013 hiring as the NPCA corporate services director was flagged by the Ontario’s auditor general as an example of unfair hiring practices at the agency — declined to comment when asked questions by The Standard Thursday morning.
“I’m not answering anything,” said Barrick when approached before Thursday morning’s Niagara Regional Police services board meeting in Niagara Falls, where he was attending his final meeting as a member.
The appointment of Barrick as NPCA CAO further heightened tensions among incoming NPCA board members, who say the outgoing board has no authority since they were replaced by regional council on Dec. 6.
“This is ridiculous,” said St. Catharines regional council Brian Heit, one of 12 councillors appointed as interim NPCA board members.
have no ability to hire or fire anyone because they aren’t board members anymore.”
According to multiple sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional reprisals, on Nov. 23, then NPCA chief administrative officer Mark Brickell — hired by the board as CAO in 2017 — gave Barrick his walking papers.
Two days prior, Brickell told the NPCA board of directors he planned to fire Barrick —
— a key member of the governing alliance of regional councillors for four years. On the 23rd, Barrick received a letter of termination.
The reasons Brickell fired Barrick, formerly a regional council for Port Colborne who did not run for reelection, are not yet known. NPCA staff was not informed he had been terminated.
On Nov. 25, according to a letter to Niagara Region by Brickell’s lawyer, the CAO was summoned to attend a board meeting on Nov. 28.
The next day, Brickell attended St. Catharines city councillor, where councillors were considering asking the provincial government to appoint a supervisor to run the NPCA.
Brickell assured councillors a supervisor was not necessary because a new board of directors would soon be installed.
“It’s time for the politics to quiet down and let us (the NPCA) just do the good work we do,” he told city council.
Four days later, Brickell attended the NPCA board meeting, but was not allowed to enter the meeting room. After waiting for 90 minutes, according to his lawyer, Brickell then met privately with outgoing board chair Sandy Annunziata, vice-chair James Kaspersetz and the agency’s human resources director.
Brickell was told he was being placed on administrative leave with pay but without explanation.
“The vice-chair, as we understand it, put the point more bluntly, telling our client that he had to either resign or face a termination of employment for alleged cause,” wrote Stephen Moreau, Brickell’s lawyer. “Our client was provided with a copy of a letter that indicated that an administrative leave was to commence: however, no grounds for the leave were outlined.”
The board met behind closed doors again on Dec. 3 to discuss a personnel matter.
Then came the frantic night of Dec. 6.
Niagara’s newly elected regional council is filled with new faces, many of whom campaigned to change the leadership and direction of the NPCA. Most Niagara board members on the NPCA, including Annunziata, the former regional councillor from Fort Erie, former Grimsby regional councillor Tony Quirk and St. Catharines’ regional councillor Bruce Timms, had all been defeated in the Oct. 22 municipal election.
At 5 p.m. Dec. 6, the new council voted to replace all of Niagara’s representatives on the NPCA board.
Sources familiar with the situation say the outgoing NPCA board was caught off guard by regional council, believing they had more time before being replaced.
Brickell received a termination email from the NPCA 53 minutes after the replacement vote, said his lawyer. No reasons for his firing were given.
At 6:12 p.m. NPCA staff were told by the human resources department that Brickell was no longer employed and staff should not communicate with him.
Six minutes later, the NPCA issued a press release saying that Lisa McManus, the NPCA’s clerk with no senior leadership experience, was the acting CAO.
McManus, who was on bereavement leave at the time of her appointment, reinstated Barrick.
Since then, McManus has been on leave and has not responded to interview requests.
The Standard made multiple interview requests to NPCA spokesman Michael Reles and Kaspersetz, asking who is filling the role of CAO while McManus is away.
Those requests have gone unacknowledged.
Sources familiar with the situation say earlier this week, Barrick completed negotiations to assume the role of acting CAO and that the NPCA was planning a formal announcement on Friday.
Interview requests to Annunziata, Timms, Kaspersetz and former board member and ex-Pelham regional councillor Brian Baty were not acknowledged.
When reached by The Standard, Quirk said he would not comment on an HR matter but said, “I think your facts are wrong. No one was ever fired.”
Sources say the board and Barrick argue his firing was not valid because it wasn’t approved by the board.
However, the board does not approve hirings or firings of staff beyond the CAO, who is the board’s only direct employee.
Brickell declined an interview request through his lawyer.
The 2013 hiring of Barrick was flagged by Ontario’s Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk during an audit of the NPCA, which found systematic problems across the agency.
Among her findings was that the NPCA had engaged in questionable hiring practices and pointed to three cases which showed the need for the agency “to review existing recruitment policies and practices to ensure fairness and transparency,” the report says.
The auditor general’s report said Barrick applied for a senior management position at NPCA in 2013 while serving as a member of the board of directors. He took a leave of absence when he applied, but another candidate got the job.
“(Barrick) was awarded another newly created senior management position,” the report says. “There was no evidence that this job was posted for competition, even though the chair of the NPCA board … had committed to a recruitment process for this position.”
The hiring decision was “made by a selection committee, made up of three NPCA board members, all fellow elected officials.”
“The job offer was not signed or approved by the CAO.”