NPCA chair asks for patience
The head of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority board is asking the public to be patient as new members address matters facing the embattled agency.
An emergency board of directors meeting “to discuss matters relating to an identifiable individual including NPCA staff members” went almost three hours incamera Friday with the board emerging and voting 14-2 to tell their lawyer to proceed as directed. No details were provided.
NPCA chair Dave Bylsma continued to ask for patience. The board has been in place for little more than a month and inherited a monumental mess, he reiterated. He also acknowledged he has a growing list of critics.
“Some people question my motives, but judge me at the end of the day, when the board has finished the whole file,” he said. “At 40 days in, I think it is a little unfair to evaluate me. Even Donald Trump had his first hundred days.
“What we need is something we can build around and use as an anchor, whether it is an untainted chief administrative officer or getting the clerk position sorted out.
“By the time we get to 100 days, I think we will be well on our way. The board is working well. The desire is there to fix this file and make sure the NPCA is responsible, transparent and functional. We want to do our job so well, it is boring and routine, and people can all move on to much more interesting things elsewhere.”
The glare of the public spotlight was unusually harsh last week.
There was a court claim filed by former chief administrative officer Mark Brickell on Thursday, which asks for $2.3 million in damages for wrongful dismissal. In his statement of claim, which has yet to be proven in court, Brickell alleged forged documents, secret meetings and an anonymous Gmail account aimed at destroying his reputation.
There was also a freedom of information request on employment documents for top administrators at the agency which came back with much of the information redacted, including salaries.
What was revealed in the FOI was part of the compensation package for chief administrative officer, David Barrick; director of planning and regulations, Darren MacKenzie; acting senior director of corporate resources, Gregg Furtney; and director of communications and administration, Krystle Caputo, which included $1,000-amonth vehicle allowance for each of them. That was more than former RNiagara Region chief administrative officer Carmen D’Angelo received as compensation for overseeing the municipality’s $1-billion budget, which dwarfs the NPCA’s $10million budget.
Also last week, someone from NPCA called police on one of Barrick’s most persistent critics, the citizen’s group A Better Niagara. A short police investigation found the complaint about threats and intimidation unfounded.
And last week, there was suggestion of censuring board members. Bylsma acknowledged the matter pertained to Niagara Falls Coun. Barb Greenwood and Grimsby Mayor Jeff Jordan, after they called for the removal of Barrick from his position.
“I won’t speak to any of the specific situations, but overall it is incredibly frustrating,” Brad Clark, a Hamilton councillor and veteran politicians who served as a cabinet minister in the governments of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, said at Friday’s meeting.
“If there were good governance principles and good policies in place and we enforced them, we wouldn’t have any of these issues.”
He said current chaos at NPCA rated a “seven or eight out of 10” in terms of political shambles he has seen.
“It’s pretty significant, almost overwhelming.”